Featured on Better Homes and Garden's blog

I was so excited to see that Better Homes and Garden's blog Style Spotters featured one of my vintage finds. Such a cute nursery that features great color, and pattern... and my fantastic brass tiger.

Check out the post! See something you love, click here to see the full article.

UPDATE: lawn mower love

I am updating my original post from April 2012, because after 2 season of grass cutting, I still love this lawn mower! Though it is lightweight, think easy to maneuver, it still cuts all the grass evenly. Now, when I say "grass" I am really referring to a mixture of short green vegetation that grown in the space I call "yard". It is actually many varieties of grass and weeds and a bit of small hedge- resulting from an ill placed bird feeder. It will never be in a "turf-builder" commercial... unless it is the before shot.

The charge cord is really long, so the mower does not need to be near the power outlet, which are few and far between in a garage. I do not use the mulch bag and let everything compost, which is better for my area since the soil layer is thin. My yard, and most in my area, include natural rock outcroppings.

Let's talk performance, I use it on my back yard only and I have a pie-piece shaped yard that is nearly and acre, the bulk of the yard is the front. And, the back has garden areas, so not a giant space to cut, but oddly shaped and pieced out. Even with some back tracking, I can easily cut the yard on one change. I have even cut it once on a charge and half again a couple of weeks later on the same charge. If you are cutting thick or tall grass, it runs the battery down quicker. However, I found the solution after reading "the Grumpy Gardener" from Southern Living Magazine say on Facebook to cut your grass high to kill off weeds and encourage your grass without chemicals. I easily changed the wheel height, with one lever, and started cutting higher. Solved the problem of trying to cut the thick part of the yard, which was a foil for this mower... to be fair that part is a foil for every mower I have used. Still waiting on more grass and less weeds... But I trust you Steve (Grumpy Gardener), and I'll eventually get there.

So, two lawn season and still going strong. No gas, no lawn mower repair shop, no cord, no problems! No reason not to buy now and get an end of the season deal!

Post from April 2012:
I am in love... with my lawn mower! It's a new lawn season and I have a new mower. This year it is a cordless Black and Decker battery powered mower. It is so quiet, powerful, and can take on tall grass, um yeah, I put off cutting grass a while until I got the mower, and best of all no gas. It sounds like a big fan and I guess technically it is a big fan with very sharp blades.
Grass cutting always makes me think of summer at my grandmothers. She was a scheduled woman certain days were grocery days, then there was grass cutting days. The day before glass cutting days I was allowed to cut tracks into the grass with trimmers to play cars, runway, or whatever needs paths. Of course they were gone by the end of the next day. So, on grass cutting day, grandmother would put on capri length pants and her grasshopper shoes to head out to the lawn. To this day my sister and I refer to a certain length of pants-capris coming to mid-calf- as grass cutting length. Grass cutting length is not flattering, though functional, and the equivalent of shorts if you were born in the nineteen-teens!
Join me in the green revolution and try an electric lawn mower!

Easy flower arranging- from the grocery store

Pre-made "bouquets" are an easy and inexpensive way to get an assortment of flowers. Combining them with simple greenery from your yard and finding a little help in the produce section, can take pre-made to...  if not professional, at least pro-sumer. (pro-sumer is my new favorite word. I found it when I bought a new camera and I've been waiting to use it in a sentence!)

For a photo shoot this week with Marianne Strong Interiors, I picked up two "bouquets", a bag of peppers, some sunflowers, and spray roses from the grocery store and used the some yard shrubbery for four mix-and match-arrangements.

The 5 keys to flower arranging for me...

1. don't be afraid to cut the stems and don't be afraid to re-cut.
2. pick the height and the width and add two flowers to mark the size
3. group small flowers in three's to make a bigger impact.
4. use a cascading flower or greenery to cover the rim of the vase.
5. vary the greenery... and save money by picking it from the yard!

As seem in my drawing below for building a planter, the same principles work for flowers. The tall piece, the side piece for width and a cascader to cover the vase edges.

Here are my results~


The peppers were added to an all white and green arrangement to change it up a bit and make it more "kitchen-y".

White and green bouquet from the grocer was divided into two arrangements this one is more green and features a pink tinged ornamental cabbage. The other is a simple green and white- both for nursery flowers.

This is the largest arrangement. It incorporates the greenery from the bouquets, spray roses, sunflowers and the mini peppers. The peppers are on bamboo skewers. The flowers are held upright with a crisscross on tape over the vase before the flowers were added.

popular on Pinterest this week

I never know what I am going to pin on Pinterest that will be a repin blow-up. This week it is an image of a group of Moroccan tea glasses on a mirrored tray. They are pretty colors with light gold filigree detailing on the glasses. Moroccan tea is served hot and is either green tea or a mint and is served all day. These pretty glasses would be great showing off the desired foam that forms on the top of the tea from the distinct pouring method, as well as a sweet boutique or a single stem of hydrangea.


I love using my Moroccan tea glasses for flowers! But they are not just for tea and flowers, these are great with tea lights in them! They would be a great addition to wedding decor for the bridal couple that wants to add some ethnic patterns and colors to the reception.

pinterest and the kitchen

I am newly discovering pinterest. As a visual person, I find it a great way to create cohesive imagery and make new observations. For me it has the elements of Dumbledore's pensive, I can add images that I find anywhere and look at the all together to find the pattern, trend or commonality.

Additionally, I am interested in statistical nature of the medium. What to know if other people like something, just pin and wait to see how much it gets re-pinned! To the left is an image from countryliving.com that I pinned for a work project. We were looking at a variety of white kitchens with dark countertops. This image, out of 12 images on the board received twice as many pins as most others. Not that it is not a nice kitchen, but what about this image is so pin-able? The flooring, the green door, the view outside, the homy-ness of the dark wood, maybe the chandalier? I'm still deciding... your thoughts?