What's Blooming on Saturday?

Hi, here is what I found today blooming in the garden. I hope you have lots of blooms wherever you are! Have a great weekend!



Big Birthday Bash!

It was my grandson's, Andrew's fourteenth birthday Sunday and we went to Jaxson's in Davie, Florida
for lunch and HUGE ice cream treats. Here is Andrew with a huge strawberry waffle with strawberry
sauce, vanilla ice cream and whipping cream. It was awesome! Happy Birthday, Andrew!

I have been extremely busy the last week or so clearing out my studio, getting rid of all kinds of things I
no longer need or want! The worst culprit is stacks of magazines. Yes, I will admit it. I am a magazine hoarder! It is awful how many magazines I have kept over the past 10 years. I started out looking through them one by one. That lasted about a day with only a few in the KEEP pile and a lot in bags to donate. The next day, I became less selective and just pitched all of them either in a throw away pile of a donate pile. Finally they are
all gone and I have a whole empty book shelf! It looks great, I feel great and I will never, never save magazines again!. If I want to keep a page or two just until I can do the project, then I fixed a notebook for that. But once the project is either done or too much time has gone by, I will get rid of that page. How liberating it is to have more space and less "STUFF".That is one of the beauties of the internet! Magazines are on the net, too, so you
can find those projects you want to do there and not have to hoard the magazine. However, still, I am a person who likes to hold the paper magazine in my hands, carrying it around with me wherever I go. Which do you like best? online magazines or in hand magazines?

Oh My! Alligator in the Yard!!!

Hi everyone,
We had a little excitement yesterday just before dusk! I got a frantic call from Margaret saying "Don't come outside! There is an alligator under our car!!"
I had just come in the house from watering plants, so it was just next door to me with no fence in between!

John and Margaret called the fish and game office for an officer to come and get it and they were keeping an eye on it from their window and front door. He was lying under the front of the car near a tire.

He looked to be about 3 feet long, just a little fellow.














The Officer taped his mouth shut with a piece of black tape and put a gaff around his neck. I took him a few minutes to get the gaff around as the gator tried to get away and alligators are very fast. He got away a few times under bushes and under another vehicle. Everyone was holding his/her breath!

You can see he wasn't very big. The officer said he was about 5 years of age. That must mean that the one we had a few years ago in the back yard was about 90, as it was 7 or 8 feet long!

Everyone had to take a turn at holding it. They even removed the gaff. Not me, though. There was no way I was going to hold it. His little beady eyes were looking right at us.

Notice all the proud hunters (after the gator was caught by the officer, of course).

Well, we said our goodbyes. The officer said he would release it in the lake, which is just across the road from our place, so I hope it stays where it belongs!

A fun project.....a button lampshade

Hello everyone,
I had a box of old and new buttons and wondered how to use them in some creative way. So I bought a small lamp at a thrift store and painted the dingy shade with white gesso. Then I glued buttons all over the shade! It was fun and I tried to use a lot of pink buttons and different sized ones .







I even added a few pearls for a little more dimension.











Here it is on the lamp!

Here it is turned on. It makes a nice glow and is really pretty turned on.

Save your buttons, now!

Buying Rocks!

Hello everyone,
Do you remember that I painted some little bunnies on rocks for Easter? Well, I also wanted to paint other animals and I needed different shapes of rocks. But alas! There are no rocks here in South Florida. I remember when I first moved here from Kentucky, I wanted to make a nice terrarium and put rocks in it, so I went out in the garden to find rocks and could not find even one!! I quickly found out that all we have here is what is called Shell Rock, which is just deposits of shells, thousands of years old!















I decided to go to a beautiful nursery that is at FT. Drum, Florida, quite a drive from my house, but they have literally tons of different rocks from all over the U.S. and Mexico. Here are some that I bought. I bought about 60 lbs. of rocks.

My friend, Beth, went with me and she also bought a bunch of pretty rocks. We wanted to get some stepping stones to paint on, too, but I really thought we should wait until we get these done!

It was tempting to buy a few of each but we rose above the temptation and settled for the river rocks.

Hunting Easter Eggs and Flying Kites

Hi Everyone,
I hope you had a lovely Easter with much happiness! My grandchildren were here after church. After lunch, we had a massive Easter Egg hunt with about 150 plastic eggs filled with coins. There were special eggs with some folding money, too, so even though the boys are beginning to grow up, they still love to find those Easter eggs!
Austin holds some eggs.













They run around trying to see who could find the most!

Here is Andrew on the run to find all he can!

A beautiful day, too, for kite flying and we have plently of room. Can you spot the kite in the sky?

Hope you had a great day! Our blessings are many.

A Garden Walk....Happy Easter!

Hi Everyone,
It is an absolutely glorious day today, rather hot here....in the high 80's, but we have the promise of a beautiful Easter weekend. Tomorrow is supposed to be 79 and sunny with a cool night and then Easter Sunday about 76 degrees with nice breezes. My grandchildren will love the kites I bought them. We have a large open field where they love to fly kites!
I wanted you to see this cute little teacup on a short pole in my flower garden. It is a bird feeder made by the owner of Rustic Star Antiques, where I have my antique booth.






So cute!












The desert rose is blooming. It loves our dry, warm weather!

The blooms speak for themselves! I love this time of year, don't you. Wishing all of you a beautiful Easter with many blessings.

Don't forget to celebrate the true meaning of Easter...Christ's Resurrection!

"Plant Cuttings in Little Glass Bottles"

Hi everyone,
I am trying to start some plants from cuttings without the aid of Root Tone; rather, just by sticking a cutting in water in a tiny little bottle. A couple of them are beginning to look like they are developing roots.
At any rate, they look absolutely adorable on the kitchen window sill!












Lined up like little soldiers, they make a decorative statement and have got me looking everywhere for more different bottles! Everything comes in plastic these days so it isn't that
easy to find tiny glass bottles.



















So this is my new and latest "collectible" ....tiny glass bottles. I am thinking old perfume bottles, tiny cream bottles, ink bottles, medicine bottles. They will be equally cute with a single flower bloom and line a bunch up on the dining table!!

"Trompe l 'oeil painted trunk and other antiques"

Hi everyone,

I am having so much fun at the Rustic Star Antique Store! I have been painting on some of the interesting finds we have. Below is an old hand-made trunk that was painted green by Melinda, one of the shop owners. Then I did a trompe l'oeil design of a key and an air mail letter on it.
It really turned out pretty.













Here is a close up of the letter.

Besides antiques, the shop has lots of decorator pieces and small items for the cottage or shabby chic look. The little table below is really cute done up in white.

This painted chest with flowers and bird houses would be so cute in a little girl's bedroom. I didn't paint this one, but I really like it.

A "Chocolate "bunny resides in a Nantucket basket.