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Gardens, ying and yang?

For the last several months we have been working on the front yard tearing out plants that weren't our style and taking out the weeded lawn. It is coming along nicely and soon it will be ready for the big reveal but not quite yet. As we decide how we should landscape, I've looked for inspiration in various places. The first place is of course my neighbors' yards to see what grows best in their gardens, as well as what it looks like especially this time of the year when things are in bloom.

Our front yard is south facing so it gets sun all day, so that is a factor in what we decide to plant. Now Mr. Incredible and I have completely different taste in plants and the type of gardens we see in our minds eye...I'd say he is more tropical {think Palms} and I'm more cottagey, can they co-exhist? I would like to think so.

Can we find a happy medium...we have two beds in our front yard...mine and his.  Mr. Incredible loves to do landscaping and he often says, if he was to have a different job it would be a Landscaper and I just love to garden and plant interesting, beautiful and sweet smelling plants.  On the side of our house where our bedroom window is, is an overgrown, night-blooming jasmine...Oh, I love to walk into our bedroom and take in that sweet fragrance.  

The previous owners had quite a few of granite rocks in the backyard flower beds I'm not quite how we will use them..but I think this inpirational photo is a great jumping off point.  I love the Cream-colored hydrangea in the left hand corner.  

I like the look of the boulders with lots of plants crawling willy nilly on top of them.

Mr. Incredible bought some Kangaroo Paws, {the orangeish plant in the center of this photo, they also come in yellow and pink}, I think this garden composition shows how the two styles can mix together? 

I love how full and lush this garden is......it has a lot of texture, color and a variety of plants.  

But then again I would love to have a BIG, beautiful bush of blue, blooming hydrangeas......oh be still my heart.  Stay tuned for our big reveal of the re-landscaped front yard......

 

country living's DREAM porch..

Today is the last day to get on over to Pinterest if your a "pinner" like me..someone who pins all kinds of inspiration especially HOME INSPIRED inspiration to their boards.  What!!! you have never heard of Pinterest? Well, It is a virtual space where you can create inspirational boards from Beauty, to health, to exercise, to quotes, to home design.  Quite a number of the shelter magazines and some catalogs {Pottery Barn} are jumping on board and you can follow them on Pinterest. 

Country Living is having a contest of designing your "dream" porch inspirational board" and a random selected pinner will win a Rejuvenation Light.  COOL?  Yeah! Rejuvenation has vintage-look lighting with a variety of styles to choose from.  Here are just a few of my "dream" porches with country living flair, as the mercury will begin to climb in the next several months and we head outside to dine alfresco or enjoy something cool to drink. Here is what my backyard brick patio looked last year, right now it is not in the best shape so I need all the ideas I can get....

Aren't those two Dachshunds just precious?  I love white wicker on a porch anytime.....I have been collecting white wicker since I set off to college in 1982.   

If you don't have a lot of mula for a tiled or brick patio, gravel can fit the bill.  Look how nice this gravel patio looks? Those think cushy green buffalo check cushions seem to say...come on over and have a seat.

If you have room for it a twin size mattress can be made into a porch swing....and if you have a porch big enough to accommodate it.  More cute poochies on the porch....

Or a small porch with a couple of Adirondack chairs sitting and taking in the fragrance of lavender...

Or having one Adirondack on the porch {looking at this picture I realize I have way too much clutter out there I need to edit, but what to get rid of?} 

Head on over to Pinterest and create a Country Living Dream Porch and then come back here and join me for a glass of wine, I'm sure I can round up another Adirondack for ya..

 

 

Victoria beach at Laguna

We are on spring break this week and we have had really nice weather so far, but it is expected to get cloudy and rainy for the rest of the week.  We took advantage of our good fortune and headed to the beach town of Laguna Beach...

If you are not from Southern California, it a small beach town between Los Angeles and San Diego, very expensive with million dollar homes in the hills or nesteled on the shore.  Cute, quaint houses on the shore...which I could not help but snap up a few pictures of and dream of owning a house there, {yes, DREAMING in capital letters}.

Love the fragrant lavender growing on this picket fence and the charcoal shingles house.  I'll take it one please...

See how healthy that lavender is..must love the sea air...

Cute cottages up on stilts to capture gorgeous ocean views...

Made me smile to see window boxes that has beautiful, colorful flowers in them. 

My friend calls this one "Snow White's Cottage"...I can see why..

I love this one...I loved that color of shingles with the crisp white and WOW look at that view!!

here is the slate rock-way with river rock leading to the front door....

this was guarding the pathway...do you know what that is? It is a Sticks of Fire succulent, if you touch it and get the sap on your hands and touch your eyes it will burn like HELL has no fury. 

Here is the pathway that leads next to that house...so beautiful, no?  Since I took a lot of pictures I'll do another post tomorrow of the beach, a cute little turret lighthouse lookout and the cute shops we browsed in after our day at the beach...so stay tuned.

The Cottage on Cullen St. Spring Mantle and Scentsy

Have you heard of Scentsy?  Well it's a cross between a candle and a fragrant plug in, the website calls them flame-less candles. I first smelled {made aware} of them when I would go into the classrooms to substitute and the rooms would smell so GOOD! Another teacher saw them in the classrooms and wanted to know where she could get one and if I might know where to purchase them and I said, "my old neighbor from the old house sells them".  One thing lead to another and before you know it I'm having a Scentsy catalog party, {yes..I went in kicking an screaming, I don't "need" another "thing" to get hooked on}.  My other neighbor sells Partylite so I jump on her bandwagon sometimes when she has parties.  I am so glad I jumped on the Scentsy Bandwagon... I LOVE my new scentsy container, I ended up with a very Beachy ceramic holder that goes perfectly with my home decor and my home smells so good when I get home after a long day of teaching. {It sure beats smelly soccer socks!}

Here is my robins-egg blue ceramic scentsy holder, this one is called the Montauk Full Size. It has  a variety of shells hanging with twine as you can see from the pitcher.  They have so many scentsy scents to choose from it will make you dizzy smelling so many that you might go home with a headache. But after your nose re-cooperates you'll be back in business and order some scents to fill your home with lovely fragrance. In the end this is what I got; lot of "beachy" scents to go with my home.

This is what the bars look like and inside are individual "chunks" of wax that you plop into the top of the well to melt.  I choose the Beach scentsy bar and I could not stop there with so many scents to pick.  This one smells like you are sitting on the shore and smelling fresh rubbed up bodies of suntan lotion and the ocean breezes.  I also picked up the Ocean scentsy bars which smells like flowers that grow near the sea, very different than the Beach one.  I had to have Lush Gardenia, of course ya know it is my favorite flowers, eva!  It has a very strong scent.  I love all kinds of floral scents, I'm really not into the vanillas or "food" kind of scents, for example Cake Batter or Cinnamon Roll.  I also got the Lilacs and Violets, which is a very soft floral scent.  I also like the fresh clean scents like linen, cotton or rain.  To feed my love of fresh scents  I got Thunderstorm and Wishing Well {Madison picked that one out}...which are very light scents.  

I know there have been a lot of Spring Mantle "show and tells" on blog land since spring but I have not been able to get my post up until now. Recently Mr. Incrdeble was diaganosed with Skin Cancer on his lip and in the last couple of weeks he has surgery to remove it and then reconstructive surgery to repair the cut out.  I will spare you any pictures of THAT!!  But he is on the mend and he is doing great!  Everything is good in the hood as they say in these parts.  

Speaking of Mr. Incredible..see those ceramic vases over on the left of the mantle..he made them in high school in Ceramics Class.  He loved ceramics class and we have saved them all these years.  

I got inspired looking at this PB picture and thought geez I could pick up a couple of spring cheery blossoms and put them in the vase Mr. Incredible made and create a very cute springy mantle display....mine is a bit more sparse or simple but I think I like it.  So if you have heard of scentsy what scent is your favorite?  

 

 

Citrus....

Our citrus trees are "going off"!  We have an orange tree and a grafted Lemon/Orange tree.

Here is the grafted one, meaning it is half orange tree and half lemon tree. The oranges are soooo very sweet and the lemons so juicy. 

Last week our temps have been in the mid 70's, my li'l one decided to have a Lemonade stand with one of the her girlfriends.  They didn't do too bad for a couple of hours, they made about $10.00 dollars.  This weekend the weather man is calling for rain so I think we will be swinging the other way and sparking up the fireplace.  That is one of the wonderful things about living in California, that we can be enjoying the warm weather in the winter and the next minute br snuggled up on the couch listening to a crackling fire.  

In other news the demo of the front yard is happening as I type....yep.  By summer we should have a nice green, healthy lawn and a new landscaped yard with beautiful coastal, tropical feel to it.   Post to follow on what we might be thinking....

 

the glow around the cottage

Glowing at night our Rustic Snowman Tree, the girls decorated the whole tree themselves I did not adjust a thing....

and with the flash on...I wish I could get a good pictures of Christmas Trees without the flash.  I don't know what the trick is...perhaps a new camera is in order.  

The mantle all lit up at night....

the Snow Village all aglow.....

The dining room with our candles glowing.

The front porch.  As you can see we have been pulling plants out and getting ready to relandscape.  By this coming summer we should have a brand new front yard.  That is the plan....

Going a bit Coastal Christmas...

                                                               From Coastal Living

                                                           Image from Pinterest

                                                         Image from Pinterest

                                                          Image from Pinterest

                                                       Image from Coastal Living

                                                        Image from Coastal Living

 

It is no surprise that this year since moving into The Cottage on Cullen St.  we will have a much more Coastal Christmas theme going on.  The Cottage has dark brown shingles, very much like you might find on a Cottage in Martha's Vineyard.  So I'll be adapting the decor I've been using for years to reflect the Cottage decor for Christmas.  We won't be going 100% all out, that can get a bit expensive.  So I thought I would show you some inspirational photos I've been "pinning" onto my boards and saving in my files. I really like that small abalone wreath in the last photo, I may attempt making one of those this year for the front door. 

Corners of My Cottage

About a week ago I saw this color Hydrangea at my Vons while shopping for my weekly groceries.  I always browse through their "Flower Shop" and I find some cute decorating items, I find the flowers more expensive as was this Vintage Hydrangea, it was $21.00, the sales girl saw me looking at it and encouraged me to put it in my cart to take home..I told her I'll check in at my Trader Joe's that is where I like to pick up my Flowers.  Sure enough there she be!!  I'll $6.99 of her.  That is much better for my pocket book.  So I bought two, one for the porch and one for the house.  I put her in my white enamel bucket Mr. Incredible got at a yard-sale for 5 bucks.  She sits on my black wooden stool my old neighbor gave to me. 

Loved the blend of the lime green and burgandy of the flowers.  I think it looks lovely with the backdrop of the robin's egg blue walls. 

Looking to the right you see the "new" dining table with the World Market chairs.  I was so bummed out that when I brought them home, two of them where floor models and the last they had.  I did not check them and the leg had a screw sticking out of it's foot and it scratched the brand-new-redone hardwood floor, I was just so mad at myself for being so stupid!  STUPID!

Does anyone know a remedy for that?  I heard rub walnut oil on it?  I'd like to hear your suggestions. 

For Thanksgiving dinner I'll take out the Pedestal dining and bring in the Farmhouse table so it will fit all the Thanksgiving Vittles on it.  I'm planning on brining the Turkey this year...I hear you can't go wrong if you prep the bird like that. So I'll try it. 

It's been quite gloomy here in SoCal and feeling quite fall.  And everytime this time of the year we have our Tradtional Fall Colds. One kid has got the sniffles...the other not looking to good either.  I haven't got over my cold yet from Halloween!  I just think I need to rest.

Hopefully the week off from school, soccer and volleyball will give us a break.

I'll enjoy puttering around the homestead and planning the Thankgiving Menu.  I went to Williams-Sonoma  this past week and got some goodies to "play" with.

I'll be browsing my cookbooks to try a few new recipes and of course the traditional ones I cook every year.  As always it will be just our close family of four I cook for.  If you don't have a place to go for Thanksgiving come on over I always cook plenty....

Porches on Fall Display....

I think porches look the cutest during the Autumn Season.  It has been very Fall like around these parts.  Today it rained all day and leaves are spread out all over the lawns in the "hood".  Yesterday was quite a beautiful day, it was crisp in the morning but got up into the low 70's during the day.  My Jack Russel Terrier is a quite the jumper and jumps our 4 feet back yard fence into the neighbors yard.  But the last two days she has jumped their 5foot fence to their neighbor on the other side in a chase of squrriels.  So I HAVE to take her for a walk first thing in the morning to get her yayas out.  So yesterday it was one of those strolling with my dog with camera in hand.  Everyone's porch was looking so fallish and cute.  Want to come along?

Remember her?   and her upstarirs? I hope the new owners love her so.

I like the color of these door, kind of a putty color.  Those lanterns too!

Hope you liked the walk around the neighborhood.  It is one way for me to get my exercise in...a raging lunatic dog that needs to be walked and my own looky loo-ness, is that a word? Well it is now...

The Halloween Decor on the Cottage on Cullen St.

Yep, I'm still posting on Halloween.....sorry if you are up and done with it but I love this holiday..really, really  I do{I do believe in spooks, insert Cowardly Lion's voice}.  I love dressing up and pretending to be someone else when I was younger but now I especially love taking on the part of  a witch especially the Wicked Witch of the West...

 

Every year when I bring down the Halloween boxes the girls go crazy getting into the decor...so this year since I was so busy with the The House of Horrors and the Harvest Festival I let them go to town with with the decorations, I did not tweak a thing, well maybe a little.  But for the most part the decor was all theirs, while I did the inside of the house.   

I covered my sideboard with cheesecloth, I think it gives it a bit of a cobwebby feel.  I got the spooky picture from Joann's this year when it was 40% off.  I have been wanting a couple of those for several years.
 The white rats look so real my dog wants to chase it and take a bite out of it.

I found the small urn at the Goodwill and it had a small fern in it but it didn't make it.  I think it looks great here with a glittered skull and creeping spiders.

I really like how this corner of the room turned out...maybe I should add a couple of ravens for next year and some old books to vamp it up.

The Fireplace {yes I have a fireplace!, a real one} got into the spooky act too.  Can you tell which pictures are my family and which one is fake?

Yep, I added pictures of my fathers' ancestors to the mix along with my Dad's Cemetery documents.  The wrought iron urn was given to me by a good friend, thanks Cristina doesn't it look perfect here? 

Here is the other side and another picture of my family members. I do believe it is my great, great, great, great grandparents.  I love that I have these pictures....it creeps Mr. Incredible out though, they stare at him while he is watching T.V. in his Man Cave.

In the Living/Dining Room I only got a few things all ready for all Hallows Eve...my Southern Living Chandelier is always showing it's spirit for the season.

I added some Spaghum Moss and some Tombstone Cake Toppers with some party favor skeletons...and there you have it instant Halloween decor. 

 

Stay tuned to take flight with me and next time I'll give you a tour of the Neighborhood.  Eveyone has their porches decorated so very cute for Fall...

I'm linking up to Show and Tell at Cindy's Romantic Home , she has a Show and Tell of Home Decor every Friday and I do try to post there when I get the chance so head on over..great ideas to be found in Blogland...