Rescued Plants and Weedwackers

Hi y'all. It doesn't get any thriftier (is that a word?) than this. Everything I am showcasing today was free! It's not often that I find free stuff. Guess this was my lucky week.

First off, I was shopping in the garden section of Home Depot and saw a pile of plants. An employee kept bringing sad looking plants to this section. She said she was the plant distributor and was pulling these plants from the shelves because they were in too bad of a shape to sell. I asked her if she was going to compost them and she said no, they were headed for the trash. As a plant lover, I couldn't let that happen so I asked her if I could take some home with me and she said yes. I picked out the ones that I thought needed the least amount of TLC (mostly red geraniums and begonias) and got as many as could fit in the back of my car.

Free plants in my car...

After unloading them onto my patio....

And now, a few pics of them planted...

That wasn't all I got free. Actually I have to give my husband credit for this free find. On our morning walk, he spotted two weed wackers that were being thrown out. The former owner of these weedwalkers had even put post it notes on them describing what was wrong with them. My hubby felt like he could fix them (he is truly a Mr. Fix-It and can fix almost anything) so he picked them up and they are now in my carport. I had to laugh as he was carrying them home over his shoulder because he is always rolling his eyes if I spot something in the trash that I want. Hmmm....wonder if I can create something decorative with these weedwackers if he can't get them running???

So that is it for my free finds this week. See y'all next time!

I am linking to:

Cupcakes and Dominos

My sister and I are in a domino group that meets once a month to eat, gossip and play dominos. We call ourselves the Domino Divas. We take turns hosting and the host provides the entree and the rest of us bring side items or desserts.

My friend Ann hosted the group last night and served grilled shish kabobs. They were so yummy. I brought the salad and made a home-made Comeback dressing. I also took cupcakes that my husband had made. Whenever I am going to a gathering where I take food, he insists on baking something. Did I mention that he used to own a bakery? Yesterday he baked lime flavored cupcakes in ice cream cones. We topped them off with a cream cheese frosting, sprinkles and a cherry. Even though I hadn't volunteered to bring the dessert, they complimented the delicious peach sherbet that Bev made and were a big hit with the group!

This is what we started with....empty ice cream cones.


The filling of the cones....


The finished product....


Take care. I hope to post my thrifty (actually they were free) finds tomorrow.

Bird Feeder ReDo

Hi y'all. I have had this rusty bird feeder in my back yard for several years now. I was inspired to spray paint it with Rust-Oleum Hammered copper paint by a similar project on the My Backyard Eden blog. The can says it can be painted directly over rust so that is exactly what I did. The can also said to remove loose paint and rust with a brush or sandpaper before painting but I did not do that because I did not have a brush or sandpaper handy and I was ready to let the spraying begin. Let's just say the bird feeder has character (who really wants perfect...certainly not me). I also painted a wind spinner that had previously been purple. I forgot to take a before picture of it. I still have paint in the can so I am certain that I will find something else just dying to be painted copper.

Here are the before and after pictures of the bird feeder and the after picture of the wind spinner.




I am going to link this to:
The Shabby Chic Cottage

The Shabby Nest

Life is Just Beachy!

We just returned from our annual vacation to Gulf Shores, AL. At first I was reluctant to go because of the oil spill, but my husband convinced me we should go to support the local economy there. So we went and were not disappointed. The beaches were not closed and showed no sign of liquid oil. You could see small tar balls in the gulf water but they didn’t seem to be bothering the people who were swimming. Saw lots of pelicans (they did not appear to have oil on them) and there were lots of sting rays in the water. I assume they were coming closer in shore to avoid the oil. I don't ever remember seeing any sting rays before.

I love pelicans. No trip to the beach is complete without a pelican sighting.

The yellow flags were out so that meant you could get in the water even though they were discouraging it on the news and in the papers. Coast Guard helicopters were continually flying over the beach and there were large staging areas (big tents set up and all kinds of beach cleaning equipment.....large back hoes, etc.) all up and down the beach for the workers. I still enjoyed my early morning walks and walks at dusk on the shore line collecting shells and the time I spent just sitting on the balcony reading and drinking tea.

This is me chilling on the balcony of our condo.

On our last day there, it was a different situation. A storm during the night had blown the oil in and there was oil on the beach close to the water. There was a clean up crew out there by 7 a.m. Of course, this was all at Gulf Shores. Just down the road at Orange Beach and Perdido the condition was more serious. We rode down that way and you could see the boom out in the gulf and in the bay. The double red flags were flying which meant “do not get in the water”. It's a sad situation. There were hardly any tourists and it is usually packed this time of year.

Clean up crews working in the rain to clean the beach.

There were very few people on the beach in Gulf Shores so it was almost like having a private beach all to ourselves. One bright note though is that Jimmy Buffet and Kenny Chesney are having a free concert on the beach (tickets required though) on July 1 to promote tourism in the area. The clerk at our condo said almost all the rooms in town were already booked. Just tonight I saw on the news that Bob Riley, the governor of Alabama, is investigating how the 35,000 allotted tickets disappeared in five minutes time. There are going to be some disappointed Parrot Heads out there if they can’t get tickets.

Views from our condo showing the empty beach that is usually crowded this time of year.

We ate at Tacky Jacks in Orange Beach on Sunday night. That is where President Obama ate when he visited the area last week. We sat on the deck outside overlooking the marina and bay and listened to the live music. While eating, there was a Blue Angel fly over. Very cool.

So all things considered, we had a fun vacation. If you are considering a beach vacation this summer, please go regardless of the conditions and enjoy all the other attractions that are offered and please say a prayer for all those affected by this.

Deck Make-over

I am going to attempt to link for the first time ever. If I am successful, please be sure and check out the Between Naps on the Porch blog. It is one of my favorites and can be found at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/.

For the last ten years, we have had a hot tub in our backyard. The whole family enjoyed it on numerous occasions. Sadly, the heater and the pump went out and we found a crack in the hot tub. We made the decision not to repair and to extend our existing deck instead.

Here is a photo of our hot tub in it's glory:

Try to envision this tranquil scene without the ladder. Removal of it has been on my husband's honey do list for 10 years and guess what, that darn ladder is still there! You can catch a glimpse of it hidden behind a hibiscus in one of the after pictures below.

And here is a picture of the area after removal of the hot tub.

Now for the transformation:

I am on the lookout for a small outdoor rug and hope to eventually add a water feature. I hope you enjoyed my hot tub to deck transformation. A special shout out to my husband and sons for making it happen.

Until next time, have a Merry Metamorphosis!

Marlee

Donut run leads to garage sale finds

Hi, Welcome to my garage sale finds/donut post. For some reason (that couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that I don't have a clue what I am doing), I can't get these stubborn pictures to move. They are determined to stay up here at the top of the post. So take a look at the pics and then read the post below them if you are so inclined.

Well, here I go again. I have created two blogs in the past two years and have posted once (maybe twice - but who is counting?) to them. Guess I am just too busy reading all the wonderful blogs already out there. I feel a need to create something that I can call my own so I hope this will be it. So here goes. Hope you won't find it too boring.

I went on a donut run this morning under the selfless guise of purchasing donuts for my "starving can't find a thing to eat in the house" teenage son. I have to keep him happy because he is my technical guru and dishwasher loader. But of course you know what happened. I couldn't resist buying a lemon filled donut and a cinnamon roll for me. But that is not what this blog post is about. We are going to forget all about my shameless straying from my Weight Watchers Diet lifestyle change and concentrate on the real reason for this particular post.

I stopped at a garage sale along the way. It has been so long since I have been to one that I was just giddy when I saw it on my route to the donut shop (oh, I forgot that I am not going to talk about that). I bought a couple of 5 x 7 frames, a 4 x 6 frame and an aqua colored candle holder. The frames will come in handy because one of my sons just graduated from high school and I took lots of pictures and need lots of frames. I have placed the candle holder on a small table on my deck. I needed something that would still give me room to set my glass of wine sweet tea on the table while I am reading or just sitting there listening to the birds sing or watching the weeds grow. I had been looking for something for that spot and even though this candle holder isn't exactly what I want (not that I know what I want but I will know it when I see it), the price of 50 cents was very appealing and will make my husband very happy (I want to keep him happy too). Have you noticed yet that I am addicted to parenthesis (did I spell that correctly)?

So I spent a total of $2.75 for three frames and one candle holder. I am not going to include the cost of the donuts in the total spent (oh those pesky donuts just keep finding their way back into this post.....must be the guilt I am feeling). So here are the pictures of my purchases. Please excuse the glare. My photography skills are lackluster at best.

That’s it for today friends! I may get in over my head even more adventurous and try to link this to some parties. Hope I don’t shut Linky Land down in my attempt. Have a wonderful weekend!

Edited to add that I think I have figured out how to add this to a party. (I have also figured out how to move the pictures, but am too tired to do it tonight...will try to do better in the future.) I am linking (fingers crossed here) to the Southern Hospitality blog which is the first blog I ever read. You can find Rhoda's marvelous blog at http://southernhospitalityblog.com.

Marlee