Back Yard Seating Area

Here are a few pictures of my back yard seating area.  I don't have a deck so I like to sit out here to read a book, have a glass of wine and just relax.

                                             The peonies were gorgeous

                                              Here are a couple of close ups
                                                                  and
                                        A view of my garden from my sitting area

                               I'm linking up to Savvy Southern Style for the Blog Party

Thanks for stopping by

Barb

Shore Station

Did you see the big round wheel thing in my garden in the previous post?  It is called a Shore Station.  It is from a boat lift and is used to raise and lower the boat.  My neighbor was taking it to the dump.  I asked if I could have it as I thought it would look good in my garden.

Several days after I got the Shore Station I was surprised to see that Amy at WhisperWood Cottage had done a post on one that she had.  Her's isn't as rusty as mine and she hung it above her sofa.  It looks great there!  You can see her post by clicking on the link above.

 Thanks for stopping by.

Barb

A New Blog Look and a Look at My Garden

Barb and Dell Designs has a new look.  I haven't been happy with the look for some time but just haven't taken time to change it.  It's still not exactly what I want but much better I think.

I want to show you my garden that I started last spring.  Here is a picture before.

                                                     Here are some pictures in the fall.

                                                                      
                                                              Not too impressive
                                                              But look at it now!

I'm Back!

After a month and a half of no posts, I'm back.  The middle of April I felt a lump in my neck.  It was in the same place that I had thyroid cancer 7 years ago and it scared me.  I went to the doctor and she had an ultra sound taken that was suspicious.  So then I had a biopsy and sure enough it was thyroid cancer returned.  So for the next month it was doctor appointments, CT scan and finally surgery.  The surgery went well and I am getting along well, although not able to do as much as I would like.
Even though I haven't done any posting it doesn't mean that I haven't been reading your posts.  I have also been going to garage sales, antique stores and thrift stores picking up goodies to be re-purposed.  I have also been taking pictures that I need to get downloaded to my computer so that I can post about them.  I will do that as my energy level allows.
It is good to be back!
Barb

Gift Bags using chalk board paint

After seeing Amy at WhisperWood Cottage making paper chalk boards (see her tutorial here)  I decided to try some myself.  I had several paper bags, some with store logos and some without, and decided to try making chalk board paint gift bags.  I just painted over the store logos and used a mirror to draw an oval on the ones without logos.  After letting the paint cure for 24 hours, I used the side of a piece of chalk to condition the paint.

After the paint was conditioned, I decorated the bags with tissue paper, ribbons and little gift tags that I had.  You can write whatever you want on the bags and use them for any occasion.

Here are the results.

And there you have it.  I'm linking up to Amy's Chalk Board Linky Party .  Check it out.

Happy chalk board painting.
Barb

Barb's Plaster Flower Centerpieces

Last week my church had a salad luncheon and they asked me  make the table decorations.  I decided to make bouquets of silk flowers dipped in plaster which I had seen on "Songbirds Blog".  You can see her tutorial here http://www.songbirdisnesting.com/2010/02/how-to-make-plaster-roses-and-giveaway.html.  I loved what she had done.  I just used some silk flowers that I had on hand and dipped them in the plaster.  I only dipped them once because I liked the colors coming through.  But you can dip them as many times as you want.  I found the pots at Target for two for a dollar.

Leaving Comments on other blogs

I have been trying to leave a message on Northern Nesting Blog for the past several days to let her know what a great blog she has plus she is having a giveaway that I wanted to enter.  Nothing I did seemed to work.  I spent a lot of time searching the web for an answer to the problem.  Finally I came upon the answer.  If you are using FireFox as your browser you need to have accept 3rd party cookies enabled.  You do this by going to tools, options, security and check box to  accept the 3rd party cookies.  Then it will work.
I am linking to Northern Nesting.  Take a few minutes and check out her beautiful blog.  http://northernnesting.blogspot.com/

I hope this will help another new blogger so they don't have to spent the time searching that I did.

Have a good week.

Barb