Porch Railing Planter Boxes

It's time to plant the annuals! I love planting flowers, its like therapy. :)
I've been doing a little better the last couple of years, not going totally crazy at the greenhouse...but it is hard!  I limited myself to buying just enough to fill 2 hanging baskets and 4 pots on the deck and the 3 railing planters on the front porch.  In this year's planters I have Million Bells petunias (in orange, red, and pink), sweet potato vine, New guinea impatiens, and vinca.

My previous blog post and various pictures of the railing planters have been getting lots of traffic from pinterest lately, so I thought I would do a follow-up on what I did this year to improve them a bit.
I wanted the planters to have the same look as my moss-lined hanging baskets .  I found expandable ones at Home Depot. (I don't think they carry them anymore, though).

They are meant to hold one of those plastic window boxes, but I ran some wire around them so that I could line them with spahgnum moss and plant directly in that.  It worked out pretty well, but I noticed that by mid to late summer, when the plants were full grown, the boxes just weren't deep enough and didn't hold enough dirt to keep the flowers happy.

So this year I lined them with chicken wire that extended about 2 inches above the top. Much Better! There should be plenty of room for healthy and happy roots well into fall.

And as long as we're out here, here's a few more front yard photos.  :)
Ooohh, and you can see in the picture above that we also finally got our bubbler fountain (from the other house) installed at the new place.

And this is a photo of the house when we purchased it 2 and a half years ago...

And this is it now...

We still have quite a bit of work to do on the front landscaping, but that will all come in time.
Have you gotten any annuals planted yet? Happy gardening, everyone.

Pink and Blue Feedsack Pieces

I came across these lovely feedsack pieces in my stash and decided to list them on the website.
I have these 3 smaller pieces listed as a lot.

And the other two listed separately. Love that aqua and roses!

The last two antique show/flea markets I wanted to go to were pretty much rained out, so I'm getting a bit antsy. Hopefully we'll have clear skies for the next one or I think I'll have to do a road trip!
Have a great week, everyone!

Progress on the Sunroom and a Roll-Up Shade Hack

Projects move at a snails pace around here. I don't know how others do it...put their mind to something, start a house project, then finish it that same week.  That never happens here.
Anyway, some progress, however little, has been made.  First up I thought I'd show you a quick little sewing project of how I customized an Ikea Roll-up shade.

The shade is a plain white cotton twill called Emmie, and was 12.99.  All I did was measure the space between the button holes. Then cut my pretty yellow floral fabric to size, adding a half inch seam allowance on all sides, turn back the 1/2 inch and press. Then pinned in place, sewed around the edges, and called the door done. Easy peasy.

Next I moved on to the bench. I found the linen bins at Target.  Then made a long bench cushion in linen to match.

The 3 inch high density foam is crazy expensive and wasn't in the budget for this penny-saving make over, so I used a full size egg-crate mattress topper that I found on sale. I cut it into 3 long pieces and stacked them for my cushion.  It doesn't lay as smooth as a single piece of hi-dens, but for a $50-$60 price difference, I'm ok with that.
I once again employed the nifty little trick at whipstitch for continuous bias tape to make my piping, and found a long 48" zipper in my stash for the back closure.

And the cute red poppy fabric (by Joel Dewberry) was made into an accent pillow.
On the other side of the room I added some wall flowers to the brick . Not sure if I'll keep all of them up yet. I'm going to live with them for awhile and then decide if I need to edit.

And lastly, I brought in the antique chest from the other room and accessorised with some of my yellow pottery pieces, a cute little picture my mom found, and a round mirror (that still needs to be hung).

Well, that's about it for now. Still looking into what can be done to the floor economically, and I'd love to bring in a little table and chair for me to sit in, since Hunny has claimed the wicker bench as her own.  LOL
Have a great week, everyone!