Happy Birthday America!

Wishing Everyone a happy and safe 4th of July!

Floral Inspiration

I love gardening. The hard work is very well worth the end result - yummy fresh vegetables and beautiful flowers!

My flower garden is my inspiration for my recycled sweater wool flower brooches. Here are a few of my favorites.

bright magenta echinacea, or purple coneflowers

yellow water lillies from our garden pond

fragrant peonies, one of my all time favorite flowers

and elegant roses

My daisies are blooming now, so I have a new inspiration!

Look for daisy felted wool brooches coming soon.

There's Still Time to Enter!

The blog MonsterBites365.com is sponsering a giveaway of one of my felted flower brooches!

Monster Bites brings you 365 days of the latest in DIY fashion, sustainable living & handmade goodness for an enviable life! Each GEM is packed with giveaways, discounts, and DIY projects!

There is also a tutorial for making your own recycled wool sweater flower like the one in the upper right photo.

Enter for your chance to win here. You can enter through June 9.

Outdoor Living

We've been doing some cleaning, sewing, painting, and even a little bit of construction, to spruce up our outdoor living space. Everything on our screened porch always needs a good scrubbing in the spring. And, a little touch up painting keeps everything looking good and protected from weathering.

Our patio of brick pavers had become very uneven due to tree roots that had grown and spread over the years. We had the tree trimmed earlier in the season, so my husband decided it would be safe to trim the tree roots, too. He pulled up the uneven bricks and chopped out the offending roots. He also repaired a drain line to take water away from the house. After adding a little bit of sand for filler and replacing the bricks, the patio is as good as new.

I made new cushion covers for our furniture on the porch and added some comfy pillows for lounging. The pretty tropical print fabric that I found on clearance sale a while back looks great with all our flowers and plants surrounding the porch.

Here is the end result!

A view from inside the porch.

Momma bluebird stopped by to feed the babies while I was taking these photos.

Our cats love to spend time relaxing on the porch.

This is Sabrina in her morning sunbath ritual.

A view from the porch out on to our refurbished patio.
It feels great to have everything clean and refeshed - ready to enjoy all summer!

Feathered Friends

It's nesting season for the birds in my area and everytime I go outside I hear birds singing or chirping. It has been raining a lot lately, so I wasn't too surprised when I came home the other day to find mallard ducks wandering around in my front yard!
Here are a few photos I've taken of some of my feathered friends.

Bluebirds are using the nesting box on our garden fence again this year. This is the female bluebird with a nice bug to feed the kids.

A chipping sparrow has been working on a nest in the vine over the garden trellis.

This baby wren is waiting for a meal from inside his little bird house hanging in a garden tree.

There are four robins crowding this nest. A couple of them were peaking out when I took this photo.

A male cardinal keeping watch.

A young family of Canadian geese going for a swim in the neighborhood park.

Another family of Canadian geese in the neighborhood. These little ones are little older and starting to get darker feathers.

There is an abundance of wildlife even in our suburban neighborhood!