Spring Is In The Air!

Spring has come once again.  The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, the trees are filling out with luscious green and the intermingling spring fragrances permeate the air. It can mean only one thing, time to deck my terrace out with flowers and decorations. 

I posted about my terrace before.  Last year, I purchased outdoor furniture including an outdoor rug and an umbrella.  For flowers, I chose a color theme last year of purple, yellow and white.  This time around, I decided to kick it up a notch and add more variety in the types of flowers and also  I added RED.  Last year, I was looking for some kind of buddha statue or something to put in one of the corners of my terrace.  I actually purchased a few things and then returned them all.  Nothing felt right.  Well, I happened upon this buddha statue the other day at my favorite store, Home Goods.  I took a few days to think about it and I decided that I like it.  Let me know if you do to. 

Yesterday, I went to Home Depot to take a look at their flowers and I overheard people talking about Stew Leonard's having better flowers.  So, I went there instead and man did it pay off!  They had so much to choose from and many varieties.  Okay, I made you wait long enough, here's the statue and the flowers pre-planting.

It was nice that I didn't have to buy all of the flower boxes and hanging pots this time around.  It was fairly quick to set up too.  I had the brackets ready to go from the prior year and all I had to do what to put them on the railing where I wanted them.  The flowers are beautiful now but they are going to be even more spectacularly beautiful when they grow in!  Here are some close ups.

Those purple flowers right above are so tiny, you wouldn't believe it from the picture.

From all of these:

To these:

I can't get one picture that shows the whole terrace.  I wish I could but since I can't, you get various views.

Just wait until the flowers grow more.  I'll have to take more pics then. 

Thanks for stopping by and Stay tuned for more creativity!

The Flowers That Bloom In the Spring, Tra La

I like to take pictures of flowers really close up, who doesn't?  Macro photography is another hobby of mine.  Example:

I wanted to use my photography in my decor.  I had one of my photos blown up on canvas by www.chiccanvas.com to the largest size they had 30 x 40. I wanted to put this canvas centered over my couch ("well, what would you do?").  So I did, but it just wasn't big enough for the wall and I wasn't satisfied.  I love the colors but something was missing.  So I thought and I thought and then it occurred to me, I love diamonds and gemstones, I use it as part of my decor, so why not bling up the canvas!  Here's what the canvas looks like on the wall before I got crafty.

See what I mean?  The proportion is all wrong.  Though my lovely white side tables and green lamps are really cool.  (excuse the sheet on the couch, have kitty need sheet)

So I made a floating bling frame to go around the canvas and here's how I did it.  First I measured of course and figured out how big I wanted the frame to be.  Then I went on to ebay and found square flat backed foil backed acrylic rhinestones that were 12mm.  I bought 2000 of those suckers for almost nothing, thank you ebay!  I then went to home goods and found white pre-painted 8 foot pieces of wood that were 3 inches wide (12mm pieces would fit in 5 rows) and 1 inch deep.  I have a hand saw, nothing fancy, that I used to cut the wood into 4 pieces.  2 longer ones and 2 shorter ones.  I then went back to home depot and found brackets and wood screws so I could join the 4 pieces in the back so it would be rock solid and invisible.  I joined the pieces - 2 long pieces on the right and left and the 2 shorter ones on top and on bottom to make the frame size I wanted.  Then I painted the whole thing silver using acrylic paint.  Then using Elmer's clear glue, I glued down 1800 individual 12mm square rhinestones, one by one and made sure they were in even lines.  This took several sessions over a few days. After it dried, I hung it up on the wall around my canvas and here's what it looks like now in all of it's AWESOMENESS!!!

Doesn't it make the wall pop!  Here is a closeup so you can see more detail.

More bling later.....

In the meantime, thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for more creativity!