Budget Blooms
Budget Blooms: Tiptoeing Through The Tulips
While we wait for our primed and painted open shelves to dry (ahhh, tomorrow is H-Day, aka: haaaanging day!) we realized that we’ve been waaaaay overdue for a budget blooms post. Remember when we used to do them every month? Yeah, we fell off. Oops. And a few of you have actually requested them, which is just what the doctor ordered since book chaos + kitchen chaos = a hankering for a sliver of beauty in a completely trashed house like ours. Seriously, it looks crazier than it did the day we moved in. Bed in the living room? Check. Painting and repainting a five foot swatch of wall in the playroom different colors every few days? Check. Photography equipment filling up our dining room? Check. But six bucks at the grocery store later, and I had me these beauties – and a small slice of gorgeousness in this crazy house full of people, projects, and other miscellaneous craziness.
I love this vase from Crate & Barrel (a gift from John’s older sister for my birthday a few years back) and it looks especially good with floppy flowers sort of splayed out around the wiggly perimeter.
And I love the two-tone tulip action going on. The prettiest color combinations are always found in nature, huh? Buttery yellow + poppy reddish pink + fresh green = yes please.
I like how they’re leaning out like they’re growing towards the sun in our natural-light-less kitchen. Oh the irony. These guys have actually been alive a few days now, so I guess they only need water but not too much sun (since they have yet to fall to pieces). Whew.
Oh and just for fun, I played around with them in another vase. Well, I guess it’s not really a vase (it’s a seeded glass hurricane meant for a candle that I grabbed at HomeGoods a few years back). Just as pretty, huh? Oh and I got us a kitchen radio on clearance from Joss and Main about a month ago (and we finally plugged it in after staring at it on the counter for a while). Let me tell you, it’s novel. We’ve actually never had a radio in the kitchen but since we log so much hangout time at the peninsula these days (doing blog stuff/book stuff/projects/eating) we thought it would be nice. And it is. Especially with pretty tulips next to it.
The hilarity of this photo is that if I were allowed to share behind-the-scenes book pics, the next photo would be what you see if you swing the camera about six inches to the right. A shot of our monstrous dining table that sits just beyond this half-wall and is completely full of lamps/ceramic things/paint cans/fabric/baskets/bottles/books/frames/etc. Seriously, you can’t even see the tabletop anymore. So when I say there’s a sliver of beauty in our completely trashed house, I really do mean it. And the juxtaposition is hysterically funny to us. So just know that the over-sharer in me is dying to slather chaos pics all over this end of this post to balance the sweet charming “moments” in the kitchen. Oh well, when the book is out we’re allowed to share it all, so we’re counting down the months.
Anyway, back to the kitchen and our little budget blooms. I now firmly believe that every kitchen is made better by three things: flowers, a radio, and a white ceramic tea kettle (of course). Closely followed by a giant ceramic rooster. And a wall full of penny tile doesn’t hurt either. Have you guys been buying flowers or other greenery lately? Have you played around with a few different vases just for fun? Do you have a kitchen radio? Do you even listen to the radio anymore? Oh and what are three things that you think makes any kitchen better?
Psst- Check out a whole mess of Budget Bloom posts from over the last few years here.
The Mailmum
You know this little online diary of ours is all about keeping you posted on the little stuff along with the big (and the bad and the ugly along with the good). So file this under small but good. Remember our little petunia-fied mailbox? Well, it went from this in June…
…to this in August…
…to this in October:
Wop- woppppp.
The petunias were annuals so they weren’t gonna last forever. And between rain washing out a lot of the mulch and the flowers thinning to a scraggly looking vine mess… yeah, it was ugly. But wait, we’ll get to the “good” in a minute.
Fortunately I was able to pull them out with virtually no effort. Note: Some of these pics were taken before we removed/transplanted a bunch of bushes here – you’ll see why we waited to post about this a few photos down)
We had actually just received a Home Depot coupon in the mail for “Buy 2 Mums, Get 1 Free” (we signed up for some free garden club a few years back so we get random coupons every once in a while). Sadly we didn’t get that coupon before purchasing our porch mums a few weeks back, but oh well – we decided to put it to good use in another place. The mailbox o’ tumbleweeds. So $14 later we had three sunny yellow mums out front. And yes, Sir Squirrel is chilling out right in the middle of them (more on him here).
Even though the mums are perennials, we’re so happy with how the petunias filled in the space over the summer that we’ll probably plop some of those back in come springtime (and just transplant these guys so we can enjoy them somewhere else). But we’re loving the autumn look for now.
What weren’t we loving? The washing out problem that we’d been battling after every big rain. See the weed blocking fabric that’s completely exposed next to the drainage grate on the right? In the words of my wife: reeeeal claaaassy.
The drain worked well most of the time, but heavy rains overload it and, well, you get the idea. So I borrowed some stones leftover from the patio project (they used to line those rows of liriope that we removed here) to build a little stacked stone wall beside the mum-bed. Things are looking up, right?
We have since had two big rains (we waited to post about it to be sure it wasn’t an epic fail) and we’re happy to report that it kept the water from whisking away the dirt with it. So… victory!
It doesn’t look half bad if you ask me. Although of course those mums could use some filling in, sort of like our petunias back when we planted those. Heck, now that we have the little stacked stone wall, maybe we’ll add more plants to really fill it up come spring. And hopefully we’ll straighten and paint the wooden mailbox post then too.
Did anyone else do any quick outdoor updates for fall? Were they mum related? Or stone related? Or ceramic squirrel related?
Oh and Sherry promised more pics of the feather wreath that some of you noticed from afar on the door in this post, so here we go. It’s just an old black feather wreath from JoAnn (picked up after last Halloween on super clearance- maybe it was $8?). Sherry lazily placed it over the door knocker (didn’t even bother hanging it) and called it a day. That’s my girl.
Sherry also meant to toss the three remaining black spiders that we had (from this post) into the yellow mums for more black-on-yellow action before snapping these pics but completely forgot. But she was sure to do that before those cute little trick or treaters came a-knocking yesterday evening. The ones who noticed seemed to love spiders as much as Clara (more on that here). So yeah. Good times going on at the mailbox and the front door. Although we could definitely use a new doormat (or at least a new stenciled paint job over our current one). How about you?
Psst- You can check out how we painted our front door yellow here and ORBed the handle & doorknocker here.
Budget Blooms: What The Heck Are These?
Oops, we totally fell off with the whole used-to-be-monthly budget blooms thing. But lookie what I found growing in the jungle that is our front lawn:
Allow me to put on my best Australian nature-show voice to set the scene for you: The air is still. Not a predator in sight. Something moves in the brush. A buzzard circles overhead. Somewhere in the distance a lion roars. No wait, that’s a baby crying. And just like that I’m out of character.
I don’t know the real name for them (flower whisperer, I’m not), but I like the sound of Purple Ring Pops. So that’s how I’ve been referring to them. At first I just admired them on our way up and down the driveway. Then I thought a little snip snip was in order so I could take some of the stems inside to be ogled more regularly. Here are a few cuttings living it up on the back of the living room console table.
Sidenote: Everything looks better with a white cardboard rhino in the background (from here a while back, bee tee dubs).
I think this vase gets used more often than any other in the house (it’s from Crate & Barrel three years ago or so). Pink and purple sounds like it could sway into the unicorn/fairy princess realm… but somehow it works.
Anyone know the real name of these blooms? Have you found any fun mystery flowers – either in a field, at the farmer’s market, at the grocery store or in your yard? Do you ever have that internal debate about whether you should leave flowers outside to enjoy when you’re out there, or snip ‘em and bring them inside, where you spend more time? I usually leave things outside for a few days and then can’t help myself and bring in a few cuttings. Oh and did anyone notice I snapped these pics before our frame switcheroo (mention this morning) but it just took me longer to write this post than it took John to get his done? Maybe we should add Overachiever to his roster of middle names. John Overachiever Danger Soda Petersik. I like it.
Psst- Wanna see our first cheap-o bouquet from January of 2009? And February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September’s too? How about our 2010 blooms from January, February, March, April, May, June, and July along with one from a few months back? Can you even handle all of that glorious nature in one sitting?
Budget Blooms: Birthday Leftovers
You may have noticed a bouquet in the middle of the table for Clara’s party two weeks ago.
Well, sadly some of those blooms are no longer among the living:
But there are a few that are still going strong, so I decided to drop them into three of my favorite vases (from Ikea a while back) for this happy little effect:
And yes, they’re on the windowsill in our bathroom. Just because I realized that we have never had any flowers in that room (there are all sorts of “firsts” in this house for me – including flowers in the bathroom) so I had to revel in the first-bathroom-blooms occurrence. It feels good to get back to the whole budget blooms thing (since we shared them on a monthly basis for almost two years and somehow forgot all about them since moving). I guess getting back to it symbolizes some sort of feeling-settled-enough-to-stop-and-smell-the-flowers thing. What blooms are you guys bringing home these days? How do you feel about super bright flowers like these (when I dumped the water out of the original vase it was neon pink). I think I usually prefer less or no dye, but for the bean’s big birthday bash, they were kind of perfect. And her daddy picked them out for her – how sweet.
Bonus post extension (because it’s Fridaaaaay baby):
To pick up where I left off yesterday with my end-of-Oprah denial at the bottom of this post, someone recommended that I Oprah-fy myself here on Oprah.com. So I did.
And then I Oprah-fied John.
It’s really helping me cope. Sadly it didn’t work too well with Burger or Clara. But the John one kills me. Especially those earrings. Feel free to Oprah-fy yourself (and post them on our Facebook page if you wanna share the hilarity). I’d love to see what you guys look like with big Oprah hair. I can’t wait. Literally, I’m on the edge of my seat.
Budget Blooms: Bottled Up
Even though it was originally my idea/Christmas-present-to-Sherry to buy fresh flowers once a month, I’ve been pretty absent from these budget bloom posts since their inception – mostly because talkin’ flowers isn’t really at the center of my comfort zone. But this month’s florals are less about the blooms and more about bottles which (as an off-and-on soda fan) are right up my alley. So here’s August’s $2.47 arrangement adding some punch to our kitchen window sill:
This actually started with a blueberry Izze soda (technically it’s “sparkling juice”) that we purchased at Whole Foods a few weeks ago. Sherry and I have both been fond of the graphic flower on their bottles for a while, so the empty Izze bottle managed to save itself from the recycling bin day after day while we enjoyed its quirky beauty on the counter. Then we realized that paired with a few other colorful Izze bottles it could easily become a sweet repurposed vase. So on a recent trip near Starbucks, I dropped in and picked up two more Izze bottles (each with a different colored flower just for fun) and then we grabbed three spider mums from a local florist to the tune of $2.47. So I guess if you want to get technical, although the flowers were under $3, this arrangement was around $9 if you include the Izze. But we did get to enjoy a bunch of fizzy drinks for that price too.
We liked the all-white flowers paired with the trio of hues on the Izze labels. Plus we realized there’s something nice about the blooms blending in with the dominant crisp white color of our kitchen, making their containers stand out that much more.
We’ve always been fans of adapting cups, votive holders, and of course bottles into makeshift vases – this is just our first time using Izzes. They’d also look great in a monochromatic grouping (all clementime flavored bottles with orange or yellow gerbera daisies, for instance) or you can come up with your own mix-and-match color scheme (there are 8 flavors in total). Oh and some classic Coke bottles could add a cute retro feel while some worn green glass bottles at a thrift store or flea market would bring a nice cottage vibe to any arrangement.
So there you have our monthly blossoms. They’ve actually been lasting quite a while, thanks to the fact that they hail form a local florist (which really does seem to make a difference). We also change the water and re-cut their stems every 5 days or so- just to give them the best chance at long term survival (so far we’re over two weeks into things and they’re still going strong).
But enough about our mums, do you guys have any other bottle or vase stand-ins that you’ve particularly loved using instead of the more tried and true meant-for-flower vessels? Are there any other flowers that you’ve been enjoying lately? Oh yeah, and we’ve got more plans for those Izze bottles too (you know we love squeezing as many projects out of our cheap little purchases as we can) so don’t be shocked if you see ‘em again soon. Stay tuned…
Wanna see our first grocery store bouquet from last January? Itching to check out February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September too? How about this year’s January, February, March, April, May, June, and July bouquets? Just follow the links for some pretty sweet cheap-o (and even free) bouquets.
