Plantings at Eton

We are fortunate to live near a beautiful shopping center called Eton. Besides housing one of the few remaining Barnes and Noble stores, there's a Trader Joe's, Anthropolgie, Sur le Table, Penzey's...and lots of other terrific shops and great restaurants.

My favorite thing, however, is the beautiful plantings in the summer time. We went over early this morning and took pictures before things got busy.

Here's a "big photo" of the general look:
My pretty car, Stella, as seen between two planters:

The picnic tables you see below are outside "B Spot," Michael Symon's burger restaurant. The plantings surrounding the tables consist of pole beans, herbs, tomatoes, etc:
















Here I am - all 5'4" of me - to show you the scale of some of the plantings:
And here's my Oldtimer, to show you the scale of another - outside Anthropologie:



I love this bench near the big chess board:

The animal print planters are very striking, too:

If you look around the base of the planters (above) you'll notice the "Supertunias" that are covering the ground. I've always seen them trailing from hanging planters - never realized they could almost be ground cover!

Random Images

In no particular order...
The doll I made at CIFI in Albuquerque (still not complete):
My inspiration board (1 of 3) in the treehouse:
My new vehicle - her name is Stella:
This year's locations for the aqua rockers:
A necklace I bought at Waterloo 7 Gallery:
(The very same gallery, I might mention, where we are having a benefit fundraiser for Pets for the Elderly on July 30. PLEASE try to visit us - there will be food and music, and several wonderful pieces of art for the "Chinese auction" (which is still just a raffle, in my book).

Gen's doll at CIFI - too hard to see with those chairs in the background, but still:
A Hipstamatic view of the hosta garden below the deck:

Dew drop from an elephant ear - in front of a beautiful sunset, right here in NE Ohio!

I literally end up with a 12" X 18" space in which to work, when I start dragging out supplies, and "auditioning" materials. Cosmo is quite convinced I want to share that space with him:
We brought all of this home from the Lake County Farm Park farmer's market last Wednesday. We plan to go back this coming Wednesday, too!

Table Doll for CIFI

On Thursday I leave for New Mexico to have four days of creative play with other dollmakers. Many of us are making and donating "table dolls" and this doll (the "June" pattern, by Frowning Francis) is my offering. As I've told several other people, she is definitely going to be the wallflower of the party!

Rose Bowl

As I snipped these two pale pink roses this morning, wishing the "necks" of this rose breed were a little stronger, I remembered how delighted my mother would be with the occasional "too short" stem when she cut roses from the yard.

Lolo thought it was quite elegant to float a rose in a glass bowl - often a crystal ashtray or (more often) a custard dish. Many years later, when I was dealing antiques and collectibles in NC, I often found pretty cut glass rose bowls in glassware lots at the antique auctions. I'd never known that real bowls, designated purely as rose bowls, existed.

There are no pretty designated rose bowls in my glassware collection - yet somehow this worn custard cup, on a table next to my unpolished silver tray, seemed fitting.

One RR Doll Home

A couple of viewing options on this lovely who came "home" recently from the Time for Dolls club round robin. My doll was made from a Barbara Willis pattern, and I sent along some pretty but difficult fabrics to use on her. I'm *so* impressed with what the others did with her. Each person who had her "dressed" a body part, and then I got to put her all together. I also wigged her with the pink Tibetan lamb.

All the dolls in this group were just terrific - there was some real creative costuming - beautiful, colorful, and fun.

I know the background is a little distracting. I've been committing neatnesses all over the house, and can't seem to put together all the parts of the light cube!

Blessed Spring

After all my complaining and photos of the winter weather this year, it seemed time to show some photos that weren't of snow. Thank God it isn't snow season - with all the rain we've been having, we'd be up to our eyebrows in snow!

These photos are in no particular order, just a little something to make you feel hopeful.

Begonia planter bag on the pole outside the bedroom window.

Hibiscus plant, surround with some new-to-me lavender colored flower (in my mom's old sugar pot).

The freshened rock garden - note the replacement tree purchased. Apparently it was all the threat the pink dogwood needed to finally put out leaves.

A few hanging pots over the Hosta garden.

The geese that visit the pond every year - Abigail & Rufus - having a little chat with Cosmo.

My Oldtimer feeding A&R - note the action shot.

This is a shot of the neighbor's pond - the view outside my "tree house" window.

The geese came to visit Molly and me while I weeded the ivy lawn.

Not afraid at all, are they? (Molly is - see her peering through the daffodil tops?)

Yesterday, while trying to get the deck pots planted, it just kept pouring down on us. Nothing, however, deters my Oldtimer from accomplishing his to-do list on schedule.