My Outdoor Craft Studio

This is it. My outdoor craft studio. In the nice weather, this is where I often find myself, with a good book and a stitching project in hand. In the evenings, I love to sit here and stitch while I listen to the hum of the cicadas and the chirping of the hummingbirds that come to my feeder at the end of the porch.

I'm just finishing up my project from Shepherd's Bush. I am laying a Nun stitch around the whole project, and then it will get folded over to make a pocket to hold a ruler. I love patterns that incorporate different stitches. It makes the project interesting and stretches my creative muscle a bit.

My front yard landscaping is filling in quite nicely. Everything is so lush and green.

My mother refers to me as the Johnny Appleseed of gardens. It seems wherever we have moved in the past eleven years (with the exception of my Pittsburgh home), I have created gardens from practically nothing. I make them pretty and lush, and then I hand them over to the next owner. Sigh!

This garden is beginning to remind me of one I planted at our house in Wildwood, Missouri. I told myself at the time that the front yard garden would be simple, and the backyard is where I really wanted it to be dramatic. And what happened? The front yard garden grew amazing, and was more beautiful than the back.

Perhaps I should stick with subtle, simple plantings. I seem to like them more.

The coleus make such a big impact this time of year. When the weather cools, I plan on adding some white and purple mums and perhaps a few sedum to this mix.

In all our years of gardening, we have never planted a tree until this house. This pagoda dogwood is growing slowly, but we really like the changes it brings to each season. We saw a full specimen at a local Japanese garden, and when this one grows to its mature height it will be a showstopper.

The Pink Diamond hydrangea are slowly changing colors, from white to green to a pinkish hue.

What can you say about the Incrediball hydrangea that hasn't already been said? So easy to grow, with such impressive blooms!

This year, for some reason, I never got around to purchasing hanging baskets for the front porch. I was too busy concentrating on the plantings in the garden below to actually look up. I think I was worried that hanging baskets might make it look cluttered and detract from the landscaping beds. Of course, I've never been one to embrace the philosophy that less is more. More is always more in my humble opinion. :)

Still waiting for the Morning Glories to bloom, any day now.

I'm still amazed at how much we've managed to do to this house in a short amount of time. Looking back over the past year, I can see where the Fixer Upper has taken most of my creative energy. It was not the sort of turnkey house where you move in, unpack, and just live. This was the house where you move in, get to work, and don't stop. It's been a great learning experience for my husband and me, and no doubt in the future we will use this house as our guide.

Perhaps our story will be a cautionary tale. Ha ha! Only the future can tell if it will be a story of what could be done or what should not be done going forward.