Terra Cotta Brick Address

After spending hours and hours and weekends and weekends picking up the sticks and branches that blanketed our little acreage all winter, I stole a little time this past Saturday to start planting flowers.  One of the ideas I've come across over and over again in blogland, is numbered flower pots that display your address.  I loved the idea and knew I could do it, what I didn't know was how difficult it would be to find four flower pots to work with!  So, I improvised.

I found some old terra cotta bricks laying around with nothing better to do and decided they would work just fine. The old cart I planned to display them on was not level, so I knew I needed to mark them where they would sit to make sure the numbers would be straight.  The next obstacle was finding a piece of chalk to mark the bricks.  You'd think with all these kids running around here I'd be able to find one little piece of chalk.  No such luck!  But, guess what?  Pepto Bismol tablets work just as well : )

I made the numbers by cutting them out of card stock with my Silhouette Craft Cutter and simply traced around them with a pencil - being very careful to line them up on my Pepto Bismol lines, of course!  Then I painted the numbers with Plaid Outdoor Acrylic paint.  One coat is all it took and it was amazingly easy to accomplish.

The bricks are a foot tall, a bit much for filling with potting soil, so I gathered a few misplaced rocks from the lawn and filled each one about half full before adding the soil and finally the plants.

When all was said and done, I was pleased with the way it all worked out!

Don't you just love the old cart?  Absolutely everything in this picture was found out here... and there's plenty more to be found and put to good use!  I'm just lovin' how the flowers are working with all the old junk!

A large old bottomless pail, some chicken wire to form a basket, rusty old cable wire to secure it all and some leftover coconut fiber liner made a perfect home for these beauties.  I'm lovin' it... so much I'm sharing it on Donna's Funky Junk Saturday Night Special!  

Be sure to hop over there and see the magnificent display of talent!   

Paper Flowers So Easy A Caveman & Coleen Can Do It

Finally.  Easy paper flowers.

Materials:  Old Book + Paint or Permanent Marker + Ruler + Floral Wire

(or Farm Wire like I used) + Floral Tape & Florist's Foam.

Start by either painting (or coloring with permanent marker) the edges of a few pages of an old book.

Rip out a page.  Rip it in half lengthwise for tulip type flowers.  

For smaller flowers, rip the page into four pieces lengthwise.

Fold the strips accordian style and tape or glue the ends together.

Pinch the folds together (make sure it's not the gilded edge) and press down to flatten it out.

Glue the bottom side, flip over and glue a button in the center and you have a flower!

For the tulip type flowers, cut a thin strip of colored paper, roll each end with a toothpick and

pinch it somewhere near the middle to make a pistil.

After that it's a simple matter of taping your flower to a piece of wire and 

wrapping it with green floral tape.

Then you can put your new flowers in an old vase you forgot you had.

A couple of helpful hints.  Glue the florist's foam to your vase if possible.

The thicker the paper the better.  The ones I used were so thin that they didn't form well.

Thicker paper makes prettier flowers.  I added one made from a piece of cardstock to my bouquet.

Of course you'll want to spend oodles and oodles of time posing and positioning your new project too.  Mine's on the mantle, hence the old fireplace bellow behind my Willow Tree angel.

And I just love the edges of that old Bible Dictionary!  Aren't they pretty?