Mum's the Word!

The final assignment for Lowe's Creative Ideas was all about mums! Here is my project for the month! I still have a lot of bare spaces from my losses during the drought this summer.

I love this old ladder and borrowed it from my bedroom to use for the autumn display. I purchased it at a garage sale for $1.00 and painted it blue.

I know a lot of people don't care for mums, but I always celebrate the entry of autumn with mums in my garden or on my front porch.

I think this color is my favorite!

I took  the pumpkin and mum pictures last year at Stoney Creek Farms here in Noblesville. I used the same colors in my Lowe's mum project.

Here is another shot. I took these pictures quickly with my point and shoot. I had hoped to get better shots before posting about the project but between the cold rainy weather, sickness and work it never happened. These will have to do.

Thank you for stopping by and for following along while I blogged for Lowe's Creative Ideas! It has been fun for me and I hope it inspired you with ideas for your own garden!

 A special thank you to Lowe's for this wonderful opportunity!

Lowe's Gift Card Giveaway!

Summer is officially over and fall has wasted no time making its presence known! We have a frost advisory tonight! After the record breaking hot dry summer, the cooler temperatures are a welcome relief but I am not ready for frost!

Here are a few late summer pictures:

Hummingbird moth in the evening sun.

The verbena bonariensis is always a hit with the butterflies, hummingbirds, bees and hummingbird moths! Thankfully it spreads easily throughout the garden and was one of the few plants that survived our summer drought.

The hummingbirds were here yesterday fighting over the feeders. There were three or four of them still hanging around, diligently keeping guard over their  nectar source! This one was on the front porch all day long sitting on a dragon fly that stays in a planter. I took this picture through the front door side lights. 

The temperatures dropped into the 30's last night and the hummingbirds have not been seen at all today. Their departure is my signal that summer is officially over.

 

The Lowe's Creative Ideas project this month is all about mums! The best part is that I have a gift card for one of you! I've never had a giveaway on my blog before so I am excited to offer this Lowe's $50 gift card to one of my readers, (U.S. residents only)! To enter leave a comment on this post and  I'll use Random.org to pick a winner! 

The giveaway ends at midnight September 30, 2012. Only one entry per person please!

This giveaway is now closed! Thank you for participating!

See this post for winner information!

Potting Bench

 

Here is a more detailed post about my potting bench that I made with a free broken hutch for my Lowe's August project!

 I am a collector of stuff, not a hoarder, (yet), and I love a good bargain, especially if it is nature or garden related! I like to have things on hand when I am ready to be creative or do a project. Other than the Lowe's essentials, (paint, wood, peg board, tools), for the project, I already had everything I needed to decorate.

Here are some close-up shots of the potting bench with a few explanations about my project.

In case you can't read the picture caption it says, "Several years ago I had a large calendar on the refrigerator. Before I threw it away I ripped off the magnets. They were perfect for this project!" I try to reuse and recycle whenever possible!

The decorating items in this project were bought at Goodwill or at garage sales! A few items were purchased on sale a local vendor mall.

My 8x10 butterfly collage was attached to a .25¢ church rummage sale plaque with Modge Podge.

I bought a package of round cork plant coasters at Goodwill for .99¢ and attached one to the side of the hutch. In this picture you can see how long the magnets are! They are heavy duty too!

This sweet little bottle holder and the bottles were purchased at Logan Village Mall, a delightful vendor mall here in Noblesville,

as were the zinc Ball jar lids.

It was very difficult finding enough flowers for my bouquets due to plant damage from the extreme drought this summer.

The window, with the shelf, was purchased for $15.00 from a warehouse sale of a local business last year. I made the wreath from materials I already had on hand. The cute sign was given to be by a dear friend a few years ago!

This cute basket was on sale for $2.50 at the vendor mall and the peat pots were given to me by a sweet neighbor who is also a very dear friend! I am all set to grow a lot of new plants this winter with my indoor growing station.

Here is a little breakdown of cost on some of the items, (that I can remember). Most people probably don't care what I paid for these items, but it thrills me to make something so cute for so little money.

Again, don't forget to stop by  Lowe's Creative Ideas for more project inspiration!

Potting Bench

The Lowe's project for August was, "Address the Mess". We were to pick an area or item that could use a creative approach to organization or storage for gardening tools and accessories. Mess is the correct word to describe my garage! We have a three car garage and no room to park any of our cars! Most of it is my fault too. The garage is where I do most of my projects, and I have plenty of projects waiting to be done before winter sets in.

 This is another project that was labor intensive and the work kept multiplying! Thankfully my sweet husband helped me with some of the cleanup. We had to remove some shelves so all of that garage junk had to find a new home. The wall was a mess so I had to patch the holes from the anchors and then apply a fresh coat of  paint.

In my previous post I mentioned that I had been given a free Drexel hutch which was perfect for this project! I already had all of the items used to decorate so my Lowe's money was spent on paint, wood for the shelves, peg board, buckets, and the peg board tools.

Here is the before and after! This was a project that was exciting and fun to do! I love to take other people's trash and create something useful and beautiful! I also had motivation to be crafty and creative while decorating.

I have hundreds of pictures to condense and edit. Hopefully tomorrow I will have another post of the close-ups of the potting bench, including my craft projects and a cost breakdown of some of my bargains!

Don't forget to stop by Lowe's Creative Ideas for more home and garden inspiration!



Lowe's

Birdbaths

Donna at Funky Junk Interiors is having a theme party on birdbaths and I thought I would revisit an oldie and feature mine!

When we moved into our new home there were no trees in the neighborhood so it took several years before I started attracting birds to the garden. Spring 2007, while cleaning the garage, I saw that I had a lot of bricks and things left over from various projects. I decided to stack them and make a birdbath stand.


This is still my favorite birdbath! It is also the favorite of the birds here at Robin's Nesting Place!


 
It has been here for five years now and even though it wasn't mortared together it has withstood our winter weather and many storms.

  
As you can see it attracts a variety of birds.




  During the heat of the summer I will often fill the birdbath with ice water. The birds will come in droves to sit and cool off.


I have a nice concrete birdbath, but the birds don't use it. The clay saucers filled with rocks are a different story!

The larger birds even enjoy the deeper plastic saucer with a few rocks to sit on. It is a great pleasure to provide fresh cool water for my feathered friends.


 http://www.funkyjunkinteriors.net/2012/08/sns-149-bird-baths.html