Pretty Pics: The Garden at Krause Springs

A couple of weeks ago, we went camping with friends at Krause Springs, which is about 30 miles west of Austin. It's a wonderful spot with a spring-fed swimming hole & a beautiful garden with humongous wind chimes in the towering oaks. These are some of my favorite pics I took. If you want to see more images from the amazing gardens, check out my Krause Springs Flickr set.

Homegrown Bouquets for Giving

Taking fresh flowers when visiting friends & family is one of my favorite things to do. Everyone appreciates the gesture, & flowers are perfect for every occasion. Plus, when you've grown them yourself, they are extra special & impressive! : )

Since March, when our garden began bursting into bloom, I've been gifting flowers left & right. It all started when I took my mom & dad a bouquet of pink heirloom roses & rosemary for their wedding anniversary, arranged in one of the canning jars I was returning to Mom. The simple beauty of that arrangement & the joy I got from giving it to them really inspired me. Since then, I've tried to take a homegrown floral gift whenever I'm invited to someone's home.

The bouquet pictured here is one that I took to my mother-in-law as a housewarming gift when Patrick & I first visited their new home in late April. It contains Verbena, Spanish Lavender, Gaura, Rosemary & California Poppies. Granted, none of these flowers are very hardy, so not usually recommended for cut flowers. They are delicate & droop & wither after a day or so, but I don't mind. Their beauty is fleeting, which to me, just makes them more amazing & worthy of our adoration.

 my ribbon stash; saved from gifts & packaging & project scraps

Tips for creating your own homegrown bouquets:
- Save empty food jars & bottles of interesting shapes to use as vases; you'll want to have them on hand when the need for a host/hostess gift arises! Plus, it's a great way to reduce/reuse/recycle. I used an olive oil bottle for the arrangement pictured here.
- Tie a ribbon around the mouth of your vase to give it that finishing touch - tres shabby chic!
- Put a few inches of water in the vase before adding the flowers.
- Check for bugs on each stalk; you don't want to gift those tiny stow-aways!
- When arranging the flowers, start with the tallest ones in the middle, then add shorter ones around them.
- Keep turning the vase around as you add the flowers, to ensure that it looks pretty from all angles.
- I aim for an interesting mix of flowers that are tall & short, large & small, bold & delicate (in form & color), and upright & billowy. However, a gorgeous arrangement can also be made from only 1 or 2 kinds of flowers. Just trust your own eye - flowers are so pretty that it's hard to go wrong!

Outdoor Oasis: Patio Room Ready for Summer

Ahhhhhh, our outdoor living room is nearly complete and we're lovin' it. Over Memorial Day weekend we added some homey touches like tiki torches, new container plantings & cafe-style string lights.

We went with Martha's Pacifica Collection for Home Depot & couldn't be happier with it. It's an amazing bargain (even more so now than when we bought ours; they've recently lowered the price)! The set is well-made, extremely comfortable to sit in, light & easy to move. Plus, the pieces are slightly smaller than most patio sets, which was important for our small space.

My favorite new container is our old mailbox! Cute, huh?

We love relaxing out here at night, listening to the toads at our little pond croaking (very loudly - kinda embarrassing!). Simple joys!

Check out my Flickr set for all the pics of our outdoor room renovation. What are your simple joys of summer? I'd love to hear about them!

{update 6/14/10: our patio is featured on Apartment Therapy! so exciting! Big thanks to Adrienne for the feature.}

What's Growin' On: Orange Leopard Print Cannas

Ok, so "Leopard Print" is not the official name of these Cannas, but don't they remind you of some crazy spotted animal? They do for me. I love their bright colors! I also love how little garden bugs are always sneaking into my shots - I was totally unaware of that bug at the bottom right when snapping this.

I just love Cannas so much. They have really pretty striated leaves, often much more colorful than these, with purple & reddish hues. The buds are interesting & pretty enough themselves, and then...

they burst forth with a colorful explosion like this! This bunch behind our pond is the first of our Cannas to bloom, but we have several more varieties in another bed, which we affectionately refer to as Cannanarama. Hopefully I will have pics of those flowers to share soon!

Green Crafts to Honor Earth Day's 40th Anniversary

Happy Earth Day, everyone! What are you doing to celebrate? I've rounded up some awesome green crafting ideas from the blogosphere to share with you. I hope you find them inspiring!

First up, my absolute favorite idea: Jessica Wilson's Garden to Go tutorial, which she shared on the Craft blog. She made pretty little gift jars full of seeds from her garden, complete with costume jewelry-topped lids, to give to friends.

What a wonderful way to share plants & spread the gardening love! As an avid gardener myself, I'd love to receive a gift like this. I'm now thinking of which of my plants I can collect seeds from to make my own jars to give...

Another awesome garden-sharing idea is making your own seed tape. Amber of Giver's Log has put together a fab DIY seed tape tutorial (thanks to Rachel for sharing it on Craft!). Amber's how-to explains how to make the seed tape as well as how to turn it into a super-cute gift.

Seed tape helps a lot when planting those extremely tiny little seeds. It allows you to create nice rows with the seeds evenly spaced. And what a great way to share the bounty of your garden & inspire others to grow their own!

Along with tending the earth in the form of gardening, being a good steward of our planet includes the three R's of course! This next idea helps you reduce the amount of plastic you send to the landfill: reusable food storage bags. Bells and Unicorns, a great Etsy shop with an even better name, stocks their shop with a plethora of reusable bags in lots of sizes & pretty fabrics. They have Velcro closures & a water-resistant nylon lining for easy cleanup. How cute is this "Give a Hoot" bag?!

There are also lots of opportunities to reduce & reuse in the ways we clean our homes. One of my favorite tools is my Swiffer, but I don't like the throw-away nature of the cloths. So I was super-excited to find The Quilting Mama, an Etsy shop that offers reusable cloth Swiffer covers (among lots of other great earth-friendly products).

I bought a set of these covers & I looooove them - I highly recommend them! You just throw 'em in your washer & they're good to go for tons more uses. Here's a tip, though: give them a quick rinse under the tap to remove major dust bunnies before throwing in the laundry; they'll come out of your washing machine a lot cleaner.

Etsy has tons of awesome, earth-friendly products, of course; way too many to list here. A search for "eco friendly" comes up with over 51,000 results!

And now for the grand finale, a masterpiece of recycling (or upcycling may be the more accurate term for these): reclaimed plastic horse sculptures by Sayaka Ganz (via Craft again).

Wowee-wow-wow! I can't get over these. So beautiful, and made from discarded spatulas & the like!

I hope these craftacular ideas inspire you to come up with your own ways of honoring Mother Nature today. Please leave any awesome green crafting ideas or links of your own in the comments - thanks for reading!
{re-posted from Get Crafty, Austin!}
 

What's Growin' On: Happy Cacti

Well, lookee here! This little cactus (which was labeled "assorted cacti" or something equally vague, so I don't know what it's called) has been a mystery to us ever since I transplanted it directly into the ground last summer. Patrick thought it was dead, but I've been optimistic because I thought it was getting bigger. I was doubtful of the little plant's health however, because of the way its flesh started turning purple (anybody know if that's normal?). But judging by this big yellow bloom that appeared yesterday, I'd guess it's doing just fine. The two grayish, fuzzy things underneath the bloom are 2 more flower buds! Pretty exciting.

Also exciting is the abundance of new growth on this Prickly Pear. We had a bunch of cactus cuttings that we got from my parents' house down in Houston last year, but most of them froze. This one's a trooper, though!

New Metal Roof on our Patio!

Weekend before last Patrick finished installing a new cover on our back patio. It's made of sheet metal & it looks awesome!

before:

The original cover was made of corrugated plastic that was yellowed & unattractive. Plus, the gutters were no longer doing their job, so the fascia board on the house was rotted out & in need of repair. You can see all the gory details in my outdoor room set on Flickr, if you're so inclined.

after:

We've got it set up with our lovely patio furniture now, too, so we're well on our way to creating our outdoor living room. More pictures coming soon...

What about you? Do you have an outdoor living space, or do you prefer to spend your down time indoors?