Back Yard Garden Redo

I began a back yard garden space redo in June. The spot had originally been a lawn, but had become a weed patch over time.

This photo taken from the NW corner of the spot shows how it looked before I did anything to it.

And this is how it looked a month later in July. The grass has been hand dug and I now have a bare palette.

This is how it looks today. You can see the stepping stone path that leads through it and several of the plantings that have been made.

This shot is from the SW corner in June when I began the project. Notice the orange day lillies between the two arborvite. They will be dug and moved in the next couple months.

Next, the clean palette in July.

And how it looks today. There are 3 different colors of day lillies, a crocosmia, russian sage, purple lupine, mondo grass, nepeta (Walker's Low), oriental lilies, a orange/yellow yarrow, and a form of iris that I can't name, and several kinds of ground covers and sedums. The upended pots mark places for a couple more large plants that will be moved when the weather cools more.

And two more shots from the NE corner showing the pathway, which has now been set and will have creeping thyme and other ground covers between the stones.

In this one you can see my little 4 X 4 raised vege garden and two of the three compost bins.

So that's the full tour. There is lots more to be planted this fall - hope to get some spring bulbs in this fall and then lots of annuals to fill in next year.

Lots of White Space

I've always admired layouts with only one or two small photos and a couple embellishments and lots of white space. I've been very intimated by them as well. I finally decided that I needed to face my fear of failure and just do it. This is the result. This layout took me longer to put together than much more complex ones. I guess that's because the minimalist design shows all the flaws instantly.

I like how this turned out. I like how the quilt I made for Eliana is really center stage. The background paper by Basic Grey has just enough texture to keep it from looking too stark.

Even tho I now know I can do this, I don't forsee doing a lot of them in the future.

Five Little Words

Tired tonight. so will just leave you with five little words.

peace - my word for 2010

create - i try to be creative in some way every day

read - even if it is only a quote, a short poem or an article in a magazine or newspaper

eat - something healthy and green every day

exercise - the eliptical, a short walk, aerobics to a DVD at least 5 times a week, just move

Beautiful Quilts

Sorry for the blurry photo but I was taking photos of the quilts as others were holding them up.

Today at our quilt guild meeting, we had the pleasure of having Karen Hankins present a slide show and trunk show of some of her gorgeous quilts. The photo is of a collage of places around southern Oregon where both she and I live. Every single little piece of fabric is machine pieced into the quilt. She has shown her quilts at the Houston International Show and a Paduka (know I didn't spell that right), Kentucky show. She encouraged us to forget perfection and to continue to try new things as challenge ourselves. So inspiring.

Makes me want to do some more quilting.

LOAD

Lain Ehmann of Write.Click.Scrapbook is running a class called, Layout A Day. She posts a prompt each day and we take it from there. The idea is to get photos scrapped and use up our stash. I could certainly use all the motivation I can get to scrap on a regular basis. So.....
today's challenge was to document a beginning. It's a perfect topic as I just began my yearly winter/spring garden clean-up. The frost in November left my garden looking worse than usual and it was so discouraging to look out at all the dead and scraggly plants. Yesterday was a warm - 53 degree - day with a bit of weak sunshine. The perfect time to start some of the restoration. After two hours I had filled my garbage can and the garden cart with debris. The stuff in the garden cart was destined for the compost pile and the garbage can mess will be hauled away tomorrow morning. I had hoped for more obvious results, but even a little bit helps. I have many more hours ahead before all is ready for the summer.
I know I did something tho, by the way my muscles were complaining this morning! :)
For the layout: patterned paper: Basic Grey; ghost clock: Heidi Swapp: brad: brad topper by Imaginisce; alphabet: American Craft; unknown journaling block.

A scrap-a-thon

This week I've had the chance to get together two times with friends to scrapbook. I managed to finish 12 layouts and start on a couple more. Every time I get to be creative, it seems I have a favorite. This is my favorite for the week. The photo was taken on Thanksgiving weekend and is so good of all three of them. The 'I love you' in the lower right corner of the photo was an add-on when I had it developed at Scrapbook Pictures. I love how the photos come out when I send them off to SP for developing.

The sketch for the layout came from Pencillines. So many of my layouts are from sketches on that website.

It feels so good to be able to get back to playing with paper and photos and all the goodies I've been hoarding. I'll save the other layouts for another post.

Eleven Years Ago

Eleven years ago today I made one of the top ten best decisions of my life. I married Willie R. McCarley. We had dated for two and a half years. Neither of us wanted to marry again at the time that we met....reluctantly. We had each had long, unhappy previous marriages. And he was 12 years older than I....it didn't bother me, but gave him pause when considering marriage.

The day was clear and cool - a very rare day for Oregon in January. Our immediate family members were gathered for the occasion. We had the ceremony in front of a beautiful rock fireplace in a room at one of the local wineries. Our pastor married us; Willie's son was his best man and my daughter was my maid of honor. The ceremony was simple. Afterwards, we all sat down to a lovely lunch prepared by the owner of the vineyard. We had such fun. There was much laughter and telling of stories.

Later we left for a couple days at the Oregon Coast. When we arrived the sky was clear as crystal and there was a stunning sunset. The whole weekend there was warm with almost no wind - another rarity for that time of year.

I would love to be able to celebrate 11 years of marriage today, but we had only slightly less than 4 years together. I would do it over again in a nano second even knowing that we wouldn't have much time together. Those were some of the happiest years of my life. Thanks for the wonderful memories, Willie.