Long time since I've done decoupage but anyone burning anything on edges hold it over the kitchen sink if it flares up you have water on hand!! Can see some newbies getting in trouble here!! Want everyone to be safe!! I recently made cookies & the wax paper was about 8 in. from stove,I had put the cookies away but had some others to frost. I put water in a pan & turned on gas stove, that wax paper shot over & flames were going above the stove hood, I dumped the water I had just put on stove on it to get it out. I had had waxed paper there a thousand times over the yrs. Don't know what caused it to "creep" to heat & was really scarey. We don't know what they are putting in things these days so use the sink!! Jan

The answer is, it depends. If your pond runs warm, more plants will help keep it cool. If your pond runs cool, like mine, you have to be careful not to over plant it. Even in extended 100+ heat my pond won't get over 73 degrees. If you are having an algae problem let the plants cover more of the pond. If you have a problem with predators, like herons, a little extra cover will give fish better hiding places. You can let your pond become almost completely covered without harming the fish, but you won't ever see them. If you have hyacinths, you will almost certainly have to remove some of them at some point, or they will totally cover your pond. If your pond isn't too warm, and algae isn't a big problem, remove as many as you want so you can see your fish.

I ordered the sample cabinet in walnut (with varnish) as well as sample doors in cherry and QS oak. They are really lovely, although for my purposes the cherry and oak are too light without a stain. I had thought someone already posted a photo of the walnut but if anyone is interested I'm happy to do it. I'm not remotely handy, but my kitchen is small and I figure if I'm capable of doing Ikea assembly, then I should at least take a shot at something with similar requirements but what has to be higher quality. All the real work on our kitchen will be done by professionals, but I've got to keep the costs reasonable, and Barker seems like a huge win-win in that respect.

DH and I saw this series, by an artist named Patrick Bastardoz, at a gallery in Paris and fell in love. We bought one painting of the series. I grew up in an industrial city in the Midwest, he grew up in Glasgow, and this reminded us both of the rusting waterfront areas of our respective cities in the late 70s through mid-80s, before each city underwent a revival. The second piece was a wedding gift from a friend. The artist, Peter Howson, did a disturbing series of ink drawings from his time in Bosnia during the war. I saw this one in a Glasgow gallery and couldn't stop thinking about it. And on a much lighter note, we saw this installation at a gallery in New Orleans in February, and I'm still trying to convince DH that we need a few balloons, badly, in our living area (they're larger than they appear in this photo, each about 8-12" long): This post was edited by zeebee on Tue, Oct 22, 13 at 14:18