What I've been up to

So, so, so sorry I've been MIA! Has it really been three weeks since my last post? Eek! I hope you can all forgive me. Life has gotten a little busy lately. Want to see what I've been up to?

Well, when we last left off, I was headed for a camping trip over Memorial Day weekend. The weather was lovely and we had a ton of fun!

Our campsite...

We did some hiking and some kayaking with great friends. It was so fun and relaxing! I love being outside.

The next weekend, we went to my college five-year reunion. I was worried it would be awkward, but it was a blast! I got to hang out with my two college roommates and other great friends. It was almost like old times -- except I realized I'm too old to stay up dancing the night away. :)

The weather was pretty terrible -- it was rainy and overcast all weekend -- but I still liked walking around campus. Maybe I'm biased, but isn't it pretty?

And here's the big reason I haven't been around much:

Meet Colby, the newest member of the Heart Maine Home family! He's named after my alma mater pictured above -- that's why he's got a leash with his name on it. We bought the leash at the campus bookstore at reunion weekend before we even got him, since we were planning on getting a dog later this summer. But we found this little guy at petfinder.com and just fell in love with him, so we had to bring him home. He's a rescue pup who was born a stray, so we're happy to give him a nice home.

He's a boxer/hound/who-knows-what mix and is four months old. He's super duper lovable -- he loves to sit on your lap and cuddle with just about anyone who will let him. And he's really mellow and easygoing too, and loves to be outside. He's just a sweet, happy, lovable little guy!

We took this photo on the hubs' and my two-year anniversary. It only took 20 8 tries to get Colby looking at the camera and not licking our faces.

So, we've been busy playing with him, training him and just all around spending time with him. I knew having a puppy would be a lot of work, but phew, does he keep me running around! I haven't touched a craft project in three weeks! I'm definitely missing it, and hope to get back to it really soon, once I know I can trust this little guy to hang out in the house without chewing on the furniture or having an accident. :) For now, I feel like I have to keep a steady eye on him.

What have you all been up to? I'm so sorry for checking out for a bit! Hope you all understand and can't wait to see what you've been working on. :)

Enjoy your Memorial Day!

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been around much lately...things have just been crazy busy! I hope you all forgive me. I hope to be back and posting like normal really soon!

But for now, I'm off to a weekend in the woods -- yep, we're going camping! No phone, no electricity, no running water...but we get to see views like this:

I'll take it!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Containers of flowers

Hi, everyone! A belated happy Mother's day to all you moms out there. Seriously don't know how you all do it!

I hope the weather is nicer where you are...it's quite rainy and dreary here today, like it was yesterday, and practically all of last week. *sigh* I'm getting sick of this weather!

At least the weekend was warm and sunny -- truly perfect, weather-wise! I got outside and finally did some serious gardening. And by gardening, I mean I put some flowers in pots. :) We do have a couple gardens that the previous owner planted with lovely perennials I don't really know how to take care of, so mostly all I do is weed those and cross my fingers. So far, so good!

I might be intimidated by my perennial gardens, but I love doing container gardening to liven up our porch, deck and other areas. I thought I'd give you all a peek at what I potted over the weekend.

I mostly stuck with hues of pink, purple and orange -- they just seemed so summery and fun to me.

Remember last year when I added window boxes to our shed? I'm still totally in love with them...especially when the boxes are full of dahlias. They are one of my favorite flowers -- they just make me so happy to look at it.

The metal bucket I got last year from the restaurant that was renovating downstairs is holding some petunias -- another favorite of mine, because they are easy and pretty and always blooming.

Two big pots our neighbors gave us are filled with petunias, calibrachoa and snapdragons. They flank the stairs up to the deck. They don't look very impressive right now, but I'm hoping they fill out nicely.

I was dumb and watered them before taking the pictures, so that's why the flowers look a little droopy.

I filled two big pots with flowers to flank our garage doors. The greenery is sweet potato vine, the purple flowers are calibrachoa, I think, and the orange ones are pansies. The tag for the fuchsia flowers just said "stock," so who knows. :)

 

We call this our front porch, although technically we have two front porches. This might really be a side entrance, but it's the one everyone uses and opens to our entryway -- and it actually has a porch, instead of just steps like our front door. (Did you know that practically no one in Maine uses their front door? True story).

The tag didn't say what this hanging basket is, but I love it. Not only are the flowers just to-die-for, but the basket is pretty cute too!

I also put some shade-loving impatiens in the house number pots I made last year.

The steps are flanked with two pots of torenia.

Our porch is a little lackluster right now -- all my attention has been focused on the inside, with accessorizing the newly painted living room, finishing the office and filling our new sitting room. So I hope you'll forgive me for this somewhat boring porch I've got goin' on.

I had some flowers left over, so I potted them and put them on the front stairs. The left pot has snapdragons and a dahlia, while the right has some torenia and flowers I actually planted last year that somehow survived the winter (even though I left them potted in the yard). I found them growing! I decided to keep them and see if they live.

My garden owl watches over everything.

So those are my flowers! Let's see if I can keep them all alive. I've got to watch the forecast to make sure we don't get any late frosts overnight.

What have you planted this year?

Fall crafts: Paper flower wreath and yarn pumpkins

Well, hello, everyone! I hope you're enjoying your week.

I'm still working on my fall mantle and other indoor decor, but I wanted to show you this simple fall wreath I made for our front door.

I saw something similar for spring, but I cannot for the life of me figure out where...so, my apologies for not giving credit where it's due!

It's the same grapevine wreath I decorated with shells for summer. I cut out a bunch of flowers from scrapbook paper and hot glued buttons to them. Super easy!

I'd like to replace that puny twine with some orange ribbon (and paint that gold wreath hanger!), but I'm liking it a lot right now. The colors make me so happy!

I haven't done much to fall-ify our porch, but I did add my Pottery Barn lantern and some Indian corn. (Please ignore the ugly storm door.) I'm hoping to add some more pumpkins out here, but was waiting to buy them so they'd last until Halloween and we could carve them.

I also thought I'd share a little fall craft I copied from Martha (she's brilliant, isn't she?). Yarn and twine pumpkins!

I shaved the ends of two styrofoam balls to make them a little flat at the bottom and the top, then wrapped them in some chunky yarn and twine. Not hard at all, but surprisingly time consuming, especially the twine one, mostly because I was super picky about the placement of all of the strands.

Martha used rope for the stems, but I just cut pieces of a real branch and hot glued them on. I'm not digging them as much as I hoped I would, but they are cute. I might cut the stems a little shorter.

They'll be more fall decor next week, after I finally finish my mantle (floating shelves!). Hopefully you're not sick of all this fall stuff.

I'm linking this up to Sarah's Fall Outdoor Spaces party, and Kate's Fall Crafts party! Also linking up my post about my pumpkin, mums and apple barrel to the Outdoor Spaces party. So much fall awesomeness happening in the blogosphere! Yep, I missed the fall mantel one...by a lot.

Fall's first pumpkin

How do you pick your pumpkin?

Me, I like to take my time. I like to survey, not looking for anything in particular, but one that calls to me. There are so many great ones, but I feel like there's always one that seems to say, "Yes, I was grown for you. Take me home!"

Last year's pumpkin

Usually I find that one, give it a good once over, then put it down and keep looking. All the while, I can feel its pull, calling me back over. Even if it's not the "perfect" pumpkin, or even what I was planning to buy, as soon as I have that feeling, I know I've found it.

Do you go for little, or big? Tall and skinny, or short and round? 

Me, I tend to come home with shorter, rounder ones -- they just look happy to me for some reason, cheerful. I like to find ones that aren't too round, ones with little dimples or dents, or maybe a little lopsided. If I wanted a perfectly round, symmetrical pumpkin, I'd buy a plastic one at the store. It's a living thing that grew on the ground, and I love when it looks that way.

What about the stem? Short stem, or long? Straight stem, or curly?

I love a stem with a little personality -- not too short, or straight, and with a little shape. If it's got a little green left, I'm smitten.

Over the weekend, I bought my first pumpkin of the season. It's a little early, but I couldn't resist. The air is starting to cool off and the fall winds are blowing in, and it just felt right.

This one asked me to bring it home, so I did. I also bought a pot full of orange mums.

I set them both next to a tree along our driveway to give our visitors a proper fall greeting. Aren't they happy buddies?

I don't know why, but this picture makes me think of two kids waiting for the bus.

Then I decided to add my delightfully weathered apple barrel. I think it completes my little outdoor fall vignette really well!

I don't know how long this pumpkin will last -- if it'll make it all the way to October and carving time. But for now, it's making me happy.

Have you decorated for fall yet?

A prettier shed {before and after}

Argg...sorry everyone! I've been a little MIA lately. What can I say...the last, lazy days of summer call to me, luring me to the beach, the deck of my favorite restaurant, etc. I hope you don't judge me :)

I finally finished something I'd slowly been working on for a little while, something we talked about doing at the beginning of the summer but never got around to, until one day we spotted these at Home Depot and bought them on a whim:

We wanted them to pretty up our little shed:

While at Home Depot, we also picked up some Behr exterior primer and white paint. I gave the window boxes a good sanding, then one coat of primer and two of the white semi-gloss paint.

After a little primer...

We used a few heavy-duty screws to attach it to the window frame.

And I drilled a couple holes in each liner, since they didn't have any drainage.

Here's our "before" shed again...cute, but needing a little something.

And here's the after, with our new white window boxes!

There weren't many flowers left for the season at Home Depot, but I did find some fall-hued marigolds and mums. They'll look so pretty once they fill out.

Looking at these photos, I think I need to take some wood filler to those nail holes and repaint them. I like how they have a kind of rustic look, but the holes are a little too distracting...

It's not a big change, but it adds a little color and interest. I'm imagining them overflowing with petunias next summer...wouldn't that be lovely? I'd love to paint that ramp white too, but I can't imagine it would look very pretty after the lawnmower and snowblower get dragged over it. Maybe paint it black to match the door hardware? I'd also like to disguise those cinder blocks on the right that keep the shed level on the uneven ground. We inherited a couple bushes on either side of the ramp, but we don't know what they are, and they've hardly grown at all, so I think we should take them out and plant something else. (Check out the before shed picture, which I took last fall when we bought the house, and you can see that the bushes haven't grown an inch all season. But the weeds have sure grown a lot...oops!).

Ignore the crazy-long grass. I took these photos before the hubs dragged out the lawnmower.

Wondering what those crazy vines are climbing that stick coming off the shed? Those are the hubs' hops plants that he's growing to use in his beer-making. They vine like crazy, and he was sweet enough to ask if it was okay if he attached that stick to the top of the shed for the hops to vine up. Aren't I a nice wife for saying yes?? :) They kind of make the shed look like a sailboat or something.

Linking up!

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