I love hydrangeas!

Because it was super nice Saturday, I made a trip to the NEW Lowes a short distance from our house, and gathered up some plants to add to my Thrift Store planters I've had for months!

I went in not knowing what I wanted exactly.  But, when I was walking through the indoor garden center, I came across these gorgeous pink and lime green hydrangeas, just under $10 a plant.  Score, and yes please!  Just look at that new growth still coming in!

I also picked a few bags of potting soil that was on sale up, and just let me tell you- you should be glad you can't smell these pictures.  Goodness- all the windows have been down in my car since I got home.  The soil smells disgusting!

Planting was easy for the most part, except my 18week belly (yes, I'm pregnant...) is already making things more difficult.  I added some large river rocks to the bottom for drainage, then added my soil.  The hydrangeas were in large buckets, so breaking up the root ball was difficult, and there was a lot of dirt. 

All in all, I planted two, and they're in front of the house, and just making me smile!  Lets hope they grow bigger, and I don't kill them!  (I have a bad habit of that... doh!  Plus, wow, get that lawn some water!!!)  Oh, and did you notice my spring wreath is still on the door?  Check out that post here.

Ahh, I just love these colors, so I had to show them to you again!

What did you guys do this weekend?  Any planting, home improvement, or crafts?!

Do tell!

Wedding details, Location

Here's some more details on our wedding!  I showed you the pallette the other day- Sangria purple, and apple green accents...

Today, we're adding the purple rhinestone to the mainly green invites, and mailing them out.  The insert is all prepared, just need a few printed at Kinkos since I included a colored map.

So, for those of you from CA, or even the San Francisco Bay Area, you may be familiar with a little suburb called Walnut Creek.  It's a very affluent city about 20 miles east of San Francisco.  It's right where we live and spend a majority of our time.  They've got everything from Target, to Tiffany!

We chose an outdoor casual setting at the Gazebo at Civic Park.  Since the wedding is in July, it'll be hot, but the trees should be shaded by then.  Just in case, we're planning to have some water bottles in buckets at the end of the isle and maybe some fans too.  :)

We're going to set up white wooden chairs, and I'm debating on an isle runner, and tulle lining the chairs at the isle.  Here are some ideas...  (I was thinking of picking up these paper lanterns I saw at the dollar store- they were the perfect color!)

For services so far, I'm extremely happy with our photographer choice- Ultra-Spective (out of Livermore, CA)- we've even done our engagement photo session (a few samples below!) which was so fun, and good practice.  These were the first professional photos Z and I have had done since we've been together (5 years!)

For floral, I'm hoping to mimic something similar to what Tia Mowry did for her outdoor wedding- why not right?  I'm using her dress, and my bridesmaid's dresses are purple too?!  :)  I'm not a huge fan of roses, but the colors are right.

So, there's some more details!  Next time?  Reception details!  That should be fun :)

Until then, we're off to register- yay for scanner guns and shopping- could you guess?  We're registering at Target, Babies R Us, and possibly Pottery Barn Kids.  More on that later as well!

Happy Saturday everyone,

Wedding Palette

As I mentioned yesterday, 2010 for us is going to be a huge year!  A lot has been going on in the months during my blogging absense.  For starters, we've been planning our wedding.

The details are wrapping themselves up by now, and I thought for my sake, and yours (to see what's been coming together) I thought I'd post the palette we're using by collaging our colors, location, and accessories here.  This will be a series post over a couple of days...

Enjoy!

First off, the most important, our colors:

Bridesmaid dresses from David's Bridal, in Sangria, and Groomsman wear from Men's warehouse, also in Sangria.  We're going the vest and tie route, not bow-tie for the boys.

Our accent color, and the color on our invitations is an apple green.  We're using Cardstore.com to order our invites.  They pre-print them, and can even address the envelopes too.  The one we picked is by artist "Delphine" and is called "Melissa Lime".  It's not really lime when printed, much more granny-smith-apple-green (this is a sample from the website, not our details, hehe)

I showed you my dress yesterday, but here it is again.  I guess I'll mention it now- I'll definitely need a tan before the big day!  Tia Mowry looks awesome in the dress, and well, I'm just really white!

So, there are the basics.

Still to post?  The other details, like Location, Reception, photographer, and the other nitty gritty details!  Stay tuned :)

Mother's Day, 2010 Announcements :)

2010 is sure to be a year we'll remember.

Today, even more so.  Today is Mother's day- we got to spend the morning with Z's family, I had lunch with mine, and then tonight I'm up for some relaxing.  It's been one of those years so far.

So, I suppose, it's time to spill the beans.  2010 will be a year to remember for us, because, well, we're expecting!  Yep.  Baby W is expected to make his or her glorious arrival sometime in October.  :)

And, if that wasn't enough, we also have our wedding planning going on!  Yep, July is our wedding TOO.

Here's a peak at my dress:

So, that's why it's been so busy around these parts!

I promise to start posting some of our ideas for both the baby and the wedding.  I'm not diving into planning baby stuff until we know the sex (which is still 3 weeks away!)

So, happy Mother's Day, 2010 to all of you mothers and soon to be mothers out there!

Backyard Inspiration: small spaces

I know you couldn't tell the scale from my backyard sketch on yesterday's post, but we have a small backyard.

From the back of the house, to the back fence is only 18.5'.  Our neighborhood is designed that way on purpose since we have acres and acres of greenbelts, play structures, 3 pools and a dog park here.  For me, I'm ok with the small backyard.  It's the perfect size canvas!

Now that the backyard demo has started, I've been scouring online photos to find elements I could add to our yard, based on our shape, our needs (we want grass finally!) and the size.

Here we have the inspirational photos I found so you can see my vision!
Enjoy the tour:

This curvy walkway, grass, and small planters at the grass line are a for sure MUST HAVE for our space.  The walkway to both side yards will run right along the house- we don't want to have to water plants right next to the house- you know, avoid as much wetting down of the siding as possible.  Maybe some container planting though?

No pool for us, but here are some more plants and grass features.  Plus, there are some great colors here, and the height variations are great.

This space is great because our patio set is this length, plus if you notice the built in BBQ to the left, that's in my plans as well.  Plus, in the paver patio, they've done another built in plant area.  Oh, and grass of course!

This photo has more pavers than we're looking at, but I like the small retaining wall for a height variation, and added seating for those BBQs.  I'm hoping to do some raised paver walls, if only in one area.

This photo I love because of the foliage at the fence line.  We plan to put a border of plants around the fence line, and this one really captured my attention!

Even though this is a digital plan, I love the small bench with the rock at foot near the upper left corner.  We'll add a bench at one of the fence lines, in direct site of the grass and the entire backyard!

We have sliding doors for our access to outside, but I'd love to eventually add french doors instead.  Either way, I love the rounded steps down to the main level, and the dark paver/brick look.

So I'm hoping to take my ideas from above, with my sketch I showed you yesterday, and create a backyard we ALL want to use, share, and enjoy :)

If you noticed, these photo inspirations aren't over the top!  They're real life, and they're really do-able, without breaking the bank (I think at least!)  My desire for our plans is to have the current patios demolished, and the cement removed.  Sprinklers can be laid by us, and then I'd have the canvas to create our backyard!

So, have any of you undertaken your backyard (or frontyard for that matter!) recently?  Anything you'd do differently, or suggest someone should CERTAINLY make sure they do?

I'm glad I've got some energy back now, because planning stuff like our backyard is what I live for!  (I even spied a great teak bench for the backyard at HomeGoods today for $129!  We CAN do this!)

A backyard transformation, part 1

Our backyard looked like this a week ago:

And, it has looked like that since we moved in July 2008.  While not pretty, it has been tucked away, and allowed us to focus on the interior of the house, and the front yard. 

So, what happened last week, to cause this?

 

Well, this:

Dry, lifting boards

wet boards that developed a hole over night...

Z spent 1 whole day, like 12 hours at least ripping the entire thing out by himself.  Tools?  Saw, mallet, wheelbarrow and protective gear of course.  Oh, that and his brute strength!

Look at the condition of this wood.  Thank god we removed it and got it away from the house!

Could there have been more nails?

Even the cement foundation pillars were removed.  Luckily, we were able to have one guy haul away the pieces of the deck for a nomimal fee, in just a few hours.

So, now, this unexpected project leads me to another awesome area to design- the FLAT backyard!

After taking the necessary measurements this morning (I've gone through this exersize before, but lost all my drawings in a mold incident after attempting the popcorn removal in one bedroom.  woops.) I drew out a scale picture of the back of our house, and the backyard, and side yard portions.

Here's the outline (cause I can't find graph paper either?  What's wrong with my brain?).

W for window, and there's a sliding glass door on the back too, which is labeled.  Those small squares with circles are mature trees that are staying due to hanging over each neighbors' yards too.

I played around with a pencil and drew this (knowing that our current no living thing backyard needs much life (grass & plants) since its all rock, stone, brick, and formerly wood from the deck) plan out:

Using these tools, I'm stoked to continue planning!  I'll post some inspiration photos soon too.

For now, I wanted to show you one big thing that's been goin on in our Casa.

Toodles!

Stepping back in, slowly

Happy May Day, everyone!

I'm glad to say, I'm slowly stepping back into blogging.  I'll tell you soon what's been going on in the last few months here at our homefront.  There's so much in store.

But, in order to not overwhelm myself, I'm slowly stepping back in.  Like that song: She waded in the water but she didn't get it wet, yet..."  You know the one.  Tell me you know the one.  I'm not crazy am I? :)

Anywho, this is my official, I'm back note to you all.  I hope wherever you are in the world right now that you're enjoying your space, your family/friends, and life.

Thanks for sticking with me, and to my awesome followers that I gained over the last 2 months, even without a post, YOU rock.  :)

Take care all, and soon...