Iris Beauties

Today I'm linking with http://flowersfromtoday.blogspot.com/ for Flowers from Today! 
 And with http://www.dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/
                                                           for Mosaic Monday!

                          My yard is abundant in Iris's!  
Another wonderful blessing about our house is the previous owner was an enthusiastic gardener!   I am forever grateful of the landscaping she started.   Because of her,  I have gotten to know many new species I would not have otherwise paid much attention too.  Today I am focusing on the Iris's. 
                           I love these flowers!

  I am sorry to say I do not know the individual names of each of these.  I do believe they are mostly Bearded Iris's but please correct me if you know differently.  I also think they are of the woodland variety, since my yard has quite a bit of shade and they seem to be thriving well in this environment. 

 They are so easy to take care of and multiply like crazy.  Over the years I have divided these beauties and moved them about several times to new locations.  Thus creating beautiful areas that every spring burst forth in a spectacular show of beauty.  This year in particular they are doing quite well, largely due to the abundant amount of rain we have had.

This poem was taken from the website of  the Canadian Iris Society, located here,  http://www.cdn-iris.ca/poetry.html

The following iris poem is from an old catalog of "Green Gate Gardens 1931" which used to be in Bennettsville, South Carolina. The owner’s name was Gabrielle Drake McColl. The poem is as follows:

(Untitled)

The garden with its little gate of green,

Invites you to enter, and view mysteries unseen,

Its vine laden bowers and overhanging trees,

The air filled with sweetness, the hum of the bees,

The flagged walks with Iris galore,

Of most beautiful coloring, unknown before,

Pink, white, purple, yellow, azure blue,

Mixed and mingled of every hue,

You come away wondering, can more beauty be seen

Than in the garden with its little gate of green.

Winstead.

Well, I don't have a green little garden gate, but I do love the beauty of these flowers!  I have them lining my walkways and outlining my front yard and back yard too!   I may just have to work on that gate...hmm!!! 


 Look how pretty this mosaic turned out too!  It just sings spring!

 

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my Iris's.  Aren't they just beautiful?                                                   
     Leave a comment and thanks for stopping by! 

The Blessing of Our House

Today I am attending the "How I met My House Party" at: http://oursuburbancottage.blogspot.com/

We met our current house 7yrs ago this past March at a very difficult time in our lives. We were renting a house from some friends of ours who had moved upstate after selling our “dream” home that we built ourselves. The area we built in rapidly developed from a more rural area to a major suburb, sadly changing the course of our dream. After several attempts to bid on a house on the opposite side of town that met our requirements we were beginning to loose heart after rapidly being outbid each time. This was in 2003 and it was a sellers market in the area we wanted to purchase. Remember the days?

 That January, 2 weeks before closing on the sale of our dream house, my sister died in a car accident.  This was a very difficult time in my life.  I was trusting God would see us threw it all and was grateful to have our friends home to be our refuge.  After a few months I was ready to start looking again.  I felt like I knew every house that was out there on the market in this area.  I searched the Internet daily and made the 45 minute drive out as often as possible while the boys were in school.  I had every real estate flyer around, and still nothing that felt like it was going to be a good match for us.  My heart was heavy for my personal loss as well as the loss of our dream home.  I even questioned if we had done the right thing.

Then one day I picked up another real estate guide to thumb through yet again.  I was rapidly flipping the pages when I spotted our house.  I recognized it immediately as one in the area we had been looking at, near the sailing club.  I called my husband to tell him about it and he recognized the sellers names as someone who had once been a coworker.  The owners built several homes that they lived in for a few years and then sold.  Our house was only 2yrs old at the time.  We immediately set up a time to go out that day and I was so excited.  The house had just came on the market that day and the sellers were surprised that the add had already been in the real estate guide.  They hadn't even put out a "for sale" sign yet.

These are photos from summer of last year

 On the drive over I prayed for God to let me know without a doubt if this house is the one for us.  Our old home had a built in china cabinet in the dining room and I even actually prayed, "God, let there be a place for me to put my china in this house".  I walked in to this house and it immediately felt right to me, and would you believe there was actually a built in china cabinet.  It's not in the dining room but was in the kitchen instead and I couldn't help but smile. 

 By that afternoon we had written a contract and put it in the sellers hands.  It all seemed great and I was thrilled.  Then that evening the realtor called and said that someone had come later that afternoon and outbid us.  Unfortunately we had failed to get a signed contract, and truly thought we had already had the house.  I was devastated. How could this have happened when we gave them a full price offer?  I could not believe it and furthermore I was heart broke.  I just knew this was to be our home.  I cried all night and could not sleep.  I woke up and prayed very earnestly to God.  I asked him why did I even have to see it if I was not going to have it.  I was so upset!  Then I began to pray that the buyer would have buyers remorse and back out of the deal.  The next day the realtor and I talked about revisiting other homes and how disappointed he was too that this had turned out this way.  By that afternoon I was feeling quite discouraged and upset when the realtor called again and said you are not going to believe this.  He said, the buyer had called the sellers and told them she wanted out of the contract.  That she could not sleep that night and that God had told her, " This is not the house for you."  This is no joke, can you imagine what I was thinking?   My prayers had been answered!  I could not believe it, and just knew the house was ours then, but the realtor had more news.  The sellers did not immediately take our old offer as they still had other offers to consider and instead relisted the house and were requesting a 48hr period to consider all offers.  After rewriting a new contract and anxiously waiting all weekend the news finally came that we got the house. 

This is how are house looks today.

 It is not a floor plan I would have ever built and have always said I would never want to live in, but it is a floor plan very similar to our friends house that we rented.  There have been several changes we have made and many things I would someday love to change. 

 One thing that has not changed, is that it has always felt like HOME.  We love our neighbors and the area we are in tremendously, and have never wavered on that for the last 7 years.  We are truly blessed!   I know in my heart that God was in the details for us on this house, right down to even preparing our hearts for the style of this home. 

It's very long, I know.. but that's our story!
Thank you for your time to read this and I'd bet you there are many other similar stories out there where God was in the details.  I hope you can understand why I was so thrilled to see this meme party, and to be able to share my story with you.

Easy Sew - Throw Pillow Slipcover

Hi I am joining "Tip Me Tuesday" today for the first time at Tip Junkie. Also It's Trash to Treasure Tuesday at Reinventedkb, and it's Nifty Thrifty Tuesday at Coatal Charm.  Please click on the following links for more at ;
 http://www.tipjunkie.com/
http://www.reinventedkb.com/
http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/




After adding new drapes to my den recently, I realized I wanted more color.  I chose a neutral drape which gives me lots of flexibility on my accesories.  The first thing I noticed was how dark my pillows looked.

We love these pillows!  They are the perfect size for my armchairs and are very comfortable to swap over to the couch to use for lounging while watching T.V. in the evenings.  Yes, we are a lazy bunch!

Also this pillow sits perfectly on my lap so that I can balance the laptop between it and the arm of my chair.  This allows me to use my mouse easily over the pillow.

Now this is not the tip I am sharing today, but if you are looking for a very comfortable way to use your laptop you may take that as a tip also.  As you can see the pillow used in the above photo is very different from the brown pillows I showed you.  That's because this is the way my brown pillows look today.

So, here is the tip I wanted to share with you today.  If you are like me, you have pillows you love but you like to change out with the seasons.  Well I have made a very simple slip cover for my pillows.  First you cut the fabric to the size of the pillow allowing extra fabric along one edge of the pillow.  I left an additonal generous 4 or 5 inches.  You want to consider how plump your pillows are for this.

This photo is for demo purposes only to show the excess fabric on the short end.

  I did cut the excess fabric off the long end leaving enough only enough to make my seams.  Cut both pieces of your fabric with excess.

Then after cutting both pieces of fabric, you simply sew all sides together except for your longer ends.  You are basically making a pillowcase in effect.

Slide your pillow in as shown

And it should look somewhat like this...

Then you take one of the longer ends and tuck it around the pillow inside the fabric.

Work with a bit to get it tucked in nice and tight then tuck the remainder end in and smooth it out.

You have to work around the corners some to get the fabric smooth and make sure the fold lies flat, but it couldn't get any easier.

My folds will be on the back of the pillow and the pillow underneath is no longer visible.  I still have my brown pillows available should I want them displayed this fall but I have easily changed out the look entirely.  No zippers to sew, and no tricky sham style slipcover sewing involved.  Straight seams only!

It's a casual look just in time for the summer!

This is so easy anyone can do it who knows how to sew a straight seam.  And mine are rarely even straight for that matter but close enough.  LOL! 

Well, what do you think?  Easy huh?