April Showers Brought Plenty of May Flowers

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Frame by Frame Style

Happy Thursday! The unofficial start of summer is this weekend, but before we kick off the celebrations, I want to take a minute to update you on how our tulips did this spring.

Our tulips started blooming the week before Easter and continued all the way through mid-May. It was exciting to see the variety of tulips as they bloomed. Each week we added a new color to the mix.

I normally share photos taken with my DSLR, but I had so much fun taking photos with my iPhone this spring, that I thought I would share those with you as well.

We also had another successful year for our hyacinths. They been coming up every spring since I planted them over three years ago. This fall, I will dig up the bulbs and split them so we can have more hyacinths next year.

Now that the tulips are gone, it is time to trim the plants and get them ready for next spring. Look for more garden posts to come!

Update: Spring has sprung!

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Frame by Frame Style

(On Sunday I discovered that the tulips that I thought were Rembrandt tulips are actually more varieties of lily tulips and our Rembrandt tulips started blooming! See below for updated pictures.)

And we’re back. It’s been a busy few months and although it was not really planned, I took a break from writing to catch up/focus on myself and our home. Since I last posted, BJ and I started a new workout routine, we started eating a healthier, more organic diet, and we also completed a few projects around the house.

To kick off our new series of posts, I first want to start by mentioning that we will be adding some new material to Frame By Frame Style. With our new organic eating, I also purchased a juicer and I will share a few of our recipes for delicious juices and other treats we are making. I also plan to share tips and tricks and resources for eating organic. I’m not an expert by any means, so as I learn new tips, I will share them with you. You can also check out my Pinterest board A Cleaner, Greener and Leaner Living for pins on healthy eating and living.

Before we dive into the healthy eating and living posts, I have an update on our flower bulb planting last year. In the fall, BJ and I planted around 150 tulip and crocus bulbs in our front yard garden beds. Now, six months later, the flowers are blooming!

First, at the beginning of April the crocuses (or croci) came up and bloomed. We planted purple, white and yellow crocuses and saw all three colors bloom.

The crocuses are gone and now our tulips are coming up in stages. A few are still buds, but we have plenty that are already blooming in time for Easter on Sunday.

The first to bloom were the lily tulips. In the evening, they close like regular tulips but during the day when they are in full bloom they open to look more like a lily. Our lily tulips are blooming in a bright pink, bright orange and a white/pink variety.

We also planted Rembrandt tulips. The Rembrandt tulips are very bright and have pointed tips.

I took many pictures of our tulips and this is my favorite of the tulip pictures I captured. This is a peacock tulip. They grow a little taller than the other tulips and have a softer look.

Here is another look at our peacock tulips. Our tulips are still blooming so look for more pictures to come.

I’m really thankful that we are seeing our fall planting come to fruition. It was a harsh winter for most of the United States and the Midwest experienced cold temperatures that were below -15F (-30F wind chill). I wasn’t sure if any of our flowers would make it through the tough winter but they did and I’m so glad! They will be really beautiful for Easter this year.

How did your gardens fair through the winter?

Along with the success of our planting, we are also experiencing a bit of a rabbit problem. In our side garden, the rabbits have enjoyed our tulips a little more than I would like.

Eventually, we would like to elevate our front gardens so I’m hoping that will end our bunny problem in the future. In the meantime, I just have to cross my fingers and hope they find some wild flowers to eat that are not in our yard… or maybe they will eat our dandelions instead. One can hope.

More posts coming soon! Stay tuned. 🙂

Easter Egg-tastic

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

Happy Easter!

Every Easter, I always look forward to spending time with family, celebrating the special reason for this season, and dying Easter eggs.

I love traditional dyed Easter eggs, but it’s also fun to see all the creative ways that people dye their own eggs. I searched around Pinterest for creative Easter egg ideas and below are a few of my favorites.

These eggs remind me of robin’s eggs. So pretty. Teal is one of my favorite colors.

These eggs were dyed using blueberries.

The design on these pastel eggs was made using rubber bands. Very clever!

These speckled eggs look like they will hatch baby birds! You could easily make the speckles using a Sharpie.

These are my favorite! Every designer needs some Pantone eggs!

Here are our traditional Easter eggs. This year, they seemed to turn out extra bright. Maybe next year, we’ll mix it up and try one of the techniques above.

Have a wonderful holiday!

Signs of Spring

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

It may not look or feel like spring outside, but inside our home, signs of spring are all around.

Even with the snow falling outside our window, these daffodils on our kitchen island make it feel like spring is finally here. Daffodils are often signs of new beginnings and that Easter is right around the corner.

It will be a few more days before we see spring-like temperatures outside, but in the meantime we’ll keep celebrating the start of spring inside.

Welcome spring!

Happy Easter

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Frame by Frame Style

Just a quick post, but I wanted to share a few photos of the beautiful tulips we saw today. These were located outside of a resort lodge where we enjoyed Easter lunch.

Happy Easter!

Wrapping up our floor project, coupon clipping and palm leaves

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Frame by Frame Style

And we’re done! Well, almost. The floor has come along way since November and we are really in the home stretch now. The grouting is complete and now we need to seal the floor again and put in a new baseboard.

One important note to keep in mind when you are grouting a floor is to make sure you do not grout yourself in. Always grout toward a door so that you can get out when you’re finished. We started in the far right corner of our room and worked our way toward the kitchen door. This would’ve put us finishing out into the foyer entrance. But after we started, it made more sense to grout toward the foyer entrance and put ourselves out the kitchen door so that we could still access the sink for water buckets and the garage for clean up.

BJ grouted and I followed behind with the bucket of water and sponge to clean up the excess grout. (Obviously I wasn’t cleaning when I was taking pictures :))

Here are my buckets of water! Ready to clean!

Even though it has taken awhile to finish this project, it has been worth the wait. The floor looks so great with grout and it will look even better once we install the baseboard and finish off the edges. I’m looking forward to the return of our dining room furniture and seeing the complete look.

What else have we been up to lately? I started coupon clipping like crazy, but due to my lack of coupon organization, the first few trips to the grocery store did not go as well as I planned . So to fix that, I made a trip to the Container Store to buy an inexpensive coupon organizer to help me in my coupon clipping endeavors.

You can see in the photo that my former carrying method was a ratty white envelope. It made it very difficult to find anything and the coupons kept spilling. It was a mess. Now our coupons are organized by date and hopefully this will allow future money-saving trips to the grocery store.

In the background of the coupon madness, you might have noticed our island center piece has a new look for the Easter season. Last Sunday, BJ and I attended Palm Sunday service and we brought home these palm leaves. I thought they would look nice in our center piece for the rest of Lent.

That’s all for tonight! Goodnight everyone!

Hello Spring.

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Frame by Frame Style

Spring is officially here! And, of course that means I got out our Spring decorations… all four of them. Okay, we might have six or seven if you count the few that I got out weeks ago, but it’s not many.

Two weeks ago I bought the welcome sign above and this Happy Easter sign. They were on sale. Who doesn’t love a good sale?

A few years ago, my mom got me this “Rockin Rabbit” for Easter. He is a lot of fun because he sings a song about Easter goodies to the beat of “Blue Suede Shoes.”

I also got out a flower arrangement I put together years ago as well as our Easter baskets so I could start planning our Easter candy and treats! I gave up candy for Lent, so I’m excited to treat myself to candy when Lent is over. There are two big bags of my favorite fruit and spice jelly beans sitting on our counter waiting for Easter.

The tulip basket is for Zoey. The Easter Bunny brings her toys and treats every year. She might be spoiled. Just a little bit. 🙂

Aside from getting out our decorations, as a I drove around today, I made sure to enjoy how beautiful the trees look in bloom. The tree in our front yard does not flower, but there are several trees around our area that do. Last Spring, I took pictures of the trees that line the road near our neighborhood. The photos now make up this photo collage frame that hangs in our entryway: