Faux Goodness

I found the prettiest fake green hydrangeas at a local nursery/garden shop. I am proudly displaying my faux finds in the foyer. The candles are overkill, right? Sometimes things look much clearer on a photo than they do in person. I'm moving them!This was my cat this morning, schlumped down over a pillow snoozing in the sun. My cat comes up with the weirdest sleeping positions. My favorite is when she sleeps with her whole face smack down against the floor. She is not a normal cat, probably mostly because she does not see very well. I was amazed today to watch her catch a fly in her paws and eat it, mainly because she can't get off a chair without leaping into the wall face first. I think her many head impact incidents have left her slightly loopy.
Hope you are having a nice weekend!

And now for something completely different....

Living with my kids can be pretty interesting. Last night, they hosted a Harry Potter premier party at my house for about a dozen friends, after which we all went to the midnight opening of the movie. My house was taken over for about 30 hours, from initial preparation til the last straggler left early this evening.
My youngest daughter Danielle, on the left, and her friend Marisa became "house elves" and whipped up "Cauldron Cakes", "Pumpkins Pasties" and "Butterbeer" in my kitchen. They did a nice job presenting the refreshments, behind which are prizes for the games and costumes:
One of their guests brought these cute "owl-face" cookies.
Friends dressed up for the party - Narcissa and her slimy son Draco Malfoy:
The colorful Tonks and Luna Lovegood:

My older daughters, Amanda and Stephanie, with a somewhat less dramatic interpretation of "costumes", in line for the movie. Will my comfy place ever recover? Well, I lost 3 faux-mercury glass pieces due to a shelf crash during the decorating, which did not make me very happy, but I can't blame the girls because I could have done a better job hanging the shelf in the first place. It took me over an hour to do all the dishes, but now everything is just about back to normal, so I can relax and be glad Harry Potter won't be back til next year. Happy Thursday everyone!

Crazy Plants

My plants are all going crazy with the mild weather we have been having here this summer. This hibiscus was not loving all the rain we had, but now that we're getting some sunny days, it's blooming like mad.
I have no idea what this purple flower is, but I like it. I have a huge pot of it on my deck.
My black eyed susan vine in it's ever-expanding glory. I have to watch it because it keeps trying to make "friends" with all the other plants nearby. It's tried to choke every one of its neighbors. Maybe the Latin name for this should be "strangulata". Ok, I know nothing about Latin, for all I know that means something dirty, so I apologize in advance if it's offensive.
This one reminds me of a big church hat.
The double petunia is even starting to look sort of nice. I picked this out for the color combination, and finally the purple flowers have come back after a long absence. The orange and pink look better together when the purple is there too. I love the little lantern hanging down, though I haven't even lit it yet this year.
Here is the mini garden I planted out front. It's sideways and I don't know how to turn it... but you get the idea. I love the little red Gerbera daisies, but the rabbits keep coming by and munching them off. Then they just leave them lay. I guess they are not as tasty as they look.
The New Guinea Impatien and some mini wave petunias are trying to hide the gas line. It's a valiant attempt, but would take a large bush to accomplish.
I'm back to work tomorrow and will be looking at this every day, it's the view from my desk chair. It may not be a spectacular view, but it brightens my day. Have a great week everyone!

Flowers

Some of my flowers are loving all the rain we've had in our area, and some not so much. This planter, which I saw outside a grocery store a couple weeks ago while I was driving by and pulled over for, is blooming with these beautiful veined flowers.

Last week I had an Open House party, and one of my friends brought me flowers. These are a week old and still so beautiful I had to take some photos:

I love daisies!
There are loads of different kinds of flowers in here.





Out on my deck, my little black-eyed Susan vine is becoming attached to my plant stand. See it twisting around the back? This happened within a day, while I wasn't looking. Sneaky plant.

It's really got itself attached pretty good.

I guess it just wants a good grip in case of wind. It's growing like mad:

I hope I can get one of these every year, I just love it!

Met Monday - Foyer Transformation

I'm participating in Metamorphosis Monday, hosted by Susan from betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com.

Here is the first room of my house that I completely finished, my foyer. The day I moved in (3/20/09), it was builder white:

A couple weeks ago, I painted it "Friendly Yellow":


Last, I hung pictures, gathered a collection of blue and white dishes and accent pieces, added plants and an entry rug, and it's done:




I was so happy with this I did both bathrooms too. I'll save them for later. Happy Met Monday everyone!

Getting ready for a party

Tomorrow I'm having an Open House, so I broke down and bought inexpensive wicker furniture for my sunroom. My current intentions are to move this out to my future patio (hopefully next year, but who knows...), and get "real" furniture in this room. For now, I think it's acceptable. It came with heinous orange palm tree cushions, which I promptly replaced with these sage green paisley ones.


My deck flowers are looking good, all the rain made them a little spotty, but the sun today and tomorrow will help perk them up. I don't think I'll ever buy the double petunias (the pink ones) again though, they are a little too sticky and slimy when you pinch the dead blooms off. See how nicely the black-eyed susan vine is growing?

I got this white plastic tablecloth from K-Mart's Martha Stewart line. It has a pretty lacy pattern on it, which you can't see here. I feel like I need to layer something over it, but that's not practical with all the rain we've been getting.

Lastly, I have been really sensitive to the fake flower issue, and I try to avoid using them, really I do. However, these are pretty nice fakes, and I can't resist them.


Have a nice weekend!

A lot of work...

I've been metamorphing again, but this is a bigger morph than is usually my style. I will show the whole deal for Met Monday, but here is a sneak peek. I am very proud of this photo, because during my move, the mirror in the back of this piece was broken. I finally replaced it, which was a bit pricey and a lot of hard work and anxiety, but it's now good as new just in time for my Open House on Saturday. This is in my foyer, which you can see I've painted "Friendly Yellow". I've been very very busy with many other projects as well, so I'll have some stuff to blog about!