Painting the glider

Well, It's been black, blue and green over the years but I'm opting for a bright, clean, satin white finish this time. it will make it show up better in tea and garden photos.

I may eventually add a bit of color by painting the flowers on it but for now I'm just enjoying the glider as it is now.

Patio Garden in Progress

It's a bit hard to imagine now but eventually the whole area from the house and this end of the driveway will become one large patio and container garden. Those few pots of hosta on the lower left of the photo are to mark the area and keep me inspired to finish the job.

There wasn't much to work with this year so that big brown pot is simply filled with some carrot seed, a box of wildflower seed from the dollar store and one old potato from my kitchen. So far it looks like at least some of it is off to a good start.

This is my favorite spot to sit and relax in the middle of my projects out here. The nice thing is that the pretty lace tablecloth is just plastic and can be left outside until the sun breaks it down. Last year just 2 of them got me through the whole summer. Inexpensive, Elegant and fun makes them one of my favorite things for summer entertaining.

3 color,2 brushstoke small outdoor table

I came up with a design for this table that incorporates all the colors of my other lawn furniture to "tie it all together".

This couldn't be easier. It only takes 3 colors and 2 different brush strokes.(dots and commas)

Mysterious Islands, Multi Colored Carrots and a Fairy Garden

As you may have noticed by the gap between posts I've been spending most of my time designing products with my drawings and paintings on them for Zazzle and Cafe Press.

The weather remained wet and cool so there wasn't much that I wanted to do outdoors, still I wanted to "play in the dirt" so I consoled myself by adding some Alyssum plants with purple flowers to the fairy garden and saving some money because I got 6 plants for 1.88. (You just can't go wrong with about 30 cents per plant) I'm hoping that by cutting them back often I'll be able to keep them from outgrowing the garden.

Yes, I picked up the flowers while over at the garden center to pick up the soil mixes that I wanted to plant my favorite carrots in. I have the heirloom seed that grows white yellow or orange and I mixed in a packet of atomic reds just to make the assortment a bit more interesting. I used the large containers by the studio that I had such good luck with last year so that will make thinning and picking the carrots easier.

I also painted some daisies on various items in the fairy garden to brighten things up. In between all of this we made a double feature of Mysterious Island movies starting with the 1961 version, breaking for lunch and the garden center and following with the Hallmark Version which has Patrick Stewart playing Captain Nemo. As you can imagine there are an interesting array of differences between the two and made it a pleasant way to spend the day.