Life and preparing a magazine has preceded my regular posting here but I thought this was a perfect set of images to share.   We made over our back yard on Saturday afternoon from it’s normal simple serenity to something entirely different.

Creating a temporary garden movie theater and transforming the place for a party was for the sake of a ninth birthday party campout celebration.  We  ate, we drank, we danced, we roasted smores, and slept out.   The movie part was amongst the easiest, being simple a digital projector, a sheet, a laptop and and a netflix account.

On a seperate note, the magazine is coming along and just as soon as I get that in order, get myself a bit more organized, and generally figure out how to do it all, I will be back here with at least some of my past regularity.

My beautiful home grown gourds from last year’s garden are finally dried (yes it seems to have taken a full 12 months).  But now I am finally trying to figure what to make of them.  I am quite taken with these lovely (made from gourds) garden lamps from studiotempera on Etsy.

Last week while shooting for an upcoming article in Leaf Magazine I came across a huge tableful of stained and polished gourds.  This is kinda the way of things are Brimfield….you really just never know what there will be a big table of around the next corner.   I really like these too — and they would be much simpler to create….but then I am not sure what I would do with them.   Which would you do?….the obviously complicated and potentially tricky (but more impressive) lamps, or the simple stained (but  nicely earthy) versions.

As I write more every day and continue to morph from plain old ‘Landscape Designer’ into ‘Landscape designer/writer/ editor/ Magazine founder’ I am increasingly fascinated by the power of just the right words.   These words (not to mention the beautiful product)  have inspired serious lust:

“a traveling gypsy, matthew cleland makes his beautiful pieces by hand. skills past down through ten generations and continued by this magician. with a flask in one and a soldering iron in the other, he brings you one of a kind pieces of art.”

I want a gypsy-made terrarium.  Bad.

terrariums by Score and Solder.

I love that Erin wrote me to tell me about her firepit.  It is a fantastic project that both she and I are excited to share, because it is a compeltely do-able (contractor-free) project and the results (especially as we are heading into the cozy fall) are beautiful.

Even Erin’s mom helped out.   Great job, thanks for sharing Erin!

If you want to see the full DIY project check out Erin’s flickr stream here.

Care to share your DIY or before and after garden makeover?  We would love to see it — shoot me an email right here.

This is my internet way of registering support for Ikea to bring the Annorlunda collection to more stores than just the Belgium based centers. Like perhaps the store in Stoughton, MA for starters.

I mean really, you come up with a collection of crazy cool garden-y furniture that people the world over want, (and frankly, we all know that you have the means to deliver) and you only let the Belgians have it? What gives?

It sucks to want something you just can’t have.   Who’s with me?