I wish I knew.

Published on by Quandie18 Comments

In case you haven’t already figured it out for yourself, I’m not terribly tech savvy.

Sure, sometimes my 87 year old handyman neighbor calls me over to help figure out how to print his Christmas card mailing labels.  But for the most part I only know just enough about technology to get by.

I probably barely scratch the surface when it comes to the things I could be doing with my new cell phone because I can’t be bothered to figure them out.

I’m also not willing to switch to vlogging rather than blogging because I don’t want to have to learn an entirely new skill; how to take good videos, and then use the software necessary for editing them (the real challenge).

All of that being said, I do mostly manage when it comes to blogging.

But there is one thing that I just haven’t figured out, and that’s how to know what is driving traffic to my blog.

For example, in the month of November my most visited post was my blogiversary giveaway.

That’s not surprising.

But my 2nd most visited post in November 2024 was from May 2020; the flower collector secretary.

Where did that come from?  Why are so many people finding that post 4 years later?

And how in the world did that post become my most popular post in 2024 with over 4,000 views?

I wish I knew.

I mean, sure, that was a fun makeover.  But honestly, that use of the Sea Glass color on the interior feels a bit dated to me now.

Sidebar:  look how ridiculously large I made my watermark back then.  That’s embarrassing.

I do have some analytics built in to my WordPress blog, but they aren’t terribly helpful.  For example, my stats page says that February 16, 2020 was the day with the highest number of visitors to my blog.

Weird.

I didn’t even publish a post that day.  That’s two days after I posted this dresser.

My stats page also tells me that my most popular category in all of 2024 was “happy holidays.”

That’s where I put all of my Christmas project posts, so that’s interesting.  I feel like Christmas projects are just a small percentage of my content throughout the year.

My 2nd most popular category for 2024 is “furniture.”, with “toolboxes.” as a close 3rd.  That sort of tells me what people are interested in.  But as with all stats, there is more to the story.  I need to know how many ‘furniture’ posts there were in 2024, compared to how many ‘toolboxes’ posts.  That would have a significant impact on the number of visits each category received.  But my WordPress stats don’t give me that number.  So does that stat actually tell me anything?

I do get some very basic stats on ‘referrers’, so you’d think that would help tell me where traffic is coming from.  My top referrer is still pinterest, but I don’t get any specifics on which pin is driving the traffic.  My 2nd most popular referrer is google.  Um, yeah.  That doesn’t help either.

I could try using the free version of Google Analytics to figure out where traffic is coming from, but it looks rather complicated to use.  As mentioned earlier, learning to use a new software is definitely not something I enjoy.  Also, one source I found noted that “Google Analytics collects visitor data and analyzes it to provide insight into your website’s traffic and performance. Google then re-uses these data to power its extensive ad tech ecosystem. Like other Google services, it is a privacy-invasive tool that customers pay with their data- or rather, with their visitors’.”

That doesn’t sound good, does it?  I definitely don’t want to invade your privacy.

So I guess for now I’ll just be left to wonder why a post from 4 years ago has become so popular this year.  I wish I knew.  Maybe you know?  If so, be sure to leave a comment!

the tree spot.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

I was recently watching a Christmas decorating vlog on YouTube.  The vlogger had recently moved into a new house and was deciding where to put the Christmas tree.  She mentioned that in her former home, once she found the perfect spot for her tree, she just kept putting it in the same spot year after year.

That got me thinking.  I realized that I’ve put my current tree in five different spots in my house since I purchased it in 2016.

So, nine Christmases, five spots.  Clearly I don’t like to repeat myself.

And actually, if we go back even further, I had an even smaller silver tree that was in yet another spot.

That was back before I added the giant English cupboard to the q branch.

It helps that my current tree is a ‘slim’ model, so it’s easier to tuck into various corners.  The rooms in my 1904 farmhouse are fairly small, I don’t think I could fit a ‘normal’ sized tree anywhere except possibly in the dining room.

Also, I realize that my silver tree isn’t quite traditional.  But it works beautifully with my non-collection of vintage glass ornaments.

In 2016, I put the new, taller silver tree in the piano room near the bay window.

That’s back when I thought Christmas trees were supposed to be near a window so they could be seen by people passing by outside.

I think many of us imagine the perfectly lit tree centered in a big picture window as being the epitome of Christmas.

But by 2017 I decided that I should put the tree where I wanted to see it.  I had acquired that English cupboard in the q branch by then, and I had just enough room in the corner beside it to tuck in the tree.

Fast forward to 2019.  I decided to change things up a bit again and I moved the tree to the living room.

I also changed the color scheme a bit.  Instead of using all of my vintage glass ornaments, I just used those in silver and/or gold.

And I added some brass horns that I’d found at a garage sale.

It was a very pretty tree, but I felt it looked a bit too small for that corner of the living room.

In 2022 I decided to try something totally different.  I moved the tree out to my three season porch.

Or as I call it in winter, my walk-in fridge.

I did really love it in that spot, although it was a bit of a chilly job to set it up.  And it was even colder when I took it down.  Plus, there isn’t any electrical out there so I had to run a cord through a cracked window which probably wasn’t terribly energy efficient.

After giving the q branch a little bit of a makeover last January, I realized that I had a bit of space in another corner of the room for the tree this year.

I will admit that when my sister saw it in this location, she pointed out that it wasn’t very visible from the rest of the house.

But you know what, that’s OK.  This tree is mainly for my own enjoyment anyway.  And every morning as I sit here at my desk working on my blog I can admire the tree.

Will I put it back here next year?  Maybe.  Or maybe not.  But so far I think this has been my favorite location for the Christmas tree.

Now how about you?  Do you pick a new spot for your tree from year to year, or does it always go in the same spot?  Leave a comment and let me know.

a tropical morning walk.

Published on by Quandie4 Comments

Good morning from the garden.  Well, sort of.

This morning I thought I would share a few of the tropical flowers I came across while in Puerto Vallarta a week ago, like this one …

Is that a Bird of Paradise?  I believe it is, but I’m used to seeing the variety that has a purple and orange flower, and this one is red and orange instead.

As I mentioned last week, my sister was invited along on the trip to Mexico that we took with my neighbor nnK’s family this year.  It was nice having her along because she is more of a morning person.  We got up early every morning and took a walk around the neighborhood before everyone else got up for breakfast.

We saw lots of lovely flowers during our walks, like this pretty pink one.

I’m pretty sure that’s a bougainvillea, but I’d never seen one in that color before.

I’m used to the white ones, or the typical bright magenta colored ones.

I think if I was planning my own tropical garden I’d go for the more subtle pale pink variety.

I saw a few hibiscus, which I think of a classic tropical flower.

When I first started gardening in Minnesota, it was hard to find hibiscus hardy enough for our climate.  I did a little research online while writing this post and discovered that a hibiscus hardy to zone 5 was developed in the 1950’s, and a grower in Japan started hybridizing other hardy hibiscus in the 70’s and 80’s.  These days you can find lots of options for hibiscus that are hardy to zone 4, including the Summerific line from Proven Winners.

Personally I find them too tropical looking for my cottage style garden, so I’ve never been tempted to grow them.

I wouldn’t classify all of the plants I saw in Mexico as tropical, for example there were these gorgeous blue hydrangeas.

I’m fairly sure that those plants are just temporarily tucked into that flower bed though.  They were probably forced to bloom in a greenhouse, and when the blooms are done, they’ll pull them out and put something else in that spot.

I saw quite a few flowers that I didn’t recognize at all, like this pretty little one.

The flower has an orchid-like appearance, but it’s growing on a vine.  Aside from a variety of orchid that grows on a vine and has yellow flowers, I couldn’t find any info online about any other vining orchids.  Maybe you know what this flower is?  If so, leave me a comment.

I also had no idea what this next flower was, but that combination of red and white petals really caught my eye.

So I did a bit of googling and I think it’s a Bleeding Heart Vine, or Clerodendrum thomsoniae.  It’s only hardy to zone 9, so it won’t be making its way into my garden any time soon.

I also saw some old favorites of mine at our resort including the Blue Sky Vine, or Thunbergia grandiflora.

And this year they also had a white version, Thunbergia grandiflora ‘Alba’.

They also had a few water lilies that were lovely.

Water lily?  or maybe these are Lotus?  I’m not really sure.

We did spot one other rare sight on our morning walk in Puerto Vallarta that you don’t find here in Minnesota anymore.

A pay phone!  I haven’t seen one of these in ages.

Now that I’m back in Minnesota, I won’t be spotting pay phones or tropical flowers on my morning walks … or much color of any kind really.

Unless you count the vivid green of the moss on this stump.

Or the occasional bright red berry.

But that’s ok.  We have a different kind of beauty here in the winter, not as flamboyant, but lovely in a more subtle sort of way.

And I’m OK with that.  How about you?

good is good enough.

Published on by Quandie22 Comments

You may remember the brass bird cage that my neighbor nnK gave me a while back.

I’ve used it to stage a few photos here and there.

But otherwise it just sits on a shelf in our living room.

Last year I dressed up a similar birdcage for Christmas and I really loved how it turned out.

I ended up selling that one, so now I want to do something similar with the round birdcage to keep for myself.

I started out by lining the bottom of the cage with a sheet of moss.  This way I’m hot gluing my decor onto the moss rather than onto the cage itself.  I plan to just remove the whole shebang after the holidays.

I knew I wanted to use bottle brush trees in the cage, and I wanted gold ones.  So I ordered a set of 24 bottle brush trees in gold, cream and green from Amazon.

And once again I fell victim to not reading the fine print.  I really need to get better about that!

When 24 trees arrived in a box that was smaller than a shoe box, I knew I was in trouble.

Let’s be honest, the price should have been my first clue.  At a little less than $15 for 24 trees … well, duh.  The trees range in size from 2.5″ to 4.5″ tall.  That aqua tree in the background is the size that I thought I was getting.  Silly me.

Well, not to worry.  I’ll find a use for the smaller trees.  Some of them have already found a home in my little wooden village.

But I still needed some gold trees for my birdcage, so I went looking for them in the shops.  I went to Hobby Lobby and Michaels, with no luck.

Then I thought, why not just spray paint some of the bottle brush trees that are already in my stash?  So I pulled my gold spray paint back out and got to painting.

Luckily I was able to get that spray painting done outdoors while it was in still in the 40’s outside.  I’m not sure what would happen if I tried to spray paint outside today when it’s in the single digits.

I achieved a much more subtle look with the gold spray, my trees are definitely less glittery than the small trees from Amazon.  But I rather like that.

After using hot glue to tack in my trees and a little golden reindeer (purchased at Target last year, but they still have them this year), I added fairy lights and a sprinkling of snow.

I also added a few bits of lichen covered bark to the ground.

I did forget to take one minor detail into consideration when working with this bird cage …

and that’s the metal mesh that surrounds the bottom half of the cage.

It’s a little hard to see the reindeer through that mesh, and I didn’t really think about that until I put the top of the cage back on the base.

But that’s OK.  I’m placing the cage on an end table in the living room, so it will mostly be viewed from slightly above.

So I think it still works.  I’m trying to embrace the Dutch idea that striving for perfection isn’t necessary, and fussing over unimportant details isn’t worth the effort.  As they say, goed is goed genoeg, or ‘good is good enough’.

What do you think?  Is it good enough for you?  Leave a comment and let me know.

a tropical holiday.

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

First up before I get into today’s post, congratulations to the winner of my blogiversary giveaway, Linda Moore.  I drew Linda’s name using a random number generator (if you’re reading Linda, be sure to check your inbox for an email from me).

I have to admit, taking a tropical vacation just before Christmas can feel a bit discombobulating.  As you know, I did the bulk of my Christmas decorating before I left for Mexico, and lucky thing because now I’ve been lulled into thinking it’s still summer.

This was my third year at Velas Vallarta, a resort quite near the airport in Puerto Vallarta.

I’m extremely lucky in that my neighbor nnK’s family invites me along on their annual family holiday, and this year they invited my sister too!

As much as Velas goes all out to decorate for the holiday, it just doesn’t feel Christmas-like to me.

They fill their grounds with the most lovely poinsettias.

And they also have a very impressive Christmas tree in the lobby.

This year we were there for the Christmas tree lighting ceremony too.  They serve hot chocolate and cookies and have a performer singing Christmas carols.  I will admit that for that one evening I was reminded that Christmas was coming.

But honestly, when the bulk of your day is spent like this …

you very quickly forget all about the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.  You also quickly forget about the winter weather!

If you are looking for a nice resort in Puerto Vallarta, I can 100% recommend this one.

The grounds are absolutely immaculate.

The beach is lovely.

I like that it’s located deep in Banderas Bay, so rather than an endless horizon out to sea, you look across the bay at a lovely view of mountains.

The pools are incredible, and gigantic.

I’ll also note that they allow you to use flotation devices.  Maybe resorts ban them from their pools, but not Velas.  We bring our own floaties, you know, the kind with a drink holder …

and we float with a cocktail and/or a good book.

The rooms are very clean and spacious, and there is a large balcony.  The staff is excellent, very friendly and accommodating.

The breakfast buffet is fantastic.  They have a large selection of fruit, juices, eggs, bacon, sausages, etc.  They also have a custom omelette bar where they will make one with whatever you want inside.  They also have waffle/pancake/french toast chef and I visited her almost every morning.

Eating a delicious waffle and washing it down with a mimosa while sitting in a lovely open air restaurant right on the beach was heavenly.  Unfortunately it wasn’t until the last day that I figured out I could get a passion fruit mimosa, but the ones made with plain old orange juice were quite good too.

We ordered lunch by the pool nearly every day, and our poolside waiter Eric was happy to deliver whatever we wanted; hamburgers, pizza, sandwiches, nachos, salads, and more.

There are two restaurants at Velas, the more casual beachfront option where we had breakfast and a little fancier option that doesn’t have the view.  We had dinner in both, and we also ordered dinner from room service a couple of times and dined on our own balcony.

I mentioned that Velas Vallarta isn’t far from the airport, and you can see and hear planes taking off from poolside.  It really is hardly noticeable after a day or so.  It’s also in walking distance from the marina.

My sister and I walked down there a few mornings before breakfast.  I’ll share more about that in another post, so be sure to stay tuned!

And on that note, I have to go get re-acclimated to winter … the projected high of only 4° on Thursday should help, and maybe do just a little bit more Christmas decorating.  As much as I loved soaking up the sun for a week, it’s also good to be back!

holiday toolbox roundup.

Published on by Quandie25 Comments

While I’m off enjoying the sunshine in Puerto Vallarta, I thought I’d just share a quick recap of all of the Christmas themed toolboxes/tackleboxes/lock boxes that I’ve created over the past several years.

I started making Christmas themed-ish boxes back in 2019 with this Oh Deer tackle box.

It wasn’t overtly Christmas themed, but featured reindeer from re.design with prima’s Oh Deer transfer.

I really wasn’t sure if this sort of thing would sell.  And in fact, I didn’t even try to sell this one.  I included it in a giveaway here on the blog.

I ended up making a 2nd similar toolbox that I did try to sell, but it didn’t go.

I ended up giving that one away a year later.

I made up this next toolbox as a secret Santa gift in 2019.

It also doesn’t have an overtly Christmas look to it, but it’s hinted at with its red and white color scheme and the re.design with prima Classic Vintage Labels cranberry transfer.

The contents had a peppermint theme which made it more Christmas-y as well.

It wasn’t until October 2022 that I decided to go all out with a truly Christmas themed box.

When I posted about it here, I mentioned that I purposely chose a simple unassuming lock box, rather than a larger toolbox, because I really wasn’t sure if I would like it.  I also really wasn’t sure if there would be a market for a Christmas themed box.

I used two Dixie Belle transfers on this one, Evergreen and Holly and Vintage Post.

And of course I loved it.  Plus it sold rather quickly so I thought perhaps Christmas themed boxes would be good sellers after all.

So the following month I made up another one with different segments from the same two Dixie Belle transfers, the Christmas Curiosities box.

I still have yet to find another transfer with Christmas florals that I like as much as those in the Evergreen and Holly transfer.

This one sold fairly quickly as well.

Fast forward to the 2023 holiday season.  One of my favorite readers asked if I would do a custom lock box for her.

At the time I was all out of the Dixie Belle Evergreen and Holly transfer, but she had one herself.  So in exchange for creating her custom box, she let me keep any of the transfer I didn’t use which was a definite bonus.

And technically I guess you can count that one as sold before I even made it.

I used some of that leftover Evergreen and Holly on this Christmas Tackle Box.

I painted the inside of this one in Dixie Belle’s English Ivy.

As of the last time I checked, this one has still not sold.  I did bring it into Reclaiming Beautiful (the shop where I sell on consignment in Stillwater, MN) a few weeks ago.

I also created the Candy Cane Toolbox in 2023.

I used elements from the I.O.D. Candy Cane Cottage transfer on this one.

This one sold rather quickly.

This year I ordered two of the new Dixie Belle Christmas transfers, Yuletide Hearth and Caroling Cardinals …

and I used them on a Lane cedar box and a tackle box.  Don’t get me wrong, they are both nice.  But in my opinion, not as pretty and also not as versatile as the Evergreen and Holly transfer was.

I also added a stencil to a toolbox this year.

I love how this one turned out, but last I checked it hasn’t sold yet either.  There is still time this year, so we’ll see what happens.

I’ve saved my all time favorite Christmas toolbox for last, and that’s the tree Topper toolbox from November 2022.

The red and black wording is from the I.O.D. Cosette transfer, and it has nothing to do with Christmas.  But the red wording was perfect, and “ornemanistes” is French for one who ornaments, in other words a decorator.  So that seemed somewhat apropos.

By the way, complete sidebar here, as I was researching this post I found that this entire segment of the Cosette transfer is from a book from 1880 (you can see it here).

Who knew?

Anyway, the holly and poinsettia florals on this toolbox are also from my favorite Dixie Belle Evergreen and Holly transfer.

As much as I love this particular look, I have never recreated it on another toolbox.  Mainly because the cost of the Cosette transfer is about $40 .  The full Cosette transfer looks like this …

And it’s gorgeous.  So it feels like a bit of a waste to harvest the wording from the middle and not use the rest of it.  Unfortunately I still haven’t come up with a use for the rest of the one I used on that toolbox.

I usually like to stick with transfers that can be cut up and used on multiple small projects, or one piece of furniture that I can price high enough to cover that cost.

So it’s definitely one of a kind, and I’ve hung onto it because a; I love it and b; it’s perfect for displaying my non-collection of vintage glass tree toppers.

That brings me to the end of my holiday toolbox recap.  I hope you’ve been inspired to consider creating your own Christmas themed toolbox … or lock box … or tackle box.

Which one of these was your favorite?  Be sure to leave a comment and let me know.  It will give me something to read while lounging at the pool.

a tale of two rugs.

Published on by Quandie31 Comments

Remember way back to last winter when I repainted the walls in the q branch (a.k.a. my study)?

I absolutely love the color I ended up choosing, Globe Artichoke from Pittsburgh Paints.

Once I had the walls painted, I then hung my gallery of garage sale art on the wall.

The room still looked rather unfinished.

It needed a rug, and I also needed to wait until summer to paint those radiator pipes in the corner.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not very patient when it comes to shopping for things like rugs.  I went to a few different brick and mortar shops with my friend opK, but nothing jumped out at me.  I also did a bunch of online browsing, but every time I picked a rug that I thought might work I either couldn’t get it in the size I wanted, or it was too expensive, or I just wasn’t absolutely sure I liked it.

And then there’s this little consideration …

That’s Lucy, a.k.a. the barfer.

Yep, she has a tendency to upchuck.  She’s also somewhere around 19 – 20 years old at this point (she was a rescue, so we’re not entirely sure, but we’ve had her for 18 years and she wasn’t a kitten when we found her), so we don’t hold it against her.

Usually we get a little warning when she’s about to blow, she makes a very unique and rather loud noise.  So we have time to move her to a washable surface.  But if we’re not home, then all bets are off.

So for that reason, we don’t want to invest in a high quality rug right now.

Which brings me to the rug I finally ordered from Wayfair.

This is the DeSoto Oriental in cream/grey.  It also comes in 4 other colors, including an option that has some green in it.  Unfortunately that one was not available in a square, and I really wanted a square rug.  As you can see above, a square fits really nicely in almost perfectly square room.

It also was less than $100, which was a good price for a rug that I don’t plan to keep forever.

So I thought I’d take a chance with this one, and that perhaps the grey would pull in the color of my dark grey walls in the neighboring piano room.

Now that the rug is in place in the room, I think it’s OK, but not spectacular.  It definitely helps give the room a more finished look.  It was also cheap enough that I plan to just keep it and use it until the perfect rug comes along, if it ever does.

As you can also see, I did manage to get those pipes in the corner painted over the summer.

I may have to bite the bullet and paint the radiator too, but that’s another job that has to wait for summer.  I’d kind of like to paint it gold, like this inspiration photo from pinterest.

I think the gold radiator would tie in with all of the gold frames in the room, and it would look gorgeous with the green walls.  What do you think?

In the meantime, next on the list is going to be window treatments of some kind, and hey, maybe I’ll even sew them myself on my new sewing machine!

One quick side note, as you may have noticed, I placed my skinny silver Christmas tree in the q branch this year.  It fits perfectly in this wonky little corner, and I can admire it while I sit at my computer working on this blog.

This tree holds my non-collection of vintage glass ornaments.

I also hung my ornament wreath over the mirror that hangs in the q branch.

Last year I displayed my Christmas village on top of the giant English pine cupboard that is in this room …

but this year I decided to forgo putting up the village.  Maybe I’ll get it back out again next year, if I have a little more time for decorating.

But wait, the title of this post is a tale of two rugs.  Are you wondering about the 2nd?

Well, here it is.

Ironically, I was shopping for both full size rugs and miniature rugs at the same time.  I looked at so many options online for both that at one point I was getting them mixed up.

I had similar requirements for both rugs; pale neutral colors, a muted pattern and a specific size.  A square no more than 7′ x 7′ for the q branch, and a rectangle at least 8″ x 10″ for the dollhouse.

I ended up finding the dollhouse rug at Life in a Dollhouse.

And I think it works perfectly with my French Country Cottage style dining set.

What do you think?

everybody’s doing it.

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

OK, if you’ve been paying attention you know that I’m not in my own garden this morning.  I’m in Mexico!

This will be my 3rd visit to this resort with my neighbor nnK and her parents (and this year my sister is joining us as well).  I’m sure that I will be enjoying the gorgeous landscaping around the resort this week.

But before I left I whipped up a quick bulb lasagna to share here today.

Many of you are probably already familiar with a bulb lasagna, its seems like just about every garden YouTuber out there has shared the concept recently.  But just in case you don’t know what it is, it’s basically spring bulbs planted in layers in a pot, sort of like the layers of lasagna.

If you plan it right, the layers come up and bloom in succession.

I wasn’t initially planning on creating my own bulb lasagna, but my sister and I were in Home Depot last week and their remaining stock of spring bulbs were 50% off so I couldn’t resist buying some.

I grabbed some Persian Blue allium because I’d never seen this color before, and it sure looks pretty.

I hope it really does look like that!

I also purchased the new Proven Winners Golden Meadow blend of daffodils.

I quickly got the allium in the ground last Monday before our weather turned really cold, but I didn’t get the daffodils in.  Within a few days, with lows in the teens, our ground was getting pretty frozen so I decided it would be far easier to plant the daffodils in a pot.

And while I was at it, I could go back to Home Depot and get some of the spring blooming iris I saw there to add to it to create a bulb lasagna.

OK, so … simple concept … plant your bulbs in layers choosing bulbs that get planted at different depths and with different bloom times.

Since this is my first attempt at a bulb lasagna, I decided to keep it very basic.  The daffodils get planted at 6″, and they bloom in mid-spring, so they went in first.  I filled the pot with soil until it was about 8″ from the top, and then added my daffodil bulbs.

As you can see, I really packed ’em in there.  Since I’m only doing two layers, that should be OK.  However, if you do three or more layers you need to leave about 2 fingers of space between your bulbs so that they all have room to grow up through the layers.

My Iris reticulata are supposed to be planted at a depth of just 3″, so I added 3 more inches of soil over the daffs and then planted the iris.

I left a bit more space between the bulbs in that layer so the daffodils can come up through them.  The irises should bloom first in early spring, and then the daffodils will come up and bloom in mid-spring.  Theoretically.

I added a final 3″ of soil over the iris bulbs, and then watered my pot thoroughly.

I ended up with one spare packet of 10 iris bulbs and I was going to just pop them into a planter outside, but the soil was frozen solid.  I swear it happens overnight!

So I pulled out another pot and just planted them up by themselves.

But now comes the tricky part, where to put them for the winter?

These bulbs have to go through a cold period of somewhere between 10 to 16 weeks, and my online research tells me that the cold period should be at temps between 35–40°F.  Hmmmm.  I was planning to put these pots outside, but our winters are definitely much colder than that.  We’ve already had overnight temps in the teens, and this coming week they’ll be in the single digits.

Further online research tells me that the bulbs can freeze and rot in a unprotected pot left outdoors in our climate.  So that option is out.

Some suggestions given online include putting them in an unheated garage or shed.  I could do that, but in Minnesota even those spaces get much colder than 35–40°F.  I’ve also seen the suggestion to put them in the basement, but my basement is quite a bit warmer than that.

So I’ve decided to opt for my front ‘three-season’ porch, or as I like to call it in winter, my walk-in fridge.  It is unheated, but since it’s attached to the house it stays a little bit warmer than the shed or carriage house.  It can also be quite sunny though, so I’m going to put the pots under a table and cover them with some old sheets to keep them in the dark.

You also have to keep the container from drying out, but also don’t let it get too wet.  So I’ll be putting a reminder on my calendar to check it about once a month and add water if necessary.

It seems like there are a lot of things that could go wrong with this little project.  Too little cold, too much cold.  To little water, too much water.  Too much light.  I’m beginning to wonder if this was such a great idea after all.  But everybody seems to be doing it, so hopefully it’s as easy as they say it is and next spring I’ll have a lovely pot of daffodils and iris.

Have you had luck with a bulb lasagna?  Leave a comment and let me know, and be sure to share any tips you might have!

the winter dining room.

Published on by Quandie21 Comments

I started my holiday decorating a bit early this year for two reasons.  First, I did all of my outdoor stuff a week or two ago when we had a couple of really nice sunny days in the 50’s.  It was so fun filling the window box and putting up lights without having to wear a parka and fight with frozen soil.

Speaking of the window box, one of you requested a ‘dusk photo’ with the twig lights on.  I didn’t manage to get a dusk photo, but how about a ‘dawn photo’?

As you can see, I got this stuff in just in time before winter weather officially (in my book) arrived with a dusting of snow, blustery winds and a ‘feels like’ temp of 8°.

I got a jump on my indoor decorating too. That’s due to my 2nd reason for starting early.  Once again this year I’m going to Mexico with my neighbor nnK and her parents.  And this time my sister is joining us as well.  We leave tomorrow, and then there are only two and a half weeks until Christmas once we get back.

Putting up holiday decorations is a fair amount of work, I wanted to enjoy them for more than a couple of weeks!

Today I thought I would share the decorations in our dining room.  This is where we enter our house from the back deck, and my Belgian bed bench is next to the door.

The bench is painted in Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint in a mix of equal parts Ironstone, Linen and Grain Sack.  You can find all of the details for that project here.

As for the sled hanging over the bench, that is one I found this past summer at an estate sale.  The price was a little higher than I like to spend (as is usually the case at estate sales), but I had to snap it up because of the solid surface of the seat.  I knew that would be perfect for stenciling.

I painted the seat in Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage, then created a shadow of the words ‘Bed and Breakfast’ using Coffee Bean, and finally added the full stencil in Drop Cloth.

I finished it off with a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax, including the unfinished wood and the metal slats.  The clear wax just freshens it all up a bit and would protect it from moisture if I hung it outside, although for this year I’m keeping it inside.

I added some faux evergreen garland and a string of battery operated lights to the back of the bench.

Then I added more garland and lights to the top of my Welsh cupboard.

Next I pulled out the vintage “Merry Christmas” sign that I purchased last year.

Although I appreciated the original red and green paint, I didn’t love the glitter that had been added to it.  So I repainted the letters in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth, and the bar across the back in Midnight Sky.

By the way, nearly every piece of ironstone in that cupboard is from a garage sale.  I think there might be one or two that were from antique shops, but that’s about it.

The last bit of holiday decorating in this room is my clock cloche (that’s what I’m calling it anyway) centerpiece on the table.  Some of you might remember when I popped a large glass cloche over a clock that fell off my wall and was damaged.

If not, the details can be found here.

I tend to change up the contents of the clock cloche for the seasons, and here is its Christmas look.

Well, maybe it would be more accurate to call it a ‘winter’ look.

It feels a bit plain for a holiday look.  I may have to dress it up a bit more.  Maybe it needs some faux snow, or lighting of some kind.  What do you think?

I let the paint colors that I used on the sled dictate a neutral color scheme in the dining room this year.  Sometimes it’s fun to change things up and see how you like them.  Plus, if I just remove the “Merry Christmas” signage from above the hutch, the rest of this stuff can be left in place as simply ‘winter’ decor.  Maybe next year I’ll go back to more traditional red and green.

How about you?  Are you all out red and green, with Santa’s everywhere?  Or do you sometimes stick to a more neutral ‘winter’ look?  Leave a comment and let me know.

And one last note, I did schedule a couple of posts for while I’m gone.  However, I probably won’t answer comments since I’ll be floating in a pool in Mexico.  So I hope you enjoy them, and I’ll be sure to respond when I get back!

thank you!

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

Today seems like an appropriate day to send out a heartfelt thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a comment on my blogiversary post (FYI, for my non-American readers, it’s our Thanksgiving holiday today).

I got so many lovely comments from you, and that reminded me that you guys are still out there enjoying my posts … even if you rarely take the time to comment.

And you know what, that’s OK.  I get it.  I’m right there with you as an infrequent commenter myself.

So honestly, if you’re not into leaving comments, don’t feel like you should.  I don’t want anyone to feel bad about not leaving comments.  Maybe just leave one once a year on my blogiversary post and that will be enough 😉

That being said, it does sound like quite a few of you find the comment process cumbersome, so I did want to touch on that for a minute.

WordPress really works hard to keep spam comments at bay.  I’m sure you can imagine just how many spam comments I get every day, and for the most part WordPress catches 99% of them (probable statistic) and puts them in a separate folder for me to review.  This is an awesome feature since it means I don’t have to go through and delete a gazillion spam comments one by one.

To help them accomplish that I have a setting in place that requires me to approve the first comment left by anyone.  When you try to leave a comment you’ll get a window that asks you to “log in or provide your name and email to leave a comment”.  Then you can fill in your name, email address and possible the name of your website (that one is optional).  You’ll also have to option to save your name, etc. for later.  If you do that, you’ll have to set up a password.  I recommend not doing that if you hate coming up with memorable passwords (or is that just me?).

After filling all of that out and submitting your comment, you should see something like this:

Your comment is awaiting moderation. This is a preview; your comment will be visible after it has been approved.

Once I have approved that first comment, future comments don’t need approval as long as  they are left with the exact same name and email address (and possibly a website name if one was filled in the first time).  If there is a typo anywhere, or if you put your name in as “Linda” one time, and “linda” another time, and then “LindaS” another time … well, those will all have to await new approval.

So if you ever leave a comment and it doesn’t show up right away, that might be why.  I try to approve legit comments quickly, but I don’t always get to it.

Of course, WordPress isn’t perfect.  There are also occasions when honest comments end up in that spam folder.  I’m not exactly sure why that happens.  Sometimes it’s because the comment includes a link, but other times I really can’t figure out why.  I am not nearly as good at checking the spam folder on a regular basis, but I do try to sift through it and retrieve the non-spam comments now and then.  So that can also explain a lag between the time you leave a comment and when it actually shows up.

Another thing to note, if the email address you use is associated with a WordPress account, you will have to know your password to leave a comment.  And let’s face it, how many of us can actually keep track of all of our passwords?  So that can be a problem too.

So yeah, commenting can be cumbersome.  I get it.  So don’t worry about it.

OK, so with that I’m off to enjoy the holiday with family.  If you’re in the U.S., I hope you’re having a wonderful Thanksgiving.  And if you’re not, thank you for following me from wherever you are.  I appreciate all of you!