Fertilizer Friday/ Flaunt Your Flowers Sept. 3/10

Before I begin this weeks flaunting party, I first want to apologize for not getting around to visit each and every one of you…especially those who link in each week. This week was especially difficult for us all in my house, as my oldest baby- Miss Poo (our beloved dog) passed away unexpectedly. I have spent the better part of my time consoling three very sad and confused children.

Second…I would like to thank you all for the heartfelt condolences that you shared with me as I posted with my broken heart the sad news. Without fail the blogging community came to my aid again and prayed for our healing, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Okay, with the intent of visiting everyone this week…LETS GET FLAUNTING!!!

Hello Bloggers/ Gardeners/ Friends!!!! It’s Friday again already and that means it’s time to flaunt our flowers, gardens and all things green!

Now if you are not familiar with the rules of this little party…here they are;

If it is spring or summer where you live, you need to snap a few photos of what you have growing, blooming or just love to look at that is of the plant variety…if it is winter where you live, you may post past favorite photos…or indoor plants…whatever you like. The only criteria is that it is a plant or something growing!

You do not need to use fertilizer to participate in this party, but if you do, this is the reminder to fertilize weekly!

Your post must include the logo above and a link to Tootise Time, or the linky will be deleted. I don’t mean to be harsh, but there have been a lot of people linking in and when the participants graciously click over to their blogs, there is no sign of Fertilizer Friday anywhere to be found. This is not fair to those who do follow the rules, therefore…well you know!

So? what are you waiting for? Get outside, feed, water, snap and post!

Today as I was wondering endlessly around my gardens looking for something new to share…I was noticing that the Dahlias were looking especially perky. At the same time I noticed how different each bloom was…and thought you guys might like to see some of them. I know my photos are nowhere near as wonderful as the ones my greenhouse sister Bren takes...but at least I try! ( I will be doing a post to introduce you to her very soon! I am so excited to share our new project that I can hardly contain myself! stay tuned!)

Rain, wind and cool weather, along with some frost has taken a bit of a toll on many of the blooms…but they are all beautiful none the less.

so cheery!

Grammie!!! this is your favorite one by the garage door.

this one screams innocence.

so simple…yet so pretty…and just about perfect! (almost looks fake!)

check out the little fame stealer…such a diva -this bee…the same one pops up in several photos…a few of which made it here today.

even not open all the way they are gorgeous.

love this color.

this one shimmers…

this looks soooo soft!

this one reminds me of a baby softness.

even though this dinner plate dahlia…is more like a miniature…it will be gorgeous when it opens all the way.

so intricate!

isn’t nature beautiful?

again..that DIVA! If I try to get a photo of a bee…I can’t..and when I don’t want him…there he is! MEN! ha-ha.

ha-ha mister bee….beat ya!

clusters of pretty dahlias all over my gardens

I love how the colors just blend into each other on this one…like Darla’s tie die t-shirts. have you seen her gardens??? oh well if not…click her name to visit…you won’t be disappointed.

I wonder if Larry grows lots of different dahlias…and if so…does he create new types?….another place you have got to see!!!

And the last for today…the color of sunset just beginning, and the beginning of the fall season.

I hope you enjoyed your visit today, and that you will link up to flaunt with me this week. Again…I do intend to do my very best to get all the way around this week. It kills me that I have not visited…especially when you are so kind to stop in and say hi to me!

Hugs and smiles along with wishes for a safe and happy weekend to you all…until next week…Bye!

and to my three very special winks…thank you ever so much for stopping by so faithfully and so often (you know who YOU are!) *) *) *)

(¯`v´¯)
`*.¸.*´Tootsie
¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•.

A Sad Goodbye

It is with a broken heart that I write this post.  The tears won’t stop, and the memories are flooding in.

Today is a difficult day in my house.  Today we said goodbye to a member of our family.  Miss Poo turned 12 on the 23rd of August.  She was my oldest baby.  I have had her since she was just a few weeks old…been through thick, thin, good bad and lots of love with her. 

She is a pure bred Sheba Inu.  She is loving and silly and gentle.  One of the brightest dogs I have ever seen, she could even spell the words ‘walk’ and ‘bath’.  She will be very sadly missed in our house forever, but fondly remembered always.

If you would please pray for my children to heal from this loss, it would be appreciated.

Lots of Love Miss Poo…we miss you already.

Fertilizer Friday/ Flaunt Your Flowers August 27/10

Hello Bloggers/ Gardeners/ Friends!!!! It’s Friday again already and that means it’s time to flaunt our flowers, gardens and all things green!

Now if you are not familiar with the rules of this little party…here they are;

If it is spring or summer where you live, you need to snap a few photos of what you have growing, blooming or just love to look at that is of the plant variety…if it is winter where you live, you may post past favorite photos…or indoor plants…whatever you like. The only criteria is that it is a plant or something growing!

You do not need to use fertilizer to participate in this party, but if you do, this is the reminder to fertilize weekly!

Your post must include the logo above and a link to Tootise Time, or the linky will be deleted. I don’t mean to be harsh, but there have been a lot of people linking in and when the participants graciously click over to their blogs, there is no sign of Fertilizer Friday anywhere to be found. This is not fair to those who do follow the rules, therefore…well you know!

So? what are you waiting for? Get outside, feed, water, snap and post!

This week I am sharing more of the same…only bigger plants…lets take a look…

My Hydrangea bed….I shared the huge blooms a few weeks back…but…

it got bigger!!! almost the same size as my son’s pro-size basketball!!! I love it!!! IT IS A MIRACLE FOR ME!!! I usually kill Hydrangea within days of owning them…hahaha (yea me!)

My front yard. The new wavy bed along the sidewalk is FULL. The Cottoneaster plants are still there…and growing nicely…you just can’t see them for all the other stuff! (please ignore the weeds in there-been a busy hockey mom this week)

This is the first bed I ever used perennials in…made it last summer. It is filling in nicely…I am considering pulling the annuals that I added for fillers out.

A little closer view of the bed…

…and a spotlight on these cute little blooms…I love it.

My Engleman’s Ivy is in need of some trimming…it has gone mental this year!!! You can barely fit up the steps! I LOVE IT!!!!

I just love how the Crystal Palace Lobelia POPs in the garden…I wish I had a camera (or the skills ) to capture the true effect of the color…

Sweet Potato vine in the metal purse is doing nicely!

West side of the back yard…the two beds against the fence have been “thinned” which means Tootsie got ticked at the columbine…and ripped it out…It was looking awful…so half of each bed (at the back) is empty! But ya can’t tell from here…so it’s all good! haha

little closer look at the newest area…the table and chairs…I think I am going to “grout” this in with sand this fall…maybe…no …ya I will…Oh I just can’t decide…! Haven’t decided for sure yet! hows that for undecided gardening??? haha

My header bed. I am a little disappointed in this bed this year. I just need to suck it up and plant the same things I did that year that I got the most beautiful photo, that I use as my header shot. I always try to “top” myself….and that photo is a hard act to follow. This looks pretty tho…

…I like to look at it every time I go to the back door…or sit in the sunroom. It is a great shape too…

My barn-board birdhouse bench…very full…that big Dahlia on the right…is supposed to be a dinner plate dahlia….I am really pissed oops I mean peaved that I got ripped off…not one of the dinner plate dahlia’s have produced a bloom bigger than 5 inches…what a rip off!!!

Rudbeckia Chocolate Orange I love these blooms…except that they bloom when summer is almost over…and FALL has started to move in…Yes Gardeners…I SAID THE 'F’ WORD!!!

My bed filled with “olden junk” and rocks is FULL. I might even have to thin it a little…hahaha (yea me!)

The shade beds are doing okay…except for the slugs that are kicking the crap out of the hostas. I hate them!!! (ignore the weeds in here too)

And a final shot…of my yard from the back gate. I wish you could all come visit…as you can see…there’s lots of room for you all! haha. Until then, I’ll just keep enjoying the friends and family that stop by all the time!

Well---that’s a few of the 80+ photos I took for this post today…haha. I figure you need to look at some of the other fantastic gardens from all over the world that link in to Fertilizer Fridays!

Until next time…Thank you to all of the gardeners that link in to Fertilizer Fridays. I love to visit your gardens! Big hugs and smiles to those who just choose to visit and comment so sweetly each time I post, ( I am still trying to make it around to you all for a visit to your blogs…I miss you all) I wish you all a safe and happy weekend.

I’d also like to thank my three special winks for stopping by so faithfully and so often…and to one of those winks in particular….’You’re very welcome!’ *) (you don’t need to thank me) (you know who YOU are!) *) *) *) MWUAH!

(¯`v´¯)
`*.¸.*´Tootsie
¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•.

The “Toots-if-ication” of a Fireplace.

A while back I posted that I went to my parent’s farm and did a little junkin’. I did show you the sheds and the yard…but I didn’t show you the junk I got. Why? - well funny you should ask…It’s because I wanted to wait to share the before and the after of the junk…showing the before would have made you just shake your heads and wonder if I had lost my mind…ha-ha

Remember I shared a few of the little sheds out at the farm? This one is the shed I will focus my attention on today.

AHHHHH….a gold mine!!! In this shed there are about a million things I would love to get my hands on…for some …looking at this sight is cause for anxiety or worse…but to others (including me) this is inspiration unlimited!

Just look at all those projects! I am going to show you my haul…and what happened to it all.

Yes!!! This is an old firebox out of the old house. It is over 100 years old….and it is mine now!

I dug it out…

and gave it a bit of a paint job.

Then….

I also brought home the mantle from the fireplace of the same old house. Here is the original look….

It wasn’t in the best shape….paint drips and damage all over the place made it a treasure in disguise…

They would not come off easily…so I had my work cut out for me.

I liked the shape of it…but the way the stain had aged…It needed a bit of work. So I sanded most of it down slightly and just touched it up a little bit…”Tootsie style”

I made it sort of match the dining room table and chairs that I just finished…because it is going to be in the very next room…I did not touch the very middle section there that appears so dark in this photo…I wanted to leave some of the original patina showing.

Then…I busted the firebox!

Yes….yes I did. I broke it into several pieces by accident! ha-ha. So…I had to use some JB Weld to put it back together.

I had quite a bit of alteration to do to the firebox in order to make this project work. I had to use my angle grinder and three metal grinding discs to grind out the entire back part of this piece.

It is not the prettiest looking job….but it doesn’t matter…it won’t be seen anyways.

I made a platform and side plates to go around the firebox and a top to make the mantle fill a corner.

I didn’t have any tiles kicking around…but I did have some embossed wall paper….good enough!

I put the wall paper all the way around the outer edges of the surround to make it look like tiles…

Painted the embossed wall paper…

Put a nice coat of stone effects spray paint on the firebox….and then waited ( for what felt like years) for the paint to dry.

When it was dry enough to handle…I put it inside the mantle and surround that I had built. It FIT!!! (thank Goodness…I can’t imagine the fit I would have had if it had not…I worked my butt off to design this thing! ha-ha)

Next!!! The ELECTRIC fireplace insert that I had in the garage….

This insert is the reason for all the grinding on the inside of the firebox. Cast iron is a nasty thing to grind too…by the way. But…the fit is perfect now!!!

Plug it in and take a test run! This is going to be the heat for the sunroom over the cold winter months. I figure it will be a more attractive solution than the little space heater I have used in past years….I like it!

NEXT!!! I pulled a whole bunch of these heating grates out of the shed…my they are also over 100 years old…they came from the old house too…

I was soooo surprised to see how pretty they are after they had the rust removed and were cleaned up….I thought I’d use them to accessorize with…

Ta-DA!!!! I accessorized my little heart out! See how lovely the grates are?

How about a few more shots?

I put the little chairs that I made earlier this year on each side…I think they suit it nicely. I built a little thing for the floor in front of the fireplace…to give it a sense of authenticity, added a couple little logs (also from the farm…ha-ha) and I think I am done!

A shot in the evening…(ignore the cord in the floor there…I had a fan helping cure the paint a little more…

And that is how the fireplace in my house came to be!

The whole thing is portable…can be moved anywhere if I want to…and the best part? IT IS ALL MADE BY HAND…BY ME!

Wait till you see the rest of my haul that trip….I just need to find time. Having lots of company, hockey school, back to school shopping, and a few other things are keeping me off the computer and on the go lately.

This week is going to be very hectic in my house…and probably very stressful…bear with me…I’m working on getting around to visit.

Until next we meet….hugs and smiles!!!- and to those three who just can’t get me off their minds….who admire and miss me when I’m not with them…winks!!! *) *) *) (you know who you are)

(¯`v´¯)
`*.¸.*´Tootsie
¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•.

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