House Tour: Gravel Patio

The gravel patio was one of the first projects I took on this summer.  We had a corner of our yard that was a little scary.  There were piles of leaves, weeds, and a lot ugly bugs!  I've been working on cleaning up the area since we've been married, but this year I finally had a vision for what the space could be.  After doing some research on Pinterest, or course, I decided to turn it into a gravel patio where we could have a fire pit.

I added some potted plants for color.

I love plants with interesting foliage.  Coleus is one of my favorites for adding to summer pots.  I also have some impatiens, caladium, and asparagus fern.  Caladium has a tuber.  I'm going to try to dig it up and save it over the winter.  I'll try to overwinter my asparagus fern too.  

Here I have a different variety of calladium with an ornamental perennial grass.  I'll stick him in the ground over the winter.  I have a spider plant with a fuchsia.

I just love the bright pink, bell-like flowers of the fuchsia.  I wish it were a perennial.  Larissa tells me I can save it over the winter.

These adirondack chairs are a great place to enjoy the fire!

I created this chandelier out of a hanging plant basket and some beads.  I spray painted them a pretty turquoise color.  The inspiration came from this website. I left it a little more open so I can add a tap light to the chandelier when it gets dark outside.

I hope you enjoyed the little tour!  Let me know what you think in the comments!

Linking up with: DIY By Design

Larissa's Garden

Last week I had the opportunity to briefly visit my sister.  When I say brief, I mean that I was at her house a total of about 12 hours.  In what little time I spent there, I knew I needed to take some pictures of her lovely garden to share with you!

Check out her limelight hydrangea.  It looks gorgeous.  I was thinking of getting a few, but I think this variety is a little too big for the space I need to fill.

Her shade garden looks great.  I would love to have a shade garden but I don't have the patience to cut through tree roots.

Larissa's dahlia's are beautiful.  She really take a lot of pride in them, and it shows.  They are one of her favorite flowers.

I call this her kitchen garden.  She has herbs, lettuce, and tomatoes.

Her hanging baskets are gorgeous, too.  I love the fuchsia in this basket.  She gave me a small fuchsia that I have in my a pot on my patio.

Here's a shot of the front of her house.  It's a cute little Cape Cod.

Thanks for letting me share your garden!  It looks beautiful as usual!

House Tour: Porch

Hello!  I hope you are having a fabulous week.  We had some rough weather at the beginning of the week, but today is absolutely gorgeous.  Today I'm going to begin to share our outdoor space with you.  I've decided to break it up into a few posts and the first is the porch.  It's not really a porch.  It's a breezeway that we've taken full advantage of.

I picked up this faux wicker loveseat at JC Penney last year.  It was seriously discounted.  I think it was a leftover from the previous year, and it's just the right size for this small space.  The garden stools came from Ross, as did the rug.  The rug is not an outdoor rug.  The area is covered so the rug is fine, but I think I'll go for an outdoor rug next time.

We store our grill in the breezeway, and roll it out when we cook.  The wire chairs came from my favorite local antique shop and I spray painted them mint green.  The side table came from another vintage shop.

The rattan hanging light also came from The Antique Marketplace in Lemoyne.

Potted plants are a great accessory to any outdoor space.  I love coleus.  I have two varieties here, as well as some impatients, oxalis, and a fern.

This wind chime is the newest addition to the porch.  I love that it hangs right outside the kitchen.  I can open a window to let some fresh air in and listen to the sound of it as it blows in the breeze.

What do you think?  Do you have a shady outdoor space you can enjoy?

Linking up: Suburbs Mama, The Tablescaper, Flamingo Toes, Nifty Thrifty Things, DIY by Design

A Syncopated Wedding Part IV: The Details

Hello!  Sorry for the delay in posting.  I've been busy not doing much of anything except relaxing and trying to soak up every last bit of summer.  I hope you've been doing the same.  I know we've moved into a new month, but I'm back to share the last details of our wedding two years ago.  First up is the cakes!  My favorite part.  I decided to go with 5 different flavored cakes.  They were made by a local woman who bakes them in her home.  They were even better than I thought they would be!

Our two-tiered cake was vanilla cake with a raspberry filling and buttercream icing.  My dad made the wooden stands.  The clay, bird cake toppers are from a seller on Etsy.

We had labels for each cake.  Our guests went through the line like a buffet.  We made sure to have enough cake so that guests could try all of the different flavors.

Weird faces.  We were eating cake!

The wedding party.  My sisters were my matrons of honor, and my niece was my flower girl.  Mark chose his brother to be his best man and his good friend as a groomsman.  Our ring bearer was my husband's nephew.  The men wore gray suits with pinstripes.  The ladies wore short, plum-colored dresses.

Our get-away car was a Pontiac Firebird.  It's owned by a friend of the family who graciously agreed to clean her up for our big day.  It was a sweet ride!

We decorated the tent with Japanese lanterns.  I ordered gold chargers from The Christmas Tree Shop.  That's where I found the best deal.  I think the chargers made the tables look just a little bit more formal.  Our favors were handmade soaps made in my hometown.  The boxes were tied with a raffia ribbon.  There was a "thank you" tag with our signature mum clip art coordinated with the wedding stationery.  

My sister made this banner to hang on the head table.  We added some wooden stands with candles, and orchids are strewn around the table for color.

We used an old ladder to hang the place cards.  Since we had a small wedding, I didn't think it was necessary to have a place card for each person.  We had one card for each table.

I think that just about covers it.  Thanks for tuning in for all of these details.  I hope you've enjoyed the look into our big day.

A Syncopated Wedding Part I: Wedding Flowers

Today we enter the month of July.  It is not particularly hot here in Central PA, but it is so humid.  I guess it's going to stick around for a few days, so I better get used to it!  July is the month that I got married!  On July 16 it will be two years.  To celebrate, I'll be sharing some of the details of my wedding throughout the month.

First I'm going to highlight the wedding flowers. I ordered all of the flowers in bulk from Sams Club.  They came on a Thursday in boxes.  It took me about two hours to get all of the flowers out of the boxes, give the stems a fresh cut and put them in water.  On Friday, my sister and a friend arranged all of the flowers.  They worked really hard all day, and the flowers looked beautiful.

Ordering the flowers in bulk is a great option if you want to arrange the flowers yourself or if you have someone to do that for you.  We had so many flowers.  When my sister was finished with the bridal flowers, she just started looking for any vases we had in the house to put flowers in.  We didn't want to waste any.

The picture above is my bouquet.  It has blue hydrangeas, orchids, delphinium, lavender roses, white roses, gooseneck loosestrife, purple tulips, and dark purple calla lilies.  I loved my bouquet.  Another great tip is to check your local grocery stores in the weeks before the wedding.  I noticed that my local store was carrying calla lilies, so I bought a small bunch for my bouquet to make it a little more special.  I bought some filler greenery at the grocery store too.

This is the bridesmaid bouquet.  It was similar to mine, but slightly smaller.  I think the eucalyptus.  really set the bridesmaid bouquets apart from the bridal bouquet.

We had enough flowers for the arrangements at the front of the church and all of the windows in the church.

Since we were doing so much with the other flowers in the wedding, I wanted to keep the centerpieces simple.  They consisted of three vases with stones at the bottom, one orchid in each one and a floating candle on the top.

Did you DIY anything for your wedding?  I'd love to hear about it.  Leave it in the comments below.  I'll be sharing more details as the month goes on.  I hope you'll check back!

Special thanks to my sisters and sister-in-law for taking all of these pictures on the big day!