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Garden Trellis

The first day of Spring was spectacularly anticlimactic as it was ushered in with drizzly rain and very grey skies. Despite that the garden is kicking into gear. You can see we made a pilgrimage to our favorite local nursery and picked up a few colorful plants to replenish some of the pots. And just as soon as the weather cooperates I'll get them planted.

Weekend before last Rick made a garden obelisk/trellis (I never know exactly what to call it). It is a replica of one he built at our last house that we had to leave behind as it was supporting a very vigorous climbing rose.

It's hard to get a good photo of the color. It's a perfectly neutral green (Benjamin Moore Mistletoe) but it's reading a little cool in the picture.

The plant it is supporting is a Arabian Jasmine. It has been in a pot for a couple of years and the soil just wasn't nutrient rich enough for it, no matter how much fertilizer and iron we gave it. Instead of having dark, glossy green leaves it has become very yellow. We are hoping that once it gets settled in the ground it will green up. The scent of the flowers is just heady and so lovely to sit next to on Summer evenings.

Rick doesn't use a template or plans for the trellis. He used 2 x 2's for the four legs and the horizontal pieces and 1 x 2's for the middle vertical pieces. He laid two of the legs on the ground and adjusted them to the spread we wanted then laid the horizontal pieces on top of them and marked the angle and length he needed to cut. No math trickery or geometry needed. It's very handy having a clever husband.

He added a post cap and glass door knob to finish it off. My job was to paint and you can see I first went with white but once we had it outside up against the dark fence it just looked too contrasty. Once the jasmine (hopefully) greens up I think it will blend really nicely with all the plants. I was trying to replicate Disneyland's "go away" green (Google it. It's a thing).

Next on the list is to get on top of the weeds. I am happy about the rain and warmer temperatures but goodness has it put the weeds in overdrive.

Also I think my ornamental cabbages may have bolted. Haha!

Découpage Easter Eggs

This was such an easy, pretty Easter craft project I don't know why I didn't do it sooner.

Truth be told I did run into a little trouble on the onset. I tried the whole raw egg blowing thing and after cracking two eggs into oblivion I knew this wasn't the direction I should go in. So off to my local Michael's I went.

I was hoping to find plain white eggs for decorating or maybe some a pleasing robin's egg blue that I could utilize.

I didn't exactly find those but I found a package of plastic eggs that were the right size and they didn't come apart in two pieces like most Easter eggs. In fact they had the advantage of having a hook and fishing line loop that helped with the second stage of the egg découpage experiment – the painting.

Since the eggs weren't the right color (orange and pink weren't exactly the look I was going for…) I brought out my all purpose white chalk paint and just slapped some on. I needed two coats of the white for the découpage and one coat of white and one coat of DecoArt Sea Glass acrylic paint for the robin's eggs. I admit my robin's eggs speckling could use some work but what I came up with works for me.

I had to rig up a drying rack but the fishing line sure came in handy.

I have seen various tutorials and blog posts on découpaging Easter eggs and so I figured I could just jump right into it. I had some lovely napkins from Ikea (bought ages ago) and some really sweet tissue paper from Target that I've been hoarding. What I learned early on is that the smaller the bits of paper you have to découpage the better. I had lofty ideas of swaths of roses and floral emblems but the smaller pieces smoothed out easier.

I had grand ideas that I would have medallions on two sides of the eggs but it turned out they were too big and just creased and too much smoothing out made them tear. So teeny bits of paper to découpage. Remember that. Half to three quarter of an inch at most.

I made my découpage medium. Three parts Elmer's white glue to one part water. That is it. Waaaaay cheaper than buying the popular brand of découpage glue.

Through trial and error I found they best method was to paint the découpage mixture on the egg then place the bit of tissue or napkin and then smooth out with your finger which has been moistened with some the découpage mixture. Just keep smoothing out those wrinkles.

This turned out to be an inexpensive and quick project. And very sweet if I do say so myself.

Whether you use real eggs or faux – the result is the same. The advantage of using faux eggs is that you can keep them from year to year. Happy Easter everyone!

Friday Favorites

Untitled ◊ Trying to get my ducks in a row ◊ Untitled ◊ My kitty stamp

I have a habit of only buying used home decor books but I may make an exception for Carolyn Westbrook's Vintage French Style: Homes and gardens inspired by a love of France. The preview pictures are just so pretty
Sweet boho hanging hearts (Shoot! I wish I had seen these before Valentine's day)
Doesn't this Tennessee cottage looks like a lovely place to stay? To move into?
New to me Instagram feeds: Lisa Dawson (eclectic decor), Granny Planties (house plants, clean still-life like photos, fabulous Instagram name), Pancake Hill (shabby, beachy decor), Cottage Flea by the Sea (vintage flea market decor, a "more is more" decorating approach) and last, but certainly not least, Neo Thissen (moody, layered decor). A little something for everyone. If you have any feeds you think I would like please leave me a comment

Happy Friday everyone! We have had a lovely week of rain which is sorely needed around these parts. I should take some garden pictures when it clears up. The rhododendrons and azaleas are going nuts at the moment. We are so lucky to have year round color. Rick built an obelisk trellis for me (like I linked in last week's favorites) so I definitely to need share pictures of that. I painted it white but before we install it I'm tempted to paint it a greyish green. I think the white just stands out too much against the almost black fence.

If the rain lets up this weekend we need to get out there and get the weeds under control. With the rain and warmer temperatures they are threatening to take over. I suppose I should probably take a stab at our taxes at some point. It's one of those tasks I dread but then doesn't turn out to be quite as miserable as I think it is going to be.

I hope you have a splendid, relaxing weekend!

The girls

Rosie likes to hop in my drawer the second I open it. She has been in there for over four hours now and I don't think she has plans of budging any time soon. Of course she has chosen my stack of black pants to lie on.

They pick different parts of the house to hang out (i.e. sleep) during the day. Lately it has been mostly the living room. Grace on the couch and Rosie on the love seat. I'm hoping that today is just a temporary switch.

Grace is looking at me like she is thinking "What are we going to do with this girl?" Or she is just waiting for her turn.

Did you know that strictly indoor cats, like Rosie and Grace, can get fleas? Yeah – neither did we. About two months ago we noticed them both scratching. I thought it was just dry, itchy skin from running the heat. But then Rick found a flea on one of them. Where there is one there is many as we would soon find out. The very knowledgeable girl at our pet supply store said that it isn't uncommon for indoor cats to get fleas. They hitch a ride on humans (usually your shoes) and then take up residence. What a unfortunate shock. We used a topical flea treatment on them and were horrified by how many fleas we got off of them. Poor girls. Poor skeeved out me.

We have it under control now. Otherwise you better believe Rosie would not be napping in my dresser drawer.

Such pretty girls.

Low Carb Biscuits

I am now entering my tenth month of eating low carb (or ketogenic) and I have, for the most part, found it very easy to follow. As always though, my love for baked goods has not abated. I still eat my mug muffin almost every morning and I swear it alone has kept me on track. If it weren't for that start to my day I don't know if I could maintain this way of eating.

Last week I made Ina's Chicken and Biscuits for Sunday dinner and I wanted a low carb version of the biscuits for my gluten intolerant niece and for myself. I scoured the interwebs and found many variations of a basic almond flour biscuit and after tweaking it a bit this is my version.

They have a very fluffy, muffin/biscuit texture. I dialed down the butter in my version because my first batch was a little too oily for my taste.

These will spread as they bake so you need to bake them in a muffin tin (or, if you are blogging, in cute baking cups from the Japanese dollar store). This recipes makes nine biscuits and I (and MyFitnessPal) calculate them to be 196 calories, 5 grams carbs, 2 grams fiber per biscuit. But as always your mileage may vary so be sure to calculate yourself.

Side note: Ina's recipe has you bake the biscuits on top of the chicken stew. Obviously that wouldn't work in this case so I pre-baked the biscuits and added them for the last few minutes of cooking the stew. Normally I do that anyway. I find the biscuit bottoms are too soggy otherwise. Second side note: I made a small batch of the stew using corn starch instead of flour for thickening. Corn starch isn't generally used in a keto diet but the carb count was low enough that I didn't go over my daily goal. I could have used coconut flour but yuck.

On to the biscuit recipe!

1 1/2 cups almond flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup sour cream
3 Tbsp. melted butter
1/3 cup shredded cheese (I prefer mozzarella)

Preheat oven to 400° F. In a medium mixing bowl whisk together your dry ingredients. In a separate small mixing bowl mix your eggs and sour cream until smooth. Add melted butter and mix until smooth. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until combined. It doesn't take much for it to all come together nicely. Mix in your shredded cheese. Spoon into muffin tin or baking cups. Bake 11-14 minutes. With my oven I found I had to go the full 14 minutes.

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