Memorial Day Breakfast Tablescape

This week is going by so fast and the weekend will soon be here. Yay!

For many years I collected Byers' Choice Carolers and the girl with her basket of sea shells is one of my favorites.
She was the inspiration for my breakfast tablescape for Memorial Day.

Dressed in her old fashioned swim costume, she reminds me

of times gone by.

I love the little basket of shells and the starfish she's holding in her hand.

I set her up as the centerpiece on the coffee table with some shells and a lantern and brought out some red pillows, that I use in the fall, to brighten the deck chairs.

She didn't come with a flag but I always have her carry a little cupcake flag, which seems to be just the right size.

I always think of her at the beach.. or the shore, if you're in NJ  :)... on Memorial Day weekend.

The bistro table is so small so I set up the cups on the coffee table.

This wooden tray is from GW a couple of months ago and I spray painted it white. I have a thing for trays... have you noticed? Even old plain wooden ones like this one follow me home.

Do the napkins look familiar? I folded them in the double sails sailboat shape by using the tutorial that Susan@BetweenNapsOnThePorch  shows here.

It was really very easy and lots of fun. Here I tucked the starfish in, but you could use a place card or favor.

I hope y'all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend with family and friends.

God bless all who have served our country and sacrificed their lives for our freedom.

I hope you'll stop by  Tablescape Thursday and see all the great ideas from so many wonderful bloggers. See you there.
                                                                                      Babs

Baker's Rack and Other Weekend Projects

I hope y'all had a great weekend. It was 94 degrees and HOT here in Georgia today.
This morning before it got too hot, we worked in the shed again, throwing out junk, old flower pots, dried up paint brushes, empty spray paint cans... you know what I'm talking about. :)  At least I  hope I'm not the only one with a shed full of junk. lol  

After that I deadheaded  and fed the roses and then thought I'd try to do something with the Baker's rack on the deck.
I want to use it for pots of kitchen herbs. 
It'll really be convenient since it's just outside the kitchen door.

Here's how it finally turned out...for a while.

On the left of the rack is my old Rosemary bush and on the right, a pot of Basil.
As you see I don't have a lot of herbs yet, so I thought I'd fill in with things I had found a Goodwill.

No, I didn't get the wine bottle at GW,  :)  just the bowl with the lemons on it. I put sweet mint in it. Love the fragrance of that mint and I'll use it a lot in iced tea.

The hamper on the bottom shelf came from GW also. Remember it from the Highland post?  I bought the white Lantana last week. This is the first white one I've ever seen and I hope it does as well as the gold.

This cute copper colored tub with bees on it followed me home from GW this week.

I can't decide whether to use the basket or the tub for the bottom shelf. What do you think?

So I actually only have three herbs on the rack. There's Lemon Thyme on the top left and the faux lemons in the jar are from GW.

That scrawny little thing in the middle is a Rosemary twig I'm trying to make into a topiary.

All right, you can stop laughing now.

. Looking at the size of it.. it may take a while. I have two of them that I rooted from the big pot so we'll see what happens.

 The only other thing I did today was to clean off the hutch in the breakfast area.

My gardenia bushes have just started blooming and...

...I just had to bring some in the house. 

Here's the hutch all clean for a while. The little round Tole tray on the top is new. I got it this week at the antique mall. The other one I've had for a while.

Love those gardenias.

So I'm off to the garden center tomorrow to look for more herbs. I'll probably put them all in clay pots...or maybe not. The small pots dry out so badly that I put mini bark nuggets in them to help, plus it looks nice too, I think.

I hope this counts as a "tabletop" because I'm happy to be  joining Marty@ A Stroll Thru Life for

Tabletop Tuesday.

See y'all there.

Babs

On The Deck

For quite a while I've been trying to spruce up the deck and not having much success finding a look that I liked. I couldn't even decide on colors and must have changed my mine 4 or 5 times. 
I finally decided to forget about cushions for the chairs and instead concentrate on the coffee table, baker's rack and potted plants.

Yesterday I was at a local antique mall and found a small garden cherub and thought maybe he would work on the coffee table.

He has that old weathered look I like, as if he'd been in the garden for many years.

When I was at Hobby Lobby the other day, I found this stone looking base... half price.. :) and decided to use it under my  hurricane candle holder.

I decided to use oak leaf hydrangeas in the vase. For some reason, certain colors look strange on the black granite, so I thought I'd  to stick with white for now. 

 Oh, let me show you the coffee table. I made it a couple of years ago, from a table that a neighbor had thrown out for the trash collector. lol  
My husband thought I was crazy dragging that old table home.

It had bronzey-goldish wrought iron legs and a wooden and plaster top. Well, it sat for almost a year while I tried to think of what to do with it. 

Finally I decided to go to a granite and tile shop to see what I could find. They had pieces that were left over and the only size that worked was the black. So I took off the top, painted the legs black and added the granite. Then I bought new black chairs and glider.

I know... I've jumped to a totally different tablescape but I wanted to offer you a snack and show you a different look. :)

Doesn't this Efferve' orangeade, from France, look yummy? Let's open it and see what how it tastes. Would you like a cookie?

Thanks for stopping by and letting me show you what I've been working on. There'll be more to come in later posts.
 I'm headed over to Kim's @ Savvy Southern Style  for

 See you there. 
                                                         Babs

Hot Greens and a Little Visitor

My last  Outdoor Wednesday post, featured "cool greens" in the garden. This time it's "hot greens" and I'm not talking about turnip greens or collards.  :)

Y'all probably think I'm crazy, but this is how I think of the green colors in my yard. The gray greens or blue greens are cool  and the yellow greens are hot.   

I'm sure you'll will recognize this...variegated lirope or monkey grass. In full sun mine is a bright yellow green color.

Here I have it with Ice Plant which isn't my favorite but a really good "do-er" in hot areas. This is by the brick walkway and I have to pull some of it out every summer because it spreads onto the walkway...quickly.

One of my favorite hostas is "Dawn's Early Light". This photo was earlier in the Spring.

The leaves are losing some of the yellow because it's in more shade now that the trees have leafed out.

Arborvitae with little cones.

 Gold Mop Threadleaf False Cypress  

Acuba

Creeping Jenny

After I finished taking photos of the hot greens,  I went on the deck  to see if any of the pots on the baker's rack needed watering.

You can see I really haven't done much with it, just a hodgepodge of pots which I haven't decided where to put.

Can you see it? It's in the little pot in the back.

There it is... a little tree frog snuggled under that fuzzy succulent leaf.

Isn't it cute? This is only the second one I've ever seen.

The next day I didn't see him and I decided to take that silly faux fern out of the blue and white jar and to my surprise he was in the jar.
So I left the faux fern there so he could climb out.

I don't usually put faux plants outside but I was just playing and seeing what a ferny plant might look there.  It's too sunny there for a real one, but maybe I can find something similar which will take a lot of sun.

Gotta get out there and work on the baker's rack and deck. Getting that to look presentable is always a challenge for me.
If any of you have any suggestions as how you'd decorate the baker's rack or deck, I'd love to hear or see them.

I'm so glad y'all stopped by. Don't forget to go over to
A Southern Daydreamer  for Outdoor Wednesday and see all the great posts there.
                                                    Babs            

Georgia Cracker Salad

I've been cooking along with Paula for a long time.  
This is the first cookbook of hers that I bought, and I use it a lot because so many of her recipies are the kind I grew up on and still love. 

One of my favorites from this cookbook is Georgia Cracker Salad.

You can see how quick and easy it is to prepare.

There are only five ingredients:  saltines, tomato, hard boiled egg, green onions and mayonaise.

Break up the saltines, with your  hands into  coarse pieces.

Mix chopped tomato, chopped green onions and hard boiled egg.  Add mayonaise and...

...serve immediately on a bed of lettuce.

There. Quick and easy and perfect for a Summer day.

Bon appetit, y'all. :)

See y'all at  Lynn's @ Happier Than a Pig in Mud for the     Celebrity Cook-along, Paula Deen.

                                   
Thanks for stopping by. I always enjoy your visits... y'all come back now, ya hear?
                                           Babs              

Cool Greens

The days are getting really hot now in Georgia. Yesterday was 90 and it's predicted to be the same today... and when the weather's hot, I love the cooling shades of green in the garden.
Some of the cool greens in my garden are:

The huge fragrant leaves of our fig tree. It's now over 10 ft. high, even after we pruned it last winter.

 Baby fig.

Oh, here are a few more babies and two larger ones.

Oak leaf hydrangea,  in the center, Crocosmia, behind and of course the Japanese maple in the foreground.

I know, the Japanese maple isn't green, but it's so dark and pretty, it just feels cool.

Blue-green leaves of a hosta and...

...a varigated hosta with that cool white center.

My garden is always a work in progress,  but stop by anytime... there's always weeding to be done.  :)

See you at  A Southern Daydreamer for Outdoor Wednesday. Babs