DIY Vertical Succulent Garden

I really wanted to incorporate some sort of living wall into the new place (on a budget, that is ;)).  I found an old frame for $2 at a garage sale, and figured that would be perfect.  It has been fun being home and getting to work on projects with my dad - I am very thankful for all his help on this!

I followed this tutorial (check out the follow up pictures...big lush success!)...and here is where we deviated a bit...

1.  We still used the 2x2 pieces of wood, even though Luna-See said she would have used more shallow pieces.  Once we saw how successful her garden has been - Sean encouraged me to stick with 2x2s b/c he figured the plants may just need that much soil. 

2.  We added metal L brackets to the back of the frame on all 4 corners.  Then, my sweet dad notched out the 2x2s so that they would sit flush against the frame.  We thought this may provide additional support.

3.  After seeing that Luna-See used 4 coats of urethane and the paint looks to be flaking off a lot after a year, I figured I wasn't going to break my back to prevent peeling.  I only did two coats.

4.  We did use screws instead of nails (lots of them).

5.  I stapled a black contractor trash bag across the back of the frame after it was filled with the moss/soil just as a small buffer for the plywood.  Not sure that it will help at all, but figured it couldn't hurt.

I forgot to put hanging hardware on the back before I planted the succulents, so we still need to do that.  It is VERY heavy.  I am hoping to put on a wall in the new house; however, if it seems too heavy, I will prop it somewhere.

I planted some of the succulents that I already had, and I intend to get some more varieties for additional color, but I will do that once we settle.  Let's hope these little plants make it in the car/u-Haul :)

Fingers crossed that this takes...

We glued and screwed the 2x2s in...

Ready for plants...

Let the planting begin!

Take 1...

Kansas, here we come...

Hmmm....I wonder how long this blogging attempt will last.  Bets?

Quick recap - We said goodbye to West Point and oodles of fond memories and dear friends.  I became way more attached than I had anticipated.  We trekked to IL for time with family, trip to the cottage, time with family, trip to Colorado Springs, more time with family, trip to Indiana, and more time with family.  I am beyond thankful that my parents have welcomed us for such an extended period of time.

Next stop...Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  Due to a shortage of on post housing, we have to wait a few extra weeks to get our house.  We will now be there for ~ 9 months before heading to our next home (location TBD).

So, thus begins the design challenge....
1.  I want to get the house up and running as quickly as possible due to our very short stay in Kansas.
2.  I have never lived in a new house...this is a newer home with an open floor plan.  As I was sketching out rooms and furniture placement, I am shocked at how much furniture won't fit, despite this being the biggest house we have lived in.  Good thing that there will be storage room in the garage :)
3.  I have chosen to not paint...so I need to figure out other inexpensive ways to bring in color...

I have very high hopes for Kansas.  I have heard nothing but great things about it, and I am chomping at the bit to get out there, settle in, explore as much as we can, and soak up every second of family time.  I personally hope to focus on my interior design class and also simplifying/organizing our home (Sommer gave me this book recommendation...loved it!).  We will see how that goes (along with the 50 other goals floating around in my head!)  :)

This summer, I have managed to fill up a lot of my parents' garage with new finds/projects...which I probably shouldn't have b/c of #2 above.  I thought, as always, that there would be more downtime than there has been, so now, I am in crunch time with all these endeavors.  Hopefully the pressure will help :)

A few things that I need to hop to...

 recover these seats...

finish cleaning this up...

finish DIY vertical succulent garden....

clean up this old beauty...

Lamp Love

I'm pretty sure the that I am the only one that is completely in love with this lamp, but I am.  My sweet friend Jen picked it up for me on a thrift store run, and I am smitten.  I just need to decide what to do with it.  The sweet 70's colors match my current decor, but the gold flecks could probably go :)  I like the shape of the shade, but it could use some updating...was hoping I could follow Jenny's DIY instructions for painting a shade...

Since buying these, I seem to have a new obsession with honeycomb lamps.  Most I have found since this one have been very expensive, though!

 It has a little crack at the bottom that doesn't bother me...but check out the gold flecks :)  genuine 70s, right?

Saw this pair last week in DC while out with Hallie....so fun!

 

Terrariums

I have been slightly obsessed with terrariums lately.  After being completely inspired by this brilliant booth at Brooklyn Flea, Twig Terrariums (you MUST check out their work), I came home and got busy.

I have always loved moss...and I attempted a terrarium with moss and rocks in early 2009.  It lasted for a while, but I over-watered it, probably suffocated it, and who knows what else.  In short, I botched it.

Since West Point boasts plenty of moss, pretty rocks, driftwood and pine cones, I figured I would use Mother Nature's gifts.  I have had these for over a month a few months now, and they seem to be doing well.  I sprinkle them with water every 4 days or so.... I have pretty much just left them alone...every once and a great while when I happen to be walking by with my glass of water, I may share a few drops with the terrariums.

Twig Terrariums @ Brooklyn Flea

couldn't get great photos, but one of the ones I made...

NYC Half

Yesterday, Sean and I ran the NYC Half.  I really wanted to run a race in the city before we move, and it was a blast.  I am so thankful to so many wonderful family and friends who helped me get through all the training...Michelle, Lynette, Lindsay, Suzanne, Haley, Ryan, and my pace man yesterday, Sean.  My dear husband trained by running a total of 3 miles before this race, and he was still able to stay in front of me the whole time...how is that fair?)

I had mixed emotions when I was selected in the lottery for the race as I was dreading training, in the winter no less, and while I was sick (I seemed to have something wrong during most of the training...but that is a whole post in and of itself!), breastfeeding, etc.  BUT...I really needed some motivation to lose some baby weight. 

The course was absolutely fabulous.  I took pictures throughout the run and tweeted them (only b/c that was the fastest/easiest way that I could figure out for posting pics).

I didn't 'PR' as my runner friends talk about, but we ran much faster than I had trained or thought I would...2:22. 

A special thanks to my dad who came out to watch the kiddos while we went to the race...thanks so much, Dad :)

scenes from yesterday...

getting ready to run!

 good morning, central park...

 guggenheim...

 so many gorgeous buildings to check out as we went by...

 Hello, NYC. 

 When will we ever have the chance to leave Central Park and run straight up 7th avenue to times square with no cars around again? 

 Pretty sure we stayed at this hotel for one of the dance weekends back in the day...

 we are still moving!

 times square, here we come!

 hard to see, but we had just made it out to the west side highway, right by the Intrepid...

 this was a long stretch...all the way down to battery park...

 I liked this 'You go, girl' message...I needed it right about then!

 Oh, how I was hoping the Novogratz's were outside (not even sure that they still live here)...but if they were there, I was going to try to go sneak a pic with them :)

 I got choked up around the new Freedom Tower that was disappearing up into the fog.  There is truly nothing sweeter than our great, free country.

 Nearing the end...the acoustics in the tunnel were perfect for the end of a race...

 here we go!

 there is the light at the end of the tunnel!

 

800 M to go!!  Yippie!

 Brooklyn Bridge...one of my favorite NYC sites.

 getting the medal...

Now...will I keep running or quit cold turkey? :)

Sunburst!

After Jenny posted about DIY Sunburst mirrors (by the way, Jenny, when are you going to have your own book?  You need one, and I would pre-order!), and we heard of an impending snow in, Michelle and I decided we would get our glue on and attempt to make these suckers!

All you need is a good friend, a glass of wine, a LOT of shims, and a LOT of wood glue :)

We followed this tutorial the most.  I won't recreate all the wonderful tutorials that exist, but just a few extra notes...

--Holding rays together - some people recommended craft tape - we just used rubberbands, and they worked just fine...

--To prime or not prime: I had some extra half used cans of white spray paint laying around, so I used those as a pseudo-primer.  The shims, especially the large ones, are very porous, and I just wanted to make sure that the gold really popped.  I don't think this step is necessary though...Michelle did not prime, and hers looks fantastic.

 -Assembling the rays:  We spent a LOT of time trying to figure out how to push the rays perfectly into the middle and not have gaps around the sunburst.  We did break off some of the long shims that were pointing into the middle to allow the longer rays to fit more snugly. We finally decided that 80/20 was good enough, and we both had some gaps in between the rays, but once the mirror was on, the gaps didn't bother us.

-Hanging:  We both just had our husbands put some screws into the back of the mirror.  Sean screwed right into the shims, and it seems to be pretty solid.  They didn't screw the screws all the way down to allow us some space to wrap hanging wire around the screws. 

 We are both happy with how our mirrors turned out.  It cost us about $42 to do the whole project.   Michelle painted hers silver, and I went for gold.  I made this knowing that I didn't have a huge open wall to hang this on right now, but hoping that in our next place, it may find the perfect home!

For now, it spices up the basement a bit...

Paint Swatch Mobile

I had some fun with paint swatches for Jamie's baby shower back in September...I copied an idea I saw on Pinterest...it was a fun project and very inexpensive - just had to buy the embroidery hoop!  The sewing was a little tricky for me...it probably wouldn't be for most people but I had to make lots of extra strands as I ended up throwing some away because they were just jacked up.

I still can't seem to get paint swatches off the brain.  Walked out of Home Depot last week with a ginormous stack.  Got a couple of strange looks, but I just held my head high and walked out :)

Wreaths

I'm not very good at changing out wreaths.  Case in point, I made an acorn wreath (the final nesting project before Cormac arrived) back in October, and it wasn't taken down until yesterday.  All the grand plans that I had to spray paint it white and change to a red ribbon for X-Mas never materialized :)

My friend had pinned this wreath, and I had all of the supplies except for the wreath form, so I made this during nap time the other day...

Moss makes everything better

Paint Swatch Art

I'm cheap.  And I wanted some art for our bedside tables - something in a tall frame.  I found some white frames at Michaels for ~$4 each the other day, and I had been wanting to do something with paint chips...so, on my shopping trip with April, I made her my accomplice, and stuffed her purse full of paint swatches for my attempt at some art, and for a mobile for their nursery.  I got busy during naptime, and here is what I came up with...I am digging it so much that I would love to do a really large scale one.  So, if you see some crazy lady in the paint aisle at Home Depot, squirreling lots of samples into a big bag, it is probably me.

I used a 1" circle cutter and punched the circles out of Behr paint swatches.  Then, I used Elmer's glue and glued all the chips down, starting at the bottom of the page, overlapping as I went.  As you can see, I wasn't exact, I just eyeballed it, so it is not perfectly straight...but I am okay with that ;)  The beauty of all things imperfect....

love the texture...

Now, for the keeping it real shot...I REALLY need to find a good looking alarm clock.