Yard Art

It's Spring!  With all the wild things blooming and joyful. I want to get outside and enjoy it too.  I have been incubating a yard project for months and months, and driving my Sweetie crazy collecting his wine bottles.  His creative vision is very different than my own, and doesn't take up nearly as much space as mine do or require collections of stuff. 

I saw these images on Pinterest a year ago and have been collecting ever since.

I think the path paved with bottles could be hazardously slippery, and after all, who would want to dig in that far to plant bottles or risk broken glass under foot?  I really love the look of the bottles used for edging.  There is just one issue, and that is pesky mosquitoes.  We have a pond a yard away, and in warm weather, I have to spray the yard and we run from house to car or barbeque grill.  My Delicious Sweetie is a gourmet treat for those critters, and he can't get more than a few feet before swarms of them attack. So, what to do about those concave bottoms inviting water to collect and offer breeding spots for more critters?  I then thought of this image that I also love and blogger cathgrace has kindly given us a DIY for.

http://cathgrace.com/2011/08/garden-balls/

I am going to try a few before I commit to dozens, so I bought some small hard toy balls at the Dollar Store.  With stones added, they should fit right into the bottoms of the bottles and prevent water build up.  I think I may leave a few without balls, as I have read that small puddles of water this size are attractive to butterflies.  I have no clue how they will do in changing weather, so I am going to keep my fingers crossed on this one.  I also bought a few bags of glass pebbles.  I have adhesive and grout and sealer on hand already.

There is another issue.  My yard has lots of old oak and gum trees.  Our yard is lower than the others and years of rain run-off has left little workable topsoil.  Anywhere I dig is an impenetrable mass of tree roots.  I don't intend to fight nature, so I plan to wabi-sabi and do imperfect edging here and there, wherever I can dig a bottles in.

...Those balls I bought at the Dollar Store!  I had the bag on the floor and the Sweetie happened to bump it with his foot and an amazing thing happened.  Please pardon the blurry photo.....

...So, I examined it more closely and realized it is filled with a liquid that will probably break the ball in freezing weather.  I will have to go back for other balls, but isn't that just the coolest?

In a Pink Mood

I can't believe I didn't share this with y'all.  About a month ago when it was still cold here in the deep south, I had to find a new winter jacket.  My old one was literally "loved to death."  I found one I liked and the fit was right, but PINK.  I don;t usually do pastel pink, but this wasn't half-bad, marked down and stylish.  So it came home with me.  Without a collar, my sensitive neck was needing a cowl and I do love a cowl.  Just happening to have the perfect yarns and colors to combine, I followed Jane Thornley's Once Upon a Cowl pattern, shortening it up to suit our not-so-frigid temps. 

Spring Fever

Hyacinths, daffodils, forsythia, yellow jessamine, honeysuckle, and now the azaleas are all bursting into bloom.  It means our short Spring has arrived.  For the next two weeks, warmer temperatures and that longing to throw windows and doors open has to be ignored.  All the flowers and pine trees are filling the air with clouds of fine yellow pollen that piles up

everywhere, and makes my nose itch and sneeze and I have to bathe my burning eyes several times a day.

Going out is risky business, so now that I am stuck indoors, and sorta-kinda done with taxes, I took a break and got creative today.  Out came strings of turquoise beads and silvered chains and wire and anything that looked remotely good with turquoise.  I didn't get any serious tools or torches out today and just enjoyed the ease of beading.  This is a long necklace with dyed howlite or magnesite beads, carved turquoise beads, old "silver" trade beads, a sterling Hamsa hand, and a tiny Tibetan prayer box charm.  The tassel is hand-dyed silk.

This next necklace also has turquoise nuggets, tiny carved bone beads and dragon, and antique bronze metal with a hand-dyed silk cord and tassel.  I squeezed that in about three weeks ago.