Summer Mantle Decor, Flowers and Starter Garden

Summer Mantle Decor 

from around the house

Nothing beats free decor!  I needed to swap out my easter mantle for something more summery, so I spent 10 minutes looking rounding up some stuff from around the house.  It's not perfect or the coolest mantle decor but I think I'm slowly improving in switching up the mantle and arranging things...from May-Dec of last year the mantle was very bare with like a small picture and a couple other things and just looked dumb.

The picture frame was in my daughter's bathroom, the clam and basket of sea shells (and the shells in the glass cylinders from the $1 store are all from the beach in Madison, CT)  

The pink wreath I picked up at a church yard sale for $2

 The green bottle was a bottle of sparkling cider from thanksgiving, I had the stems in the craft room, the conch shell was a centerpiece from a wedding 5 or 6 years ago...and my friend gave me the white vase as a gift last year

I love these shells

I might switch it up, but I think it's better than it was before and all I did was look around the house to see what I had.  It's fun to challenge myself to be resourceful and figure out how to use what I have rather than going out and trying to buy everything new each season!

I also planted some lillies...we'll see how they hold up!

Here is the start to our first garden!  If you know what those are growing in front, then you will also know that I am an idiot.  I got all excited and started planting seeds in these starter cells with the kids...then when I was telling my mom what we planted she laughed and said we were supposed to plant the carrots straight into the ground...how are they going to grow in these small things??!?  So yeah...didn't really think it through or obviously read the package that closely because when I went back and looked there was an actual picture showing it being planted right in the ground.

We are going to build our raised garden bed this weekend hopefully....we need to get it ready and move those carrots!  It's a good thing my husband is really interested in having a garden, he wants to grow tons of tomatos and he'll probably be the one to make sure it stays healthy...I am determined, but I've just had bad luck with every pot of plants I've ever had so I'm trying not to set myself up for disappointment.  My mom knew my hesitation so she surprised me with a subscription to Organic Gardening to help inspire me...and..it did.  But I'll never have a garden as awesome as hers...