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Monday

Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a relaxing weekend. Ours wasn't relaxing, per se, but it was productive.

We started on the green house "lean-to" on Saturday morning and made great progress. We need to sort out the door hardware and then get the roof on. It will require a little touch up paint and then it will be done. I think we are going to have to order the hardware. The doors will be barn door style but the available hardware (in store) is very bulky and decorative and not what we need. I think we have found another solution using sliding closet door hardware.

While we were out there constructing I tidied up the area behind the shed where we keep all the unused pots and various garden related stuff.

Ever watchful. And goodness are our window sills dirty.

On Sunday I had grand plans to work on my lounge chair slipcover but after pre-washing my material I realized I didn't have enough. I'm either going to have to find something else or order additional material. It was kind of pricey for what I intend to use it for so I may try to find something else and save this for some other project.

It has been so hot here. In the upper 90s and low 100s and it doesn't look like it is going to let up anytime soon. Our garden is looking a little parched. I really need to get out and deadhead some roses and divide the irises but if I don't get out there before 10:00am it just gets too hot.

Well I hope you all have a lovely week!

Friday Favorites

Lovely mint walls, murals, Venetion mirrors, etc….. ◊ Untitled ◊ soda ◊ all in a row

I love all the crystal loveliness of Allthatshimmerzz Instagram. I'm very intrigued with crystals and their supposed energy boosting properties. Even thought my natural tendency is to be a skeptic, I can kind of understand how it could be true, so I bought this pretty book on the Power of Crystal Healing to see what the fuss is about (I ordered from the UK but it will be released in the US on Oct. 2nd)
Well here is an intriguing concept for a vacation rental. You can rent a bookstore and run it during your visit!
My favorite lip balm for the last, oh, six or seven years. Baby Lips in Crystal by Maybelline. Odd thing to post, I realize, but I use this almost daily and have repurchased many times so I figured it deserved a mention. It is the perfect pinky, natural lip color that babies have, hence the name and it has an oily, rather than a sticky, consistency. This is important – you don't want something sticky that grabs on to any stray strand of hair. I find glosses or balms with an oily consistency just wear off in a nicer way. In the tube the color looks a bit lurid (which online looks orange on my monitor but in real life is a true pink) but trust me it just adds a nice youthful glow to your lips without being overly pink or glossy looking
I admit to being drawn to movies where the main character overcomes some perceived obstacle. Edie looks like a good watch.

Happy Friday my friends!

We have a low key weekend planned. One of those no plan kind of weekends. We are going to start construction on the greenhouse which I fear I have totally oversold when in actuality it will be more or a green lean-to than greenhouse. Nevertheless – it will serve its intended purpose and we'll put our own cute stamp on it.

Can you believe it is already past mid-July? I feel like Summer is just slipping by us. Our garden is looking a little parched at the moment. There is lots of deadheading and trimming that needs to happen but it has been so darn hot that it just isn't fun to be out there. I'm hoping to get up early on Saturday and Sunday and get some of the garden chores done.

Have a lovely weekend!

Simple Sign

Rick and I are going to assemble our little greenhouse lean-to this weekend. We have all the components and have set aside this weekend to get it all together. But you know me, I need to start decorating before there is a place to put decor (ahem – dollhouse for example….).

Our vision for the greenhouse it to have a small structure where we can over winter delicate plants and a place where plants that are doing poorly, but still have potential, can go to recuperate.

Right now we just stick plants behind the shed and have started referring to that area as the infirmary. That is what spawned the whole notion of having a greenhouse in the first place.

So of course it needs a sign. I set out by finding a piece of scrap wood in Rick's inventory. What I ended up using is a pre-primered scrap of one by four left over from the bathroom remodel (toe kick, maybe?). I printed out the word "infirmary" in a font and size I thought would work to be used as a trial run. The font I used is Hand Shop Typography. It has a hand lettered quality I really like.

Once I was satisfied with the size I then printed out the letters for the sign in reverse, on wax paper, using my inkjet printer and transferred the design to the wood. Let me explain how this is done.

In MS Word create a blank document
Insert a text box
Enter your text in the font and size you like
Right click on the text box and select Format
Under text options select 3-D Rotation
In the X Rotation box change it to 180 degrees

Boom! It is in reverse!

Prepare your wax paper by cutting it to 8 1/2 x 11 and attaching to a regular sheet of printer paper so it will feed into the printer easily. I just used two sided tape. I've used spray adhesive in the past but it is just overkill. Then print, making sure that the image (or wording) is printed on the wax paper side.

Be careful when handling the printed wax paper because the ink will be wet. My image actually spanned two lines so I cut it out and then carefully lined it up on my scrap piece of wood and then firmly pressed it down, transferring the ink to the wood. It smudged a little in the printer but that didn't worry me too much. I used a q-tip to clean up any ink on the wax paper that was outside the lines and didn't worry if there were any gaps in the ink. My intention is to use the impression from the ink as a guide for painting the lettering.

I had already created the sign when I decided I should blog this so here is an example of what the transfer looks like on a cardboard box.

See? It gives you a nice clean image to follow when you are hand painting. I used regular old acrylic paint in a dark, forest green for the lettering. Some of my lines are a little wobbly but that's okay – I really wanted a hand lettered look to the sign.

It will eventually go above the doors of the green house which you know I will share with you once we get it all built. Now my begonias will survive the winters here.

Road trip

Rick and I have this thing we like to do. Basically just hit the road and drive about two hours and then have lunch and explore. Since our anniversary (35 years!!) landed on a Monday we decided that the following Saturday would be a great day to take just such a drive.

We generally head south (Carmel) or north (Petaluma/Napa area). This Saturday we headed north towards Sebastapol because I wanted to check out The Barlow.

My review is mixed.

It definitely has potential. Their aesthetic, to quote them, is "The Barlow is a 12-acre Bay Area outdoor market district in Sebastopol, California featuring local food, wine, beer, spirits and crafts made onsite by Sonoma County artisans. Stroll our industrial-chic, dog-friendly campus and savor the organic edible landscaping."

It has a very relaxed, wealthy, boho kind of vibe and most of the shops have the same spare, industrial yet organic kind of feel. While I was totally expecting to find a vast array of food options out of their varied restaurants what I actually found was a lot of Mexican inspired cuisine (four million versions of tacos) and a lot of sweet/dessert type options (juice places, ice cream, bakeries).

(image via California Sister)

There were a couple of stand out shops – my favorite being California Sister. What a lovely shop it is. It is a floral/house plant/lots of lovely plant related things type of shop.

I bought a pair of garden clippers since I accidentally threw out my beloved Japanese pair (I was trimming a bouquet of supermarket flowers and wrapped it up with the florist wrapping and cut off leaves and just tossed it). The young woman at the counter said it was a favorite of everyone there and cautioned me to only use it on tender stems, up to roses. No heavy duty pruning allowed. Since I just want it for cut flowers I think I am good.

The other shop I enjoyed was Elsie Green. I follow them on Instagram and was thrilled to find out they are practically local. The shop vibe is mostly vintage, French offerings with touches of carefully curated new things. I am semi kicking myself for not picking up a set of four vintage etched wine glasses. Maybe if they had six or eight of them.

Look at that green velvet chair.

(image via Elsie Green Instagram)

Since we couldn't find lunch at the Barlow that suited both our dietary requirements we headed a few blocks away and had lunch at The Gypsy Cafe. Always a good choice even if the acoustics are a bit on the loud side. They have a great selection of entree salads and sandwiches on their menu and the atmosphere is relaxed.

We stopped at a few antique places on the way home and had absolutely fabulous antiquing mojo. We have been on the lookout for some vintage porch posts to mount birdhouses on (remember these?) and we have been looking for narrow windows to complete our green house project. And we found both!! For super reasonable. We have found plenty of porch posts over the past couple of years but lordy were the price tags eye-watering high. And today we found two fabulous ones for $80. For both of them!! And four windows for $125. We have all the components for our plant infirmary (i.e. greenhouse).

I can't wait to share both projects with you!

Of course I had to stop in at my very favorite antique store, Summer Cottage Antiques. I picked up a milk glass bud vase in an interesting size (shorter than what you usually find) and a sweet little creamer which will also be used for flowers. All in all just a really lovely day.

Friday Favorites

enamored ◊ Vintage Supplies ◊ Soft Pink Peonies ◊ Holy Crap!!!!

We are gathering bits and pieces to create our own, much more modest, greenhouse. r.house's Instagram is giving me greenhouse envy
How pretty, and realistic (!) are these paper daffodils. Side note – my most popular post (thanks to Pinterest) is my crepe paper flower tutorial
I think a collection of etched brass vases would be a lovely addition to my already over full vase cupboard. How sweet are they though? A pretty trio. Lovely fluted detail. Sweet little bud vase. Might as well throw in a brass leaf dish while you are at it
Books, seaside English village and Bill Nighy – what more could you ask for? The Bookshop

Yesterday I woke up a few minutes before my 6:15am alarm went off and thought "Oh yay! Friday! Oh and today's payday too!" I did a quick look on my phone to check my bank balance and was very puzzled that my paycheck hadn't been auto-deposited. I pondered that for a minute or two until the sad realization came to me that it was actually still Thursday. Talk about a let down! But today IS Friday so the premature celebrations can recommence!

We are planning a Saturday drive for tomorrow. We haven't done that in a while (at least alone) and I think we are going to head to Sebastapol because I want to check out The Barlow and Elsie Green's new shop in particular. I'm sure we'll find a lovely place to have lunch. It's a late anniversary celebration. This past Monday we had our 35th (!!) wedding anniversary. We chose well.

I hope you all have a splendid weekend ahead!!

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