Some Little Projects

I've been working on a few little things lately trying to summer things up a bit around here. Starting with the front garden. Last year we ripped out the brick at the front of the house to put a small garden, and it was ok. We had some blooming things (mainly because we planted things that already had flowers on them) but it was relatively sad haha. In the fall my mom and I planted a bunch of bulbs and I didn't really have high hopes for them, I'm a bit of a black thumb. I was always the kid who's stupid little bean never grew. That's why the only house plant we have is a succulent, because not even I can seem to kill them. But my garden out front looks great so far, and it's still early! So I had my mom and sister come out to help me weed, and we put up a little border around the garden, just using the bricks we'd pulled up.

I'm most excited about my rose bush. We transplanted it from the backyard last year, and it was pitiful, we figured it was dead, but it managed one bloom. This year it is looking WAY better, and I'm really hoping we get a few more than one this year.

There's still a few more plants and flowers I need/want to get in there, like some nice annuals, maybe some inpatients, and a few more begonias. There's some grape hyacinth in the backyard that we'll transplant up there as well as soon as we can (they're growing in the middle of the yard)

We also took off the ugly awning over the dining room window. It was one of those projects that take absolutely no time, and makes you wonder why on earth you hadn't done it sooner. And it lets is so much more light into the dining room now. We still want to take down those cedars, they're just too close to the house, but we want to wait until we're able to plant another tree first. Seems only fair since we already ripped out Bertha the giant bush. I also want to do some gardening/landscaping on this side, since it's not going to change at all, and it gets a bit more sun than the other side.


In terms of still summery, but less flowery things, I made some patio plates. I somehow have amassed a significant collection of plates, (I like to throw parties haha) so I decided to take the white plates I had and fun them up a bit. (they came from Dollerama) I started with a white plate and some Sharpie paint pens.

I was wanting to create something like the plates that Amanda from Love & Renovations scored from West Elm a while ago, I just loved them, but they don't sell them anymore, plus they'd probably be out of our price range anyway. So I figured why not try this Sharpie on white ceramics thing that's all over the place, and see if I could recreate a similar look.

Here's what I came up with. The colours are considerably more primary and bright, and a lot of my zig-zags don't line up all that great, but they're not too bad. I was a little disappointed with how they turned out, but Jase thought they looked good, and proclaimed they'd make good patio plates. So patio plates they shall become. The second plate I did looked better, and I devised a plan for the third one, so it should look even better. I've got 12 white plates kickin' around so I'll probably do it to all 12, and I've got an idea for salad plates, so hopefully I can get to those soon too.