Welcome friends, to this week’s Share Your Style #303! Happy Wednesday to you all!
This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share any of your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post too and join my small but loyal band of friends. I appreciate you! As always, I am glad that you are here…
I am Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!💜
Paula of Virginia Sweet Pea shared this gorgeous before/after (can you believe how GORGEOUS??!) ~ Vintage Office Desk Makeover.
Lisa of Fresh Vintage by Lisa created a really sweet Mother’s Day present with a homemade book ~ Sharing a Sewing Themed Altered Book. Fun idea and so crafty!!
Here’s a delicious recipe for Braided Tuna Bread linked up by Trick’N’Treat. So good and frankly, tuna is my absolute favorite food. :)’
Saving the cutest final two for last…
Tiffany (Tee) of Tee Diddly Dee shared the cutest post ~ Little Mallard Becomes a Momma. Precious!!! You’ll have to stop by to see the ducklings…
Honorable Mention
I can’t pull up any of the photos (it’s the way they are protected, and that’s fine) for the cutest kitty and her sweet pillow and new bed, but I wanted to share Julie of A Loverly Life‘s sweet post… Here is the post, linked through Pinterest:
A big Thank You to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to y’all for always promoting Share Your Style on your blog and on your social media channels! I do see it when I stop by and I appreciate the love. 💜
Well friends, the weather is starting to heat up and that must mean it’s time to bring out the cushions, move outdoor furniture around and clean off the patio. Today is $10 on the 10th and this month our theme is Outdoors/Gardens ~ a perfect time to take you on a tour and to make a fun garden craft idea…
Grab a cup of tea or coffee, friends!
Before I begin, I’d like to give a shout-out thank you to Tammy of Patina and Paint for getting this party together for us, thanks Tammy! Now springtime in our North Texas gardens means windy days and rain, lots of it! Under our two backyard oak trees, grass doesn’t grow and we are looking into putting in artificial turf. That’ll hopefully happen next fall. So for now, I deal with wiping off dirt splashed onto every pot whenever it rains.
Hubby needs to toss this rug (far left) that was left by the previous owners upstairs in the attic because I can’t lift it. It does drive me a bit crazy to look at it, and I try to cut it out of photographs, but it snuck into this one. 😉
Actually until just recently we have had our garden furniture stacked quietly on the patio and a couple of outdoor wicker chairs stacked along our garage wall… The above photograph shares our south facing garage wall with all its “finery.” Winter was really cold this year plus Yoda can’t see as well (he is 16 years old +/-), so we need to keep the patio clear for him nowadays.
This post has been a good excuse for me to get outside and move things around, do a little cleaning. The price for all this? Absolutely free!
I was trying to think if I have bought anything new for outdoors recently, and I haven’t. I have bought a lot of garden soil for potting up plants and for in-ground planting this year, though! Each of those bags cost between $2.95 – $10/ bag, depending upon size. Gardening is not an inexpensive hobby, friends!!
We had wanted to move it out 5 feet; however, the City goes by the closest stake, so we can only move it out 3 feet. Mr. Ethereal is wondering if it is worth it, but I still think it is.
The transformation of the backyard will be sooo worth it! We just received approval to move our fence out, so we will beginning that project soon. The cost of lumber has skyrocketed because of the housing boom and people remodeling this year (and not enough supplies), so we may have to reuse most of the fencing that is already here. It’s in okay shape and we could replace it next year as prices come back down (fingers crossed!).
Just beyond Yoda along the back fence there, that’s where we would like to put the new shed. It’s really a “cabin shell,” 10′ x 16′, and is big inside. Still waiting on the City for approval for location.
But let’s get back into the backyard garden, shall we? Here’s how it looked when I wrote a post last month called Finding Ladybugs While at an English Spring Tea in the Garden. I finished the last few bricks which needed to be laid and added the mortar sand just afterwards. This side of the garden is now done and I have been planting since late fall (December).
Nepeta or catmint is one of the plants I put in for its full-grown height of 24″. It is busy filling in and enjoying the late spring sunshine!
In the back flowerbed, David Austin rose Sceptre d’Isle is beginning to put out its spring blooms! It has a nice light scent and is so pretty when in full flower.
The petals start out darker pink, like the first photograph, then fade to a pale blush with almost white petals in the outermost layers… Rains at the wrong time as it was in bud caused the discolorations, but it is still beautiful…
Up near the patio, the new orange tree is doing well! Consistent rains and watering (but not too much) is making this a happy tree!
These were the original pots I thought about using; however, they were too small to hold the flowers. I found really pretty turquoise blue pots at Lowe’s which were bright and cheerful!
A garden gift-giving craft idea
Recently I got together with three friends (and more of their friends!) whom I knew from when we all lived at Wagon Master RV Park and Alpaca Farm. As a gift, I put together three pots and gave them each a pretty flowering plant so they could each have fun making a mini garden! I thought you might like to do something similar for when you get together with friends whom you may not have seen over this past year due to self-quarantining. This also would be fun to do as a planting party!
This is how I had each of the flowers and their dirt/fertilizer put together before purchasing the decorative plastic pots at the store. The ladies loved their gifts!!!
Supplies you will need:
small plastic pots (1 for each person on your list)
plastic zipper baggies (2 for each pot)
potting soil
fertilizer (I gave each of my friends a little Bio-Tone Starter Fertilizer for planting up their plants)
pretty flowering plant for the current season
Super easy gifting ~ Just fill up two zipper baggies: (#1) with enough potting soil to fill plastic pot, (#2) with a small amount of granular fertilizer, to help the plant establish good roots. Next, just stack your baggies into a pretty plastic pot, then top with your small potted flower. Wrap the pot with cellophane and a pretty ribbon, or set everything into a gift bag!
Basically, I went to Lowe’s and picked up three pretty plastic pots and they cost less than $10 for all three. The potted flowers I already had as well as the other items, so the cost for each potting gift was about $5.00. Such an easy gift to give and fun for the recipient to enjoy!
And that’s my idea for a garden project for this time, everyone! I hope you have enjoyed this tour of my garden and seeing what’s in bloom. I know you will enjoy visiting everyone’s posts and seeing what they have put together for you!!
“The Chickens Come Out to Roost” was my other thought for a title, but then I thought, “Maybe that thought is completely wrong?” Y’all will have to tell me if chickens do come out to roost, or, do they go in to roost? It’s probably that they go inside… 😉
I was happy to see that the colorful pitcher I found at Twice As Nice thrift shop last fall fits nicely inside the little framed cupboard.
Happily, this farmhouse style post only has these cute faux roosters I found at Buc-Ees around Christmas time and no real chickens to worry about! You may recall that I mentioned before that all Buc-Ees gas stations have nice gift shops. They sell all kinds of kitchen goodies and you can also find meat smokers, camping and fishing stuff, some hunting gear (no weapons!), lots of t-shirts and Buc-Ees clothing with beavers on it (their logo), as well as Lodge cookware, Southern style cookbooks for the cook in your family, leather purses and even cowhides (about $175 each, I think)!!
If you are ever out in Central and North Texas, stop by a Buc-Ees off the freeway for a fill-up, come inside and grab a BBQ brisket or pulled-pork sandwich, enjoy super clean restrooms (NOT in that order! lol!! 😉 ) and check out the goods… (not sponsored but I sure was in love with Buc-Ees the first time we stopped at one five years ago!)
Love this hand-painted plate from the early 1900’s set against the Haviland-Limoges dessert plate! The little “milk bottle” held honey in it at one time. I love it with the dried roses!
Finding these cute chickens gave me an idea to bring out some of my farmyard friends ~ most are salt and pepper shakers, some are just little ceramic birdies and an old rabbit (it was a sandwich spreader).
This little piggy went to gather roses!
I love farmhouse style and was really hopeful we were going to find a farmhouse to buy, like I’d seen six or seven years ago when we were still living in California on the then-brand-new Fixer-Upper television program.
Love the rooster s/p shaker, his blue bird friend with a favorite mismatched teacup and saucer plus a beautiful cobalt blue glass a friend gave me long ago.
But even though we didn’t find our dream farmhouse with white shiplap walls, we did find a really cute brick English cottage style home! And I can bring out my farmhouse goodies any time I want to liven up the place.
In our china hutch, I cleared most everything out from its winter and early spring looks, and added in all the little farmyard friends I could find. Down on the lower shelf, we have a white ceramic cat my daughter Amy made for me when she was in high school. It sits next to a little Spaniel we found for £1 at a flea market or antiques faire in England. The tea towel is also from Buc-Ees. Mooooo!!!
I love the china hutch’s new late spring/early summertime look! The cute chicken plates are paper plates I found at Cavender’s, a local boot store which also carries clothing and some housewares. The new boots I’ve been wearing on IG out in the garden, they came from there over Christmas…
This little goat reminds me of Ophelia and Sashay, my Nubian goats I raised in high school. The transferware creamer is definitely all about farming!
And that’s our china hutch with its sweet chickens and farmyard friends!
The little goat and pig name card holders came from Cracker Barrel a year or so ago. 🙂 And another pig I found right after we moved to Texas is a little toothpick holder which matches my favorite white plates, some small bowls and two platters. Love its little swirls!
I didn’t edit these photos at all today because… I am painting in the master bathroom and we are loving the change from taupe to a beautiful soft grey!!! So, this is what it really looks like in our dining room; it is DARK. Sometime this summer I will be repainting in here and making it much lighter. Yeah!
So, that’s it for this post, friends. What have you been up to lately??
Welcome friends, to this week’s Share Your Style #302! Happy Wednesday to you all!
This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share any of your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post too and join my small but loyal band of friends. I appreciate you! As always, I am glad that you are here…
Cutting in around the commode ~ first with Kilz and now with Valspar Comet Dust, a pale soft grey.
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
And a Happy Mother’s Day this coming Sunday!! Hopefully this is my last week at home on leave for a broken tailbone (four weeks total). It feels weird to be home as I feel like I should be at work… While home I have relaxed and taken it easy (the first couple of weeks I was really careful to not move wrong and to not sit for hours, per doctor’s instructions), walked progressively farther and longer as things felt better/less painful, done some gardening, and now some painting in our master bathroom.
Figured it was good to try and get back to normal since this is “week six” since the accident. Tailbone feels good and doesn’t hurt to touch, so I should be released back to normal work at my appointment this Friday.
Actually, there are only three more weeks of school for this 2020-2021 school year, and next year I will be working with a Pre-K class. I was sad to be leaving PABS at first, but now I am kind of excited for the upcoming school year. A new challenge and a new school. So that will be something fun to look forward to this next school year!
Meanwhile, we received the permit to move our fence! We can only move it out by 3 feet, since the curve of our property line at its closest is 3′ away from the current fence, but it will still add more visual space to the sideyard and 240 sq. feet to the yard for gardening… Time to get digging post holes!
I am Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!💜
***I learned after fully reading Debbie’s post that she didn’t make this incredible Sewing Room, but her friend Angela created it! Angela has a Facebook page and I know you will enjoy checking out the beautiful things she created for sale.
Cindy at The Crowned Goat shares this recipe for Make at Home Lavender Hand Scrub for the gardeners (and painters!) who need some extra TLC for our hands. Gotta try this!
Liz over at Howling at the Moon shared this neat technique that I’ve never heard of and maybe you aren’t familiar with it, either… Pyrographied Charcuterie Board. Great idea and I guess this is the new way of wood burning?!!
A big Thank You to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to y’all for always promoting Share Your Style on your blog and on your social media channels! I do see it when I stop by and I appreciate the love. 💜
For Mother’s Day this year, I wanted to set a really soft and ethereal looking table in remembrance of my mother and for all of our mothers, really. A table which began with a delicate lace tablecloth, clear glass candleholders and a beautiful bouquet of springtime flowers straight out of the garden…
After going out for a nice hour-long walk with my friend Torrance in her neighborhood this past week, as I was leaving she cut a couple of pink tea roses from her front flowerbed for me. I set them immediately in the last of the water I had in my water bottle, and off they went bobbing their twin many-petaled pink heads as we went down the road.
This Mother’s Day table setting…
I had been thinking of using this tablecloth for a light and airy feel for this table. From a now discontinued Simply Shabby Chic line at Target, this “tablecloth” is really a lace curtain. I bought a few panels when we were living in our trailer knowing I would eventually use them in our next home. I love it for a tablecloth, though!
Do you use unusual things as tablecloths? Long ago, I had a deep purple top sheet that I used as a tablecloth. It worked perfectly and hung over the table really well.
The large purple-ish hydrangea blossom came from out in the garden. I picked up three different types of mophead hydrangeas this spring from Costco, Walmart, and Lowe’s.
Setting a simple tablescape
For a light and ethereal table, I thought I would bring out my favorite Haviland-Limoges vintage dinner plates. These plates all have delicate roses and vines in their transferware patterns and I thought these pieces would be perfect to celebrate our mothers.
My favorite are these ruffle edged plates!
It was then a simple matter of choosing some pretty stemware and adding in clear glass votives and a few bubble glass candleholders set randomly at both table ends.
The day was a rainy one as I shot all of these photographs, and as it went into evening, I thought it would be fun to dim the lights and take a few more photos… This is my ooops! shot with the tripod in the background. 😉
Photographing glowing candles is really hard with a camera without a low-light setting capability! (On my list of future upgrades.)
These two are almost the same shot but not quite. I love how the roses photographed… I added a few red Knockout roses as well as the pinkish-white hydrangeas. So excited to add a few more hydrangeas to the garden since they grow really well here in Texas!
So how will you be setting your Mother’s Day table this year? Are you making a special meal? My mother-in-law Gini will be driving out with my sister-in-law Jodi this coming June so I am sure I can recreate this table for them for one of our dinners.
Thank you for joining me in honoring our mothers… If you’d like to check out some of my other Mother’s Day posts,
Welcome, friends, to this week’s Share Your Style #301!!! Happy Wednesday to you all!
This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share any of your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post too and join my small but loyal band of friends. I appreciate you!  As always, I am glad that you are here…
With Mother’s Day coming up soon, today’s SYS shares a smattering of Mother’s Day ideas and a fluffy mother-to-be… (and I need to get myself in gear and set my own table ~ and create a post ~ for the holiday! eek!)
Also, I didn’t know if you knew… I am big on promoting other people, and every time you see anyone featured in any of my posts, I PIN EVERYONE’S PHOTOS, usually multiple photos to my boards on Pinterest.
Plus, I do allow other bloggers to link up their blog parties here; not many hosts do. There aren’t many link parties left and we all need the exposure, not just THE BIG FEW… Anyway, that’s why you’ll see me doing this here. Plus I like these bloggers style! 🙂 Just saying!
Enjoy, dear friends!!!
I am Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!💜
These two posts go hand in hand… I hope you will check them out, leave a comment or two and pin a few… <3
And here are this week’s featured posts…
MaryJo from Master”Pieces” of My Life shared sooo many wonderful ways to decorate in the garden in this post ~ Container Gardening Ideas and Inspiration. Love this bread box!!!
Liz from Howling at the Moon shared how they celebrate the king’s birthday over in the Netherlands in her post ~ King’s Day/Köningsdag.
Also… You HAVE to check out the adorable Halloween post (which… why didn’t I see this in the fall??) ~ Plague Doctor with a Pattern. Liz comes up with some really cool knitting projects, folks!
Jeanie from The Marmelade Gypsy has brought us beautiful images from her own backyard in Michigan… The Critters are Out and Having Quite a Time! Here is our lovely mother-to-be… Can’t wait to see the new goslings, Jeanie!!!
Fabiana from Fabby’s Living is back with a lovely table set for special friends (after Covid!) ~ A Garden Table and Blue Danube China. Just lovely…
Who else would love a soft fleecy sheep following them around their garden? Well, Amber from Follow the Yellow Brick Home brings us one in the curated and fun garden post ~ Country Cottage Garden Style, part of her Pin Away Wednesdays blog party.
A big Thank You to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to y’all for always promoting Share Your Style on your blog and on your social media channels! I do see it when I stop by and I appreciate the love. 💜
Welcome, friends to another fun Pinterest Challenge hosted by our friend Cindy of County Road 407! This month’s posts will be sharing everyone’s beautiful kitchens decorated for springtime. Some of us may just focus on countertops and others may share what’s up above, too. Today, I have a little of both for you…
Let them eat cake!
If you are stopping by from Rachel of The Ponds Farmhouse, welcome! Her kitchen was a dream, wasn’t it? Rustic and modern at the same time ~ I really love it!! Our kitchen inspiration photo comes from the talented Marly of Marly Dice.com. Her kitchen is ethereal with its bright white cabinets and the sunshine pouring in from the window over the sink…
I painted the kitchen walls a pretty turquoise which matched the color of our freeform pool’s water.
It makes me wish I still had my last kitchen in California…
The Big House kichen had lovely solid oak cabinets which the previous owner had painted white and I loved them! Here I was giving them a refresh repainting in 2014 as we knew we would be selling the next year.
Our inspiration kitchen’s look
I love the soft marble backsplash and the pretty granite countertops contrasted by all the white! Marly has just a few things out on display which really complement the main colors of white, a pinkish look to the backsplash marble, and the tan brought out in the granite counters:
a few wooden cutting boards
two vases of flowers bringing springtime indoors
pretty creamware dishes stacked near the sink
a wooden display trolley with more creamware soup mugs and more on it
a butcher block of knives ready for mealtime prepwork
I really like Marly’s quiet style! I am really a minimalist at heart, though you wouldn’t know it to see the usual stuff laying around our house, lol! But when our home is cleaned up, I love the quiet and calm that comes with cleared off counters, everything in its place, and I bet you do, too. 😉
My kitchen
Currently our kitchen has an Old World look to it with the darker cherry cabinets. I love the size of our kitchen, but they are just press-board. I wish the previous owner had left the 1990’s solid oak cabinets as they were better built.
For the immediate future, I am planning on painting the kitchen walls a soft grey this summer to lighten up the kitchen’s look, and I may tackle the upper cabinets painting them a creamy white, too. Depends on what I can realistically get done while off from school!
For this challenge, though, I thought about sharing more of my collection of baskets plus bringing out all of my glass cake plates and their covers. I like redoing the tops of my cabinets for the season, and the thought of bringing in some light colored items up above really sparked an idea for me! I began with:
Bringing in many of my baskets ~ most of my baskets are a natural wood color which brings in the soft tan color from the inspiration photo.
I moved the basket filled with pinecones here above the refrigerator and added a large bread basket and my bowed flower girl basket with this winter’s dried roses and lavender.More thriftshop and Longaberger baskets ~ I have had the Longaberger baskets since the years 1989-1992. These were purchased during the 1980/1990’s heydey of home shopping parties. I bought these while we lived on base at Camp Pendleton.
One cutting board is out along with an Italian trivet I have near the stove. I set these out last fall and Mr. Ethereal likes having the salt and pepper shakers, olive oil and avocado oil out all the time next to the stove. We have a framed Italian restaurant print hanging on the wall to the left of the refrigerator from his trip to Italy in 1984.
Pretty potted plants instead of vases of flowers ~ I loved the inspiration photo’s pinks so I did bring that in with the faux flower arrangement up above under the glass cloche, as well as a potted plant from outside.
Bringing in the glass ~ adding in all the vintage and newer cake plates above and on the counters echoes the glass vase in our inspiration piece.
Loving the new spring look!
Display trolley ~ I found a two-tiered display piece at Target probably 10 years ago. Originally it was gilded and later I dry brushed white over top. I love that it has the two big sparrows on top! Today it shares my collection of vintage Haviland-Limoges and Austrian plates and small bowls with roses.
I made the “piece” of cake years ago (it is somewhere in a box, I’m sure) and displayed it on different plates and in three cute open display windows we had in our first home when I began having teas. It seemed fitting to finish the cake for this shoot!
Butcher block ~ our knife holder is always out on display, as is our toaster and one of two butter dishes. This time the Butter Lady is out; she is from Poland and matches a teapot and warmer I brought back from England about 15 years ago.
To go along with the soft pinks, and because I had so many cake plates up above, it seemed fitting that I finally create this faux 3/4 cake…
Not totally finished yet ~ I ran out of Queen Anne’s Lace faux flowerheads ~ I love the Flower Cake’s look! The moss is the “cake” and the flowers are the frostings, filling, and top.
These flower cakes were super popular to make about 30 years ago now. Maybe this will bring back a new trend??!
Thanks for stopping by today!
Here is a list of everyone on today’s Pinterest Challenge tour. If you are following along in order, or just going randomly, have fun clicking onward!
Up next is Niky from The House on Silverado who has such a pretty kitchen… How she decorated her kitchen for this challenge is perfect, too! I know you will be inspired by her springtime kitchen display…
Here’s a fun project to makeusing leftover florals you may have in your craft stash! For an upcoming blog hop, I needed a “cake” to finish off the look I was creating with some glass cake domes… Then I thought of this unfinished 3/4 “cake” that has been in my Craft Room for quite some time…
Looks a bit like PacMan… ;)’
Craft items you will need:
(3) 1″ tall round foam “cakes”
hot glue and glue gun
kitchen bread knife to cut out “cake piece”
various leftover faux flower heads and greenery
anything else you want to use to decorate your cake!
This is a perfect craft to do while watching t.v.! An ironing board makes a perfect table as it can raise up or down as needed.
How to make your Flower Cake:
Begin with hot glueing the three foam cakes together, let cool. Using a bread knife, cut out a “piece” of cake; this can be decorated to go together, too!
Using leftover sheet moss, cut strips to create the “cake” portions of your decorated Flower Cake.
Watch for burnt fingers… This is the sticky, messy bit but it’s worth the effort!
Hot glue those over the exterior seams of the glued cake hiding the cake seams (or wherever you’d like to place them, of course). Can also use different florals for a whole different effect.
This is a perfect project to get creative with!
Pull off flower heads as needed and begin hot glueing those onto the cake as “frosting.”
The pretty part!!!
Keep adding whatever flower heads you’d like to your Flower Cake ~ you could make a whole series of cake pieces using different florals!
Kinda like those really tall rainbow cakes which are popular for children’s parties. (You’ll need more “cake stacks” to make one of those!) Older children can make these cakes or even smaller pre-cut “cupcakes” at birthday parties as a fun craft during their birthday party. Flower Cupcakes would be fun take-home gifts for each guest!
*** Children as young as 5 years could do this with a parent’s help, keeping a bowl of cold water nearby for sticky glue on fingers. We did this at school this year for a Christmas project and the students enjoyed using hot glue and very good (and fast!) about using the cold water.
Decorate the inside of your cake similarly to the outside ~ I used more sheet moss here to look more like a real “cake” and put small white Queen Anne’s Lace flowerheads in between for the frosting. :)’
If you run out of small white florals like me, don’t fret. Finish after your next trip to the craft store! No worries…
Add on any pretty leaves and flower heads to the top and your Flower Cake is done!!!
Welcome, friends, to this week’s Share Your Style #300!!! Happy Wednesday to you all!
This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share any of your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post too and join my small but loyal band of friends. I appreciate you!  As always, I am glad that you are here…
Can you believe today’s Share Your Style is #300??! That means I have been writing this myself for about 120 posts now. Not bad, even with a few weeks off here and there! Well this week has been a busy one for me with: a visit to my original doctor for the tailbone issue, two young surveyors coming from the company recommended to us by friends at noontime today. We have also had our biannual heating/air conditioning check-up this afternoon, plus the same company came out at 5:00p.m. and checked our plumbing for leaks (different group)!!!
I am mostly excited that it looks like our property line is further out towards the street than what showed on the survey we received when we bought the house two years ago. So, yeah!!! We should be able to move the fence out five feet. Keep your fingers crossed and prayers, please! <3
I am Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!💜
Liz over at Howling at the Moon knitted two beautiful baby blankets and this post was too pretty not to share with you! Chill and Chunky Blanket ~ which one would you like for your little bundle of joy??!
Cindy at Cloches and Lavender created this Vintage Wine Crate DIY charcuterie board with the loving help of her hubby. Perfect upscale for old or falling apart wine crates! Totally neat and great project to make!!!
MaryJoof Master”Pieces” of My Life brings us a big update on what’s going on around her springtime home this year ~ 7 Happenings in an Early Spring Garden. Don’t you love the yellow Lady Banks roses??! So soft and pretty…
A big Thank You to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to y’all for always promoting Share Your Style on your blog and on your social media channels! I do see it when I stop by and I appreciate the love. 💜
My friend Torrance and I took a trip recently back up to Norman*, Oklahoma, since her daughter and son-in-law graduated from the University of Oklahoma and she knew the area pretty well. While touring around, I looked for garden centers we could possibly visit and I found a good one!!!
A lovely koi pond in the main side garden towards the entrance. Styled very naturalistically with local rocks and plants tucked in crevices surrounding the pond, this will be a wonderfully shady spot beneath the trees surrounding it!
Torrance loves garden centers as much as I do and we have a lot in common: she worked and retired from the same school district as I am currently working for here in North Texas, she loves to garden, and we belong to the IOOF, which is where we met.
But I digress! We actually drove up just to tour around Norman, Oklahoma, to see the university, have lunch and maybe do some shopping. I hadn’t been to a mall since Covid broke out over a year ago. We did do that later in the day, but while the weather was nice and cool and so sunny that day, we just had to stop by a few garden centers…
And by searching my phone for garden centers, that is how we found The Greenhouse…
The Greenhouse ~ 1708 24th Avenue SW, Norman, Oklahoma 73072
The archway in the lead photograph is one of the ways into seven or more actual cold frames and greenhouses on the property. This is a massive garden center where they actually pot-on clippings and root up seedlings for sale.
You can tour around most of the areas and piles of plastic trays are situated here and there for toting your garden finds around as you go about the yard. Customers can pick up a tray and plunk plants into them to carry around. Of course, then you find too many pretties to easily carry around, so you transfer them to a sweet Red Flyer wagon. There are “stands” of these wagons in the green houses and inside the main building. ;)’
Inside the main building are vignettes with indoor plants, planters, cute decorative pots for indoor plants as well as specialty items. I found a pretty “hose guide” to keep your hose from destroying blooms as you pull it out around the garden.
We had the best time enjoying running water fountains and watching the koi splashing about and waiting for food to drop into their pond in the main garden area! Each area is set up for either house plants or starts and bigger containers to plant outdoors.
Lots of small pots perfect for succulents and indoor plants, plus pretty spring pillows for entertaining outdoors…
We found areas with gorgeous ferns, banana trees and lush palms, other areas with tables full of roses… No English roses but many of the Knockout pinks and reds ~ which do well here in the southern midwest and plains of Oklahoma and Texas. I was just enjoying looking around and took no photographs of these… Sorry! I did however take a few videos and here is a link to my YouTube to see one.
I did take one of this sweet Fairy Garden planted inside an old hanging basket now set on a stand!
Here you can see a little more of how each covered area is laid out. Tiered stands hold plantings and tucked here and there are statues and water fountains for sale. I found a lovely maiden for $400 which would have tucked nicely into our garden, but she or another Girl will have to wait for another time. (no photo) 🙂
The Greenhouse is shaded by many oak trees and the greenhouses are built around them, which I thought was wonderful planning on the part of the garden designers.
I love this giant metal artichoke statue!! Doesn’t it make a fun statement here in the garden?
I love playful gardens!
Just a couple of last looks at a large pond and waterfall which inside one of the main greenhouses surrounded by gorgeous tropical plants…
Really a wonderfully curated garden center ~ if you ever come this way to Oklahoma City, do stop by Norman (about 30 minutes south on I-35) and visit The Greenhouse…
