(above) the after!!

My parents are coming from PA this weekend to visit so Thomas and I decided we needed to spruce up our back patio a bit. Our poor dying rose bush was taken out and two beautiful planters were put in. We went to the store not knowing what we wanted and came out with a beautiful array of lavender and gold flowers.

We wanted to have the planters pop against our white fence so we chose some vibrant petunias and a great maroon accent plant for each one. To contrast the purples we chose some bright yellow marigolds and a sweet potato vine that will grow to drape over the edge of the planter. Even though we put them together in the rain (poor day to decide to garden!) they turned out perfect! Over time they will flourish in their little planters and fill up the space. We were so excited about our back patio that we went out and got a tiny $30 charcoal grill to have friends over and show it off! What a great way to make our small outdoor space a little more inviting. Yay to gardening in the rain!

As promised, some pictures of Thomas’ beautiful landscaping in our backyard…

… and also some progress on my mosaic-ing. I’ve been working on putting the tiles on the adhesive sheets and came across a problem. The sides of the tub are not even (of course!) so I’ve decided when I put the tile adhesive up I will just quickly mosaic right to the adhesive. The space is only between 2″ and 3″ wide so it isn’t that much to just tile right on the wall. Lets hope I don’t mess up when it comes to that point though!! Thomas and I were thinking it would be a lot better because there is no real exact way to measure that inconsistent width.

This is what my table in the living room looks like…

Part of the border is going to be a gradient from blue to yellow to striped tiles. You’ll see above part of that gradient. I’m getting EXCITED!!

Also, a few months ago Thomas did a little bit of landscaping off of our back patio and our little bushlets (as my friend Emily from work calls them) are flowering!! Its so exciting! I’ll take some pictures of those as well and post them tonight. Be on the lookout!