Make Your Patio Look Like a Million Bucks with Custom Planters

If you know me at all, you know that I am totally addicted to plants! I live for summer, so that I can spend my evenings and weekends in my yard. I just love adding color to my garden with beautiful flowers, colorful foilage, and interesting textures.

Every year, I fill pots throughout my yard with interesting tropicals from locations around the world. You know, the ones that don't survive my cold Utah winters.

Planting tropicals can be expensive, so I've found that the best way to protect my investment is to plant them in beautiful potted arrangements. The pots can be moved inside or into the garage for the winter.

Creating your own planter arrangements is easy and fun! To help you out, I've created an eHow article to walk you through the process:

How to Create a Showy Patio Planter for Shade

You will not believe the difference a few bright planted arrangements can make, especially in shady areas around your yard or on your porch!

Setting the Mood with Floating Candle Cans

When my sister got married a couple of years ago, my gift to her was decorating for her wedding reception. They got married outside in Montana and rented a cabin for the party afterward. They had a BBQ dinner and everyone socialized on the deck. My challenge was to create decorations that conveyed their style while minimizing costs.

One of my favorite ideas was to use clean tuna cans to create romantic candlelight throughout the reception area. I found ribbon that matched the wildflower arrangements that I also designed and purchased a back of small gravel from my local hardware store. I adhered the ribbon to the cans in multiple layers, then placed rinsed gravel in the bottom of each one with a floating candle and romantic message tag in each. After they were placed in their final location, I added water to the can and lit the floating candle.

This romantic idea is an easy way to add mood lighting to any party or wedding. It's easy on the budget and a fun group project. By adding your own message tags to each one, you can create personalized interest throughout your party area or can use candle cans with a place card tags at your dinner party to mark each seating location.

For complete instructions for this project, please see my eHow article:

How to Create Floating Candle Cans for Weddings and Parties

Welcome to my blog!

Hello! I've always been a creative person. I have that knack for finding smart products that I can use to make homemade, professional-looking items for myself and others. When I can't find what I'm looking for, I just make something up, dreaming up new techniques and ideas to meet my latest needs. Through this blog, I'll introduce you to many of the products and tools I just LOVE and my creative techniques to get the most out of them.

Please bookmark this blog and make sure you come back often! Follow along as I explain how I create some of my most amazing projects. Believe me, you won't want to miss a thing!
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