Aldi's Flowers

My family just loves the grocery store chain Aldi's. (I think my Aunt Erna would be a spokesperson for free.) To say that something comes from Aldi's is tantamount to it having a golden seal from Good Housekeeping.

Anyway, Aldi's always carries really nice flowers for such a cheap price that lately I've started adding two bunches to every grocery list. The flowers last a good two to three weeks and really brighten up the house!
Two bunches costs around $8 and makes enough for one really nice full bouquet and a smaller bouquet for the piano or bedroom. In the winter when everything is dreary, it's so nice to have a touch of color!
(Ignore the knitting bag in the bottom corner of the photo. Knitting is a diva and likes to be in on every photo shoot.)

Podiatry

Knifty Nikki has gotten me hooked on reading craft blogs, and when I saw the zipper ballet flats on Craftaholics Anonymous I decided to try to re-do my shoes as well.

I have these black pumps in my closet, but I don't like to wear them often because they're so, well, boring. They don't have the flair, flash, and pizzaz that I like on my footwear.
They needed some attention. Attention and love does wonders for shoes!

And kids!

And husbands! (Preferably just one husband at a time, and not in the order that I put them in. It is very important to rank one's family over one's shoes. So I've been told.)

Anyway, I picked up a roll of satin ribbon 2 1/2 inches wide and made two rosettes. From there, I just used my hot glue gun to glue the rosettes onto the toes!
No burns, no blisters, and no swearing!
When it comes to the glue gun, that has to be a record for me. Every crafter has their nemesis, and mine is the glue gun. They are evil things with a sadistic delight in maiming fingers.

Flower Power

Poor Miss Boo. She has such a funny little personality, but when it comes to her personal appearance . . . let's just say that she inherited her mother's hair.
Her hair is too thin to hold a hair clip. (Believe me, I've tried every one out there!) So, I came up with a nice easy solution that looks super girly and cute on her - flower headbands!
These were so easy to make it's ridiculous. I bought a five-pack of multicolored stretchy hair bands from Walmart, got a nice silk flower to match the color of the hairband, and glued the flower onto it!
Once the glue was dried, I cut the back of the flower (that was sticking through the hairband) a tad shorter so it wouldn't dig into Miss Boo's head. Boo likes fashion, but she's not willing to suffer for it!

She has a few more in other colors, but I couldn't find them in time to get the photos in this post.
(If you're going to try to make some for yourself (or your baby), I'd stick to flat flowers like dahlias or daisies. Roses look pretty but they stick up too far from the base and look odd. Also, you can use a hot glue gun if you're impatient, or regular Elmer's glue if you don't mind waiting a bit for it to dry.)

Spring Tableau

Two weeks ago I was walking by my dining room table when I realized that I still had my Christmas tablecloth and pine arrangements still out. I am very fashionably astute, and it slowly dawned on me that keeping one's Christmas arrangements out until next Christmas is not something that most people do.

(Although I am part Portuguese, which in Hawaii means that I have a genetic predisposition to year-long Christmas displays.)

Spring is a difficult time of year for me. While the rest of my family in the Sunny South is enjoying daffodils and warmer weather, I still have three months of frigid temps and dead stuff outside to look forward to. Somehow putting up sticks in a vase didn't appeal to me.

So, after scrounging around in my little crafting corner in the basement, I came up with this tableau of sorts.
I found quite a few items that fit into a seagreen and sea blue color scheme. I love how airy and cheerful it makes the room look!
My selection of happy houseplants is rather thin right now (they're all as depressed about the weather as I am), so I had to stick to cuttings of hanging plants which I plunked into the blue glass jars.
The cuttings are slowly starting to root in the water, so in a month or so I'll be able to repot them and start another hanging plant! Bonus!

I like to have another little display on the counter island, so I put together a few of the things I already had on hand. (Had to use my birds. I just love my dollar store birds!)

When some of my friends came over for a movie night to watch the new PBS series Emma, I was able to make a nice little table setting to make everything look cheery.
When watching a Jane Austen adaptation one must be well fortified with tea, chocolate, and of course, scones.

A Bit of Color

Handyman has been working on getting our bedroom renovated, and slowly it's beginning to look like a real room with real windows and real walls. I'm so used to seeing oddities like light sockets hanging deliriously from their wires that the sight of finished (and painted!) sheet rock is almost disconcerting.

Anyway, I was at Wal-mart the other day and I happened to notice that they had clearanced some of their silk flowers. I've been wanting to make a little arrangement for the room, so I snapped up a small collection of blooms and headed home with my goodies.
I'm so thrilled with the way this came out! It matches my room beautifully and adds a nice pop of red color. Plus, it wasn't all that expensive! Usually decent fake flowers are exorbitantly priced, but the entire arrangement I made cost me around $12!
I was also able to utilize a vase that I made in college. (I took a pottery course as an elective). There's a plate that I carved that I have hanging on the bedroom wall, so this vase ties in nicely as I glazed them both the same.

Yup, when the weather is gray and dreary, there's nothing like a bright bouquet of flowers to give the spirits a lift!

Special Surprises

No, the baby hasn't come yet, *sigh*! Were you expecting an announcement? I'm not really due until Thursday, although babies have a way of coming when they feel like it, as opposed to when mommy wants. I'm feeling pretty okay right now, with the inevitable discomfort and tiredness that accompanies this final leg of 9-month torture. (I'm soooo glad I'm not an elephant. Can you imagine being pregnant for 2 years? No wonder those poor mammas are gray and baggy!)

(You should click here for a laugh. My sister Angie, who's pregnant on Wednesday, did a hilarious post on pregnancy.)

So, Thursday was a difficult day for me, largely because I'm feeling large and not-in-charge of my body, and also because little Miss Boo wasn't feeling well. I'm not sure what she had, because it only lasted the day and didn't cause any other symptoms than a slight fever and an extreme amount of whining.

What a nice surprise to see this waiting for me on the front porch! A delivery of flowers from my sweet Handyman as an early surprise Mother's Day gift.

I suppose some people may find unpacking and arranging the flowers annoying, but that's one of my favorite things about receiving flowers.

Our lilacs around here are just starting to riot into their full color, so I couldn't resist adding some to the mix. Mmmmmm, does this bouquet smell and look wonderful!

As if that wasn't enough, along with the flowers and sweet message came some sweet chocolates! Yum! I've already eaten 3 of them, and if you know me and chocolate, that's saying a lot. (I love chocolate, but I don't like eating too much of it. Handyman once gave me a bag of my favorite Dove Dark Chocolates at Christmas, and I still had over half a bag left by my birthday in March. I prefer to saaaaavvooor the experience . . .)

So that was Thursday.

Imagine my shock when the following afternoon I found THIS on my doorstep!

More flowers, but this time from my sweet sister Lynn! There were so many roses in this bunch that I couldn't get them all to fit in the vase that came with the flowers. What a shame, I had to put them in another vase and display them in another room of the house, ha ha!

So, now I have roses in my kitchen, dining room, and next to the bed.

Okay, baby, you can make your grand entrance any time now . . . .!