Weekly wrap-up: In Full Bloom

I love these first weeks of June when everything's in bloom at our summer cottage. I've been just sitting on the porch and taking in all this beauty.

I love all these flowers but Forget-me-nots are my favourite.

Pin It and Do It #10: Hanging herb garden

This is it. The end of May and the end of Pin It and Do It -challenge hosted by Trish. I'm so glad I saw that banner on Pinterest and I'm so glad I took the time and made some things I've pinned. Creating something is the best form of therapy, it relaxes and activates you at the same time. Or maybe it's just doing something you love.

I've had times in my life when I didn't have any spare time to do anything for myself. I didn't even think about myself. It was all work and no play. I didn't do anything creative during those two years and it really affected my mood. I was like a robot.

After that experience I've learned to value my free time. Nobody will waste my time without my permission. And it looks like I learned the hard way that no amount of money will make me as happy as creating something small, even if it was a little bow or a handwritten envelope.

So enough of this rambling and let's get this show on the road. Or to the end of the road, because this challenge ends here. My final #PinItDoIt creation was a hanging herb garden. Again, a simple idea but one I wouldn't have thought of without Pinterest. I've pinned many pictures as inspiration to my Garden ideas board. The wall I made here was a combination of many pins.

Here's what I started with. I had a plain corner on my balcony and a brown trellis.



I knew I wanted this hanging herb garden to be white, as I wish all my furnitures and interior design would be. I guess that's called Scandinavian style. I call it white all over. I won't bore you with the details of how I hammered some cans because lillys & lollipops already has a great tutorial of how to make a hanging tin can herb garden.

I don't know why but I've never upcycled tin cans into any crafts projects before. I'm sure I will use more of these in the future, I can definitely see the appeal. As lanterns, maybe?

After some hours of hammering and painting, I give you the result: My white hanging herb garden. It turned out just the way I imagined, I'm so happy!

Thank you Trish for encouraging us to make things we've pinned. I know I'll continue making my pins even though the official challenge has ended! It was so much fun, let's do this again!

Pin It and Do It #6: Rock garden markers

As soon as I saw these rock garden markers on Pinterest (originally from this blog), I knew I would be making some myself. Such a clever idea, easy to clean and doesn't get ruined even if it rains. I happen to have many jars of stones that I collected as a child when I spent my holidays in Crete.

At one point I almost threw those stones away, because I was on a cleaning spree and I thought there's no sense in storing stones in jars. There's even less sense dragging those stones across the world with a heavy suitcase. I mean, a stone is a stone. Of course it's shaped by the sea and it's a memory of the place you've visited, but no more stones for me. I have plenty.

So, this Pin It and Do It -challenge gave me a good reason to make something useful with my stones. I used acrylic paint like the blog suggested. It's water-soluble when you paint but then dries quickly and becomes water-resistant. My tip is to use a small but hard brush, otherwise the color will smear. I wrote all texts and details with a permanent marker.

I wish it was June already and I could go to our summer cottage and plant all the seeds I have and then put these to good use. It makes me happy to know that I'll have a little piece of Crete in my garden this summer.