a flower bed.

well, this weekend started as a little "spruce up the front yard's flower bed" project, but soon enough turned into a complete front yard overhaul. Blake tackled the mowing, while my mom and I picked up lemon zest, annuals, and plumbago from Home Depot. I had to take some before shots. This yard was wild.

We, with hoe in hand, drew out where our flower beds would eventually lay. It began as a half circle on the left and a half circle to the right.

Then, the mulch came out. We used cypress mulch, and then everything started looking real, real nice.

Here is your right side. Like I mentioned above, we were planning on 2 half circled beds, but Blake got a little carried away and continued the bed around to the back. Have I mentioned yet that Blake and I may be the best tenants any one could ever ask for??

Below is the left side of our sidewalk. Fushia and white annuals, one plumbago, and one lemon zest fill up our new flower beds.

(this, above, might not be too impressive, but if you only knew... you'd know that we de-weeded that entire thing, trimmed some crazy trees growing - thanks to our squirrel friends that buried their loot around our yard, pulled weird grass, and ripped up other strange growing things- needless to say, I'm sore today)

The pretty stuff.

And Dakota.

We added a few more solar lights along the pathway for some added ambience, or "awesomeness" as Blake would put it. Speaking of little Blakey, here we are... proud new yard and flower bed makers.

We had a total of 3 neighbors let us know what an incredible job we did. One said, and I quote, that, "that bed has NEVER looked that good" thank you, thank you.

Our unspoken, spoken, goal before we move out is to achieve and receive the neighborhood's Yard of the Month sign. If there's ever been a month to get it I think this might be it. So, fingers crossed, and I'll keep ya updated.

simple spring wreath

I'm probably a little early for spring decorating, but I think this addition is OK. Ever since the winter wreath came down, the door/porch has been seeming a little lack luster.

I started with bag of moss - half off a hobby lobby right now!!

then, a craft wood letter "J" painted with the 87 cent Acrylic white paint

start hot glueing moss to a styrofoam loop. (this is SUPER messy - maybe do outside if you can)

I've been a little too into MOSS this month (see next post, also). It is just so easy and earthy.

(side note - I cannot WAIT until we own a house. I cannot tell you how hard it is to deal with rust red and olive green every day. Sometimes I like to picture this porch stuff on a long, dark stained, reclaimed wood porch with a big bright white door and huge windows, maybe a swing next to our adirondack chairs - where there's no red or green to be seen! and no off-centered windows on the door, either!)

until then...