Creating your own mix is a lot of fun. I usually collect most of my seed, but still end up purchasing a few odds and ends that I can't grow or collect enough of. There is a wild variety of Lupine! I encourage you to buy and plant many. They do require a well-drained soil that is typically sandy in nature, but as long as it is well-drained you should be just fine. They spread prolifically by ejecting their seeds from the pods. In the future you will be able to collect the dark pods before they pop if you want to choose where you'd like them to go. Mixes do contain a lot of filler plants, so designing your own may be best. Make sure to include some type of grass though. Without grasses your project will turn into a weedy mess in years to come and you will just want to start over. I'd recommend little bluestem since it is pretty tidy and isn't too aggressive. Plus it's short so you'll be able to see your flowers. As for flower recommendations, you can purchase purple coneflower, black-eyed susan, and annual phlox for very little money. Yellow coneflower is also very inexpensive and simple to grow and maintain. I would highly recommend planting some Butterfly Milkweed seed though. "Butterflyweed" is a must in a wildflower garden and I'm sure that if you do a simple Google image search you'll agree. I recently planted another new prairie myself and you may find some inspiration in my project. Here is a link that might be useful: Improved Ecosystems

The first thing that i would do is go to the library and get some books out on topiary, i found an excellent book by Garden Art Press called Creating Topiary. Fantastic, step by step many shapes, techniques and how did they do that. Also some of the best topiary photos dating back to the 1700's. I have made an ivy ball, using two wire half pots, you hang one pot right way up and the other upside down and place the plants in it poking the ivy through the gaps having the root balls in the centre of the wire pots. Do the same to the other side, put extra dirt in the one hanging upside down, now very tricky is to put the two together, you will need some help, once together, twist some wire around the two pots to become one sphere, now gently hold your completed ball up and place onto a wooden stake with wire and plant in a pot. you can have another ivy planted at the base and have it running up the wooden stake, this way you will have your topiary ivy quite fast doing it this way. Keep an eye on ivy as it tends to die off in places. All the best.

Just a suggestion here if the Ikea sink doesn't work out. We are going to be installing a trough sink that's 36" wide in a laundry room. We liked the slim/wide design for this application. Although we are going with a typical kitchen faucet with sprayer, we could easily mount two faucets behind the sink since it's an undermount. The faucets mount in the countertop, so they can go whereever you want as long as you have the correct rough plumbing. (i.e. the amount of faucets and location are not dictated by the sink).

IF your window is not to wide.. check out a piece of PVC pipe and you can either paint it the color you want and add a covered styroform ball at the end for the finial or just use a curved piece of PVC joint piece. they are smooth and the tabs would flow over it nicely.. you could spray paint it black, gold , white, any color that would go with your bathroom or valance.. I have seen folks use these with bracket hung up side of window and slip pvc piece over it.. or you can go to Big Lots and get a very inexpensive rod.. but sure would not be as much fun.. if you know someone who has a cane..you could use it.. even a piece of straight rebarb and it can be bent to work also.. might be a little harder.. I have seen the door knobs done and that looks really cool.. sometimes.. just have to sit down and think outside the box and use crazy items to do normal things.. lOl baseball bats have been used and so have hockey sticks.. Good luck and besure to take a pic and let us all see what you did. Huggy