Dang looked at your "My Page" We are both in Idaho. Bring them to me. I need some thing to hold up my farm gate. LOLJoking of course. But we are even in the same zone in ID. I am in Midvale. Close to Weiser. I have never done this so I really do not know how hard it would be. I was thinking drill a hole in bottom of wine bottles and thread them up the interior wires. Well I know they are not wire but I can not think of the word for it. Then just let them be sparkly pillars in your garden. Blue bottles would be gorgeous if you have some. Maybe some thing on the top. Big glass fish bowl topper. OH A light would be wonderful in this too. Not sure how you would keep them from falling over. Some thing in the ground. Small cement foundation?? Very cool things.

Fishing line. Well just duh! (color me stupid). I use fishing line for EVERYthing, and ESPECIALLY in the yard. Many moons ago, I made a candelier (as opposed to chandelier) from an inverted wire planter. The instructions called for wire to string beads, which I had on hand. I mindlessly followed the instructions & used wire. *Mindlessly* being the key word here *sigh* My chandy didn't last long even though it was under the carport somewhat protected from the weather:( Dunno what I was thinking...oh wait...I WASN'T! Thanks, jlily for triggering the face palm, lol. You just provided me with my weekend project. I'm off to dig out my bead supply now.. blessings, ~digger

I did like The Holiday. I watched it again yesterday while DH napped. He'll watch chick flicks, but he makes stupid comments all thru them so I'd just as soon watch them by myself. Good idea to bring along a few extra things in case people want them which I'm sure they will. They are right, you are an excellent painter. You are your own worst critic. :) When are you leaving? We changed our plans up a little and will be leaving on Thursday for our long weekend getaway. The kids are pretty excited for the swimming mostly. I got a cow painted!, but need to cut off one little part that I don't like with the saw. Then I can sand it, touch it up and seal it. I combined one of your patterns with a sheep that Sal had done on crafts that I liked. I like the way it turned out. Have two little garden angels I need to finish up. Had some rusty metal hearts I was going to use for the wings on one and now I don't know what I did with them. Have to look thru my stash to see if I can find those and finish her up today. Have a big long shelf I need to give another coat of paint and seal so I can put it up on my newly painted wall and get the pictures and things hung back up. Have a shelf and a knob hanger I need to put a coat of sealer on so I can put those up in the girls room. DD may want something painted on the one, but she hasn't decided what yet. Those are my finish up projects. My starter projects are to paint a small gun rack to hold my g-grandpas canes instead of guns, paint a picture frame so I can hang up an oil painting that DH did when he was in high school of a swamp scene and another shelf to paint for my bedroom, but those are just black. As DH says I've been on a black kick for the past year or so. ha Found a graphic online that I want to try to duplicate on some burner covers for my stove. Don't know if it was in any of the TS find pics, but I found another little block wagon that I need to find a pattern for, but that's a Christmas project. I guess it's about time to start planning some fall projects too. I have quite a few things stashed. Turkeys, scarecrows, pilgrims, and various small leaves and pies for hangers I've been saving up to paint. Need to start a little earlier this year so it doesn't sneak up on me like usual and I end up not adding to that seasons decorations. Since I got the silicone and it worked so well I've been trying to find some pieces for my own little totem. Yea, I'm the last one on the wagon. ha Our bouncy horse finally bit the dust and I convinced DH to save the horse for me to put on a pole. Don't know if I want to paint it pretty colors or just spray it with the stone spraypaint. I'm kind of leaning toward the stone look. Waiting for him to have time to drill the holes in it and affix it to a pole. Sorry for the long litany of projects, but I was kind of typing out loud. ha Are you thinking ahead yet to any future projects?

Love your story! I am a gardenaholic. I can't get enough of gardening. My love of gardening took off one summer when I had just moved in with my then boyfriend (now DH). His mother had a house that she'd converted into two apartments - she lived in the downstairs and we rented the upstairs. The deal was that we would put the money and time/energy into renovating the upstairs apartment to make it more appealing to decent renters. DH's mother hated me. Loathed me. It was a shock to everyone that she agreed to let me live under her roof. One day while eating supper, I asked her if I could start a garden in her back yard. She glanced up at me quickly and said "fine" and added that she would show me where I could have a garden. The next day we walked out to the back yard which was overgrown and neglected for many years, due to MIL's failing health. She directed me to a spot at the very back of the property. She pointed out the parameters of the spot that I could garden. It was about 2 feet square and taken completely over by wild roses. In return for the space, she asked if I could please till a larger spot - about 5 feet square - for her to plant a few vegetables. The spot that she chose for her vegetable garden was, of course, free of thorny roses. I agreed. Every day after work I came home and tilled and ammended the soil. It felt so great to have my hands in the earth and to exert so much energy - I found that the stress of living in a house that was owned by a woman who hated me melted away with every turn of the pitchfork. Before I knew it, I had half of the back yard tilled up and ready for planting. MIL wasn't angry that I had exceeded my alloted 2 square feet - she was just excited to plant some vegetables. When my co-workers, all avid gardeners, heard of my new garden-in-planning, they all brought in divisions of their perennials. Soon enough I had a pretty decent garden going with a winding path through it. I cared for that garden like I have never cared for anything in my life, and it showed - I had the most lush, full garden. MIL was ecstatic, and every time she had a visitor she took them for a stroll through the garden. MIL never did use her spot, as her health didn't enable her to bend and plant, so I planted some vegetables in among some flowers. To my surprise, I loved growing vegetables. The garden became a place that we could both enjoy...common ground. When we bought the house that we now live in, the yard had been neglected - overgrown evergreen shrubs out front, lawns that hadn't been mowed, according to the neighbors, in years. I have been slowly but surely ripping out overgrown shrubs and re-planting, starting new gardens, and doing my best to reduce the size of the lawn. I love gardening not only because I enjoy how it looks after all of the hard work, but because I enjoy the feeling of digging with my hands into the soil, hearing the birds around me as I work, and feeling the stress of life melting away. I live on the east coast - zone 5 (hence my name, ValZone5). Our summers are painfully short. Winters painfully long. It's cruel, really. But the upside is that I can grow peonies, something which my friend who lives in CA can't grow. That's really the only thing that makes me feel better, LOL! Winter is a time to do things indoors - paint, hang pictures & curtains, etc. Come spring, once it's possible at all to dig in the dirt, I am out of this house and decorating comes dead last on my list of priorities. OK, well maybe housework comes dead last. We have lots of windows in our house, and the house is oriented perfectly. The sun rises at the back of the house, where the kitchen is. I need the sun to get me going, so it's nice to have it coming through the windows in the morning while making breakfast. I have windchimes hanging from tree branches in the back yard, and the sound of them makes me smile. The sun sets in the front of the house, where the living room and dining room are. These are the rooms that we use in the evening, so it is nice to be able to enjoy the setting sun. I just planted a tree to partly shade the dining room as it matures. When sitting in the living room we can look out and see birds at the feeder (they are going through the niger seed like CRAZY lately!). I want to put a little birdbath out there so I can watch them play. My future plans are to have several little secret gardens, and spots that one can sit and unwind/meditate, but I have a pretty small yard, so I think that my dreams are bigger than my reality. Right now I have a 3 year old, so my yard is home to a pool, sandbox, and soon a swing-set. Oh, and I too hide plants!! LOL! DH eventually notices a new plant, so I tell him that it was on sale. Somehow if it was on sale, that makes it better :O) WOW this turned into a long post!!