Instant Forest Walkway or Outdoor Room Floor!

"Making Foot-paths out of nothing at all... out of nothing at all..." (Sung to the tune of "making love out of nothing at all")

Hello my sparkly Friends! Continuing work on the labyrinth, I started getting bored with the same ol' "Rock*Brick*Gravel theme and thought I would mix it up a bit! I want this side of the Labyrinth to lead to a "Garden Room" and I wanted something prettier for the floor. After googling how I could grow moss with beer and buttermilk, I decided I just don't want to wait that long for moss to grow!

So I came up with a thrifty streak of green genius! First, lay your main floor/walkway rocks. Then we are going to transplant hardy grasses and moss to fill in the cracks and look like it has been there for years using my simple technique!

This idea came to me while being scolded by the hubs that "Sod needs full sun to grow it's going to die!" when he saw my $5.00 patch of Home Depot sod that I decided looks a bit "too perfect" for my taste. It is like the metrosexual of the plant kingdom. It's way too well groomed. So perfect it's creepy (like a guy with a manicure and shiny nails! EEWWW) It's like grass that really needs to address it's "grassuality" and decide if it is really grass or not. Poor confused sod. You belong on a golf course. With Tiger. Nuff said about that. I actually like golf by the way so don't think I am judging!

So my brilliant and "muy" (that's spanish for "very") THRIFTY idea was to search out sod's unrefined redneck cousin... Crabgrass, who everybody knows is the bad guy at the lawn party who is not afraid to kick green butt of any plant naive enough to think it can grow close to him.

Yep- this is what I'm talking about!

Search out a nice, firm, ruggedly handsome clump of crabgrass, and carefully pull him up by his roots.

Take your scissors, and give him a brazilian.

Then you can artfully plant him in between your rocks! Try and mix up grass varieties and textures.

Then you can fill in the gaps with moss that you must have growing somewhere on your property.

Continue this until you have the desired size walkway or floor.

I am not nearly finished yet as you can see!

So there you have it! My nice, green shade loving MACHO SOD that will grow even if I forget about him. You can't beat that! If only husbands were more like sod.... Ha! The GRASS is always greener... you know the rest! LOL!

Jack, do you never sleep ---
does the green still run deep in your heart?
Or will these changing times,
motorways, powerlines,
keep us apart?
Well, I don't think so ---
I saw some grass growing through the pavements today.

Ian Anderson

Sparkly Hugs,

Tobi and the Pixies

OUTDOOR WEDNESDAY LINK

Happy White Wednesday! Pixie Edition

Hello my Sparkly Friends! Today is White Wednesday and this is my first! As you know, Pixies rule in my neck of the woods, so I thought it fitting to start my White Wednesdays with a peek at my Pixie Collection!
I love the way they all wink...
Looks like the little cherub wants to talk, and she just pretends not to hear...

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little Pixies, there are more so keep coming back for White Wednesday!

Be sure to visit Faded Charm Cottage and see all the White Wednesday participants!

Sparkly Hugs,

Tobi and the Pixies

Mommy...Where do Pixies Come From???

Hello My Sparkly Friends! I thought you might like a peek into the Pink Pixie Forest Workshop to see where the trees are created. I was feeling better yesterday and the Pixies convinced me to organize the workshop and like a dummy I listened! Today I am paying for it, but laying up here in bed I feel good knowing that we prettied up the workspace and I can now find stuff!








Have A Wonderful Weekend!!

Got Labyrinth?!

Almost! I did 3/4 today, and it will be done tomorrow!

This was what my labyrinth looked like at 9am this morning. I figured it was time to get some of my projects done, and since the rain has finally gone someplace else for the next 4 days, I decided to start on the first thing on my list... PROJECT: LABYRINTH!

First I decided where to put the center. I made it to actually face in the same direction as Chartres, the famous labyrinth in France. Next step was to lay down the landscaping fabric.

Then I got a google pic of a 5 circuit modified Chartres labyrinth, and laid out the bricks.

After adding a sitting log and mini fire pit to the center, I started to make a fancy dancy entrance and start filling in with crushed stone.

Well, I am pooped now and off to bed, stay tuned to the same bat channel for tomorrows toil!!

Sparkly Hugs,

Tobi and the Pixies!

More Bricks Please!!!

HA!!! (Sung like Mr. Rogers Neighborhood)

"It's a sparkely day in my neighborhood,

A sparkely day for a neighbor,

Do you have Bircks?

Could I have Bricks?!"

Well, I got an email from the "Brick Man" that I met on Craigs List last year and guess what?? HE HAS MORE BRICKS FOR ME!!!

YAY is all I can say.

"Why Tobi..." you may ask

"Don't you still have a huge pile of bricks you got from him last year and haven't moved them an inch?"

"Why YES..." I reply, "I certainly DO still have them, but NOW I don't have to decide between a Labyrinth or the waterfall brick walkway!"

The Best part of all this is- IT"S SATURDAY AND the HUBS isn't home and that means I am in like Flynn!!

I will post some pics for you later!

Sparkly Bricks,

Tobi !!

Hurry Up Spring PART 2 Unfinished Business...

So I am hoping that by posting my unfinished projects here, I may be inspired to really finish them! Like I told you in Hurry Up Spring, I had a bunch of projects that just didn't get done last summer because of the :

Rain

Mosquitos

Procrastination

Weeds growing on my pile of topsoil that became known as the "Huge lawn weed chia pet burial mound" and had my husband threatening me with Preen when i wasn't looking to get rid of the weeds and stop the neighbors from whispering about us.

Being Fairy Friendly, of course I begged and so far he hasn't done it.

I am determined to get this all done this year so I am hoping by posting this y'all will hold me accountable to be a trustworthy yard steward and finish what i have started! Here are a few picture to give you an actual view of why my husband was complaining. :) Smeeze!

This is my waterfall walkway: it needs to be cemented but I am not sure if I want to use the bricks for my labyrinth. What do you think? Keep it? Labyrinth it?

This is the "Broken Sidewalk Project"- concrete rubble that i am going to make beautiful boulders out of! You can stop laughing now.

This is the "Huge lawn weed chia pet burial mound" - it is being sneeky right now... it looks perfectly harmless but once sunshine and spring hit, it will turn into a gigantic chia pet and have hubby heading for the preen.
Ok- If you feel like it you can unleash your inner pest and keep asking me when I am going to get started! Every week should do!

Don't take excuses!

I am looking forward to hearing from you!

Vintage Alphabet Party- This Week It's "C and D"!

Prince Albert in a CAN...Hey- Can someone please let him out?? That was an old joke my dad used to tell.

CAT string holder...can you believe I actually bought this??? Sheesh!

CUP and saucer
Really Cool Cabinet!

Copper Candlestick!

Well, better late than never! Here are my Cs and D's!

The "I Need Friends"Beautiful Fairy tree Giveaway!

So, I am new to this blogging thing. I have 3 blogs (probably a result of my Adult ADHD)!

http://pinkpixieforest.blogspot.com

http://thepinkfairycottage.blogspot.com

http://tobibrittonslivinggreen.blogspot.com

PinkPixieForest has 13 friends

ThePinkFairyCottage has 10 friends and

TobiBrittonsLivingGreen has 3!

I have been seeing all of these giveaways for bloggers that have big milestones- 1000 followers, 100th post...you know.

So I decided to have a big Giveaway to welcome new friends!!!

I figured I would start out with a really pretty giveaway- one of my Fairy Trees that I will make

especially for the giveaway.

So here's how it will go:

I will make a very special Fairy or Pixie Tree especially for this giveaway in about a week.

To ENTER:

1. Become a FOLLOWER on each of my blogs listed above. That's Three blogs to follow!

2. Leave a COMMENT on this post on each blog telling me which tree is your fave from the pic above! Yup- three comments!

YOU WILL BE ENTERED TWICE if you....

Just do this before I post the actual giveaway tree MARCH 14th!.

Once the tree picture is posted, each entry will count as one.

So...

Enter before i post the tree = 6 entries- 2 for each blog!

Enter after i post the tree= 3 entries!

Add my button to your blog = 2 extra entries for each blog for a possible total of 6 extra entries!

But WAIT BOB- THERE's MORE!

IF I GET MORE THAN 100 FOLLOWERS BEFORE I POST THE PICTURE, I WILL ADD ANOTHER TREE SO THERE WILL BE 2 WINNERS!!

You just can't beat social marketing ;)

Sparkly Hugs,

Tobi :)

Vintage Alphabet Party- This Week It's "B"!

This week is B so here are my Vintage Goodies that begin with "B":

Beaded Bag, Brooch, Bunny Mold, Bowl (footed with roses)

Enjoy!

Hurry Up Spring!!!

I keep looking out my window to see if the snow is almost melted yet. I have lots of big plans for my garden and yard this year. They are actually many of the same plans I had last year but never got to because of all of the rain. Let's see- I have boulders to build, a labyrinth to construct, a few outdoor "rooms to furnish with concrete "Faux Bois" furniture that I of course will be creating myself! I also plan on making a bunch of raised beds so I can actually grow the veggies I threatened to grow last year, pile a few fieldstone (Pennsylvania) walls, and build a few floating decks for my outdoor rooms. Oh, I forgot about the greenhouse I am going to make out of my falling down shed! Just to make sure I don't make things easy on myself, 

 I will grow a yard of pretty flowers from the hundred packets of seeds I bought last year and never had a chance to plant.  

The thing I forgot to mention, was that I have ZERO budget to get my fantasy yard in order. I have, instead, to rely on good ol' fashioned ingenuity and creativity when it comes to getting what I want.

You see, it all started out fine last spring. I went on craigslist and found a bunch of bricks, my aunt was moving and uncle Bill gave me a palette of bricks that I loaded one at a time into the back of my Honda Ridgeline- much to the dismay of my "don't use the truck for things it is made for cause it will get scratched" husband!  

I became a "brick sleuth", taking small loads whenever I could and quickly unloading them before the hubs came home. I even snuck a yard of dirt in the back of my truck to save the delivery charge by carefully lining it with landscape fabric and he was none the wiser!

There are lots of things I would like in my garden... like rocks and boulders! I have "hardscape envy" of anyone that has had the good fortune and budget to adorn their yard with big, heavy, gorgeous boulders! Big ones, small ones, Mexican river rocks- small, medium and large, pea gravel, bluestone, flagstone- I dream of them all. Now when I lived upstate, this stuff was everywhere and you could pretty much drive down the road and come back with a free truckload of whatever you could pick up and put in your truck. But I lived upstate in the 70's when I was a teenager and my idea of great rock came in the musical form with big hair, tight pants and had absolutely nothing at all to do with geology. EEK!

Back to boulder building. 
JUNE.
So I was online drooling over pictures of designer hard scapes when I came across a guy from Australia who creates boulders and slab staircases out of concrete!

This was perfect for me...a girl with limited lifting skills and no bobcat. I sent away for the instructional videos that taught me all about sand mix and pigment powders. 

 I got a bunch of free concrete rubble that the guy even delivered for free, 
and also got to listen to my husband tell me that I "was never gonna finish and we would be looking at that pile of broken sidewalk next year."
  I scoffed at his lack of imagination and vision for the future paradise I would be constructing with my bare hands! HMMPHMPH! " I will show him" I thought. 

 I then enthusiastically had 5 yards of topsoil delivered on a big pile on the side of the driveway. It was as beautiful as dirt can get- rich, black and crumbly. I couldn't wait to get started!

I actually DID get started, I put in four beds in the back and started creating my "waterfall brick " walkway entrance to the back yard "gardens".

Then came the rain. I looked on the cheery side and said to myself "great-I will see how the water makes it's way thru the yard so I can plan more efficiently". Well, I pretty much spent the entire summer waiting for it to stop raining or dry up enough to do my projects! I couldn't start concrete if it was going to rain, all of my boulders would wash away!
JULY.

All of the rain made my pile of topsoil grow and start looking eerily like a huge lawn chia pet.

As it grew more from the plentiful rain, it actually started looking more like an abandoned burial mound. This made me very reluctant to put it into my beds at that point because I really didn't want to do THAT much weeding!! 
 I think my topsoil was probably made out of decomposed weeds because I had become the proud owner of a lush, green weed chia burial mound. 
Yay. Just what I wanted.

By then my husband was having quite a jolly time reminding me about my broken sidewalk project and the big weed grave in the front yard! He kept on threatening me that he was going to get preen and kill everything before the neighbors started whispering about us, but I really don't want all those chemicals messing with my backyard wildlife. Not to mention, I had bought a hundred packets of seeds with leftover grocery money (shhh, don't tell!), and the preen would make it impossible for anything to grow!

August. 
  Now that the weather had a few stretches of workable dryness, the mosquitos were having a block party and I was the tequila.  
Not a big fan of encephalitus, I chose to remain inside in the air conditioning and crackle finish my vanity instead.

Before I knew it the summer was over. I finally weeded my front lawn chia pet in time for the fall clean up. 

 Right now, the blanket of snow keeps my broken concrete project a secret to those who don't know, and my box of seed packets patiently wait for me to Johnny Appleseed them into my beds and so they can take a chance at life. 

 My rich, black crumbly topsoil peeks it's weedless head innocently out of the melting snow, silently saying "put me in your garden beds"...but I know better- it thinks I will forget and let it chia pet my entire garden this year!

Heck, maybe I can start a new trend- the chia garden!

After The Fire...Phoenix Rising!

Three years ago I got the call that you never want to get..."The house is on fire".

Bad news-House was a total loss. Good news- Tobi gets to redecorate COMPLETELY from scratch! We're talkin' "the beams were the only thing left. We lived in a trailer on the front lawn from April till November...the neighbors must have just LOVED that! Although it was very traumatic and stressful, we were really blessed to be able to redo the house from top to bottom! We were only able to do this because we had a wonderful insurance company. Now if it sounds odd that I would call a fire "good fortune" let me channel Lucy Ricardo for a moment and "splain". The fire actually only burned one room- the dining room. All the rest of the house was smoke damage. That was the good part. Smoke damage meant that I didn't lose any of my old photographs, teacups, dishes etc. They were considered a "loss" and we were paid for them but got to keep them! This of course meant that I had many hours of washing to do, but I didn't lose a single piece of jadite! I am a true believer that you should always look for the good fortune in things even if they seem like a disaster. One of my best piece of good fortune was that I was able to move walls a bit and vault the upstairs ceilings- something my husband would never had agreed to do if we had to pay for it! The only very unfortunate part of it all was we lost three dear little munchkins- Midnight the big fat cat, Nikki the vociferous Pomeranian and her puppy Brodie. But now that I have this blog, they will have their little faces out there for all to see!!! So here are some pictures of the house and the updates, and believe me I still have LOTS of projects to do so there will be much more to come!In love and light,Tobi