Craft Project: Brighten Up With Tissue Paper Flowers

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craft project, flowers

Has winter got you down?  We’re not complaining here in Tampa, where the sun is shining and its a lovely 70 degrees outside, but we could use a little spot of color.  I always feel kind of blue after taking down the Christmas decorations, so a quick & easy way to bring a pop of color into your indoor spaces is with tissue paper pom pom flowers.

We have a lot of cute new bud vases in the shop and I thought they needed a little accessorizing.  We’re not expecting a shipment of permanent botanicals for another couple of weeks, so I thought of making flowers instead.  I looked for tips online and found this great tutorial from Sew Sweet Stitches.  She includes directions for both flowers on a stem and for full tissue spheres.  Take a peek at her cute garland too!  Her tip for cutting notches into the sides of the accordian folds is a great idea.  To make them even more realistic, I added a couple sheets of green tissue and cut the ends to be smaller, to create leaves for my roses.

(Hey – that looks like a dragonfly!)

Grab some colorful tissue, scissors and floral wire, twist ties or fishing line.  You can have a whole field of flowers in a short time, and this is a great craft project to do if the kiddos are home from school too!

Introducing Madison’s Garden Botanical Infusions for the Home

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botanical infusions, candles, made in the usa, Madison's Garden, potpourri, soy

We like to delight your senses with sights and sounds from yard art to wind chimes and now we’ll delight your sense of smell too!  Madison’s Garden offers gorgeous natural potpourri and soy candles in glass jars.  The scents are spectacular and its made in the U.S.A.

Madison's Garden at Dragonfly Garden

The potpourris are special collections of dried flowers, nuts, berries, dried fruit, leaves, woven rattan balls and other natural components that suit the scent of the potpourri.  Ocean Breeze has shells and seed pods with a coastal look, while Fall Gatherings includes gourds and berries.  Each bag is 12 ounces of gorgeous natural components and includes a small vial of the essential oils used to create the scent, so you can refresh your potpourri over time.   The potpourri is beautifully packaged and topped off with a large grosgrain ribbon, which makes it a lovely gift.

Madison’s Garden Soy Candles are cleaning burning and filled with a rich scent.  Soy candles burn more cleanly than traditional beeswax candles, with no soot and virtually no smoke. Soy candles burn more slowly as well, extending your enjoyment.  Each candle comes carefully packaged in a chocolate brown box, which makes them great for gifts too!

Try using a bird cage as an unusual container for your potpourri – the openwork of the cage allows the scent to escape better than a solid walled container.

Some of the potpourri scents we have in stock now are Ocean Breeze, French Lime, Cranberry Rose, Fall Gatherings and Christmas Scone.  Our filled candles are available in Pomegranate, Persian Orange, Sequoia, French Lime, Christmas Scone and Caramel Macchiato.  Come on in and smell them all!

Scotoberfest is Next Weekend in Dunedin!

When our building was full of tenants last year, all the merchants decided we needed to celebrate! We picked a weekend in October, brought in the Scottish heritage of Dunedin and Scotoberfest was born. It was so much fun, we’re making it an annual event, and its next weekend!

 

Its Friday October 21st from 5pm to 11pm, and Saturday October 22nd from noon to 11pm. On Friday evening, Dallas the Fire Guy will be here, as well as the local AC/DC tribute band called Stiff Upper Lip.  Then on Saturday, we’ll have local entertainers on stage from noon until 5pm, including the Tapped In Tap Dancers, a Scottish dancing group and some other local musicians.  From 8pm to 11pm on Saturday, Lucid Druid will be on stage with their amazing Celtic fusion music.  You won’t want to miss this!

We’re also doing a scavenger hunt called Find the Stein – you go through each merchant to find the hidden handpainted stein, get your card punched and off to find another!  One lucky winner will receive a gift basket of items from each of our shops.  Wait till you see the steins – they’re works of art!

We’ll have a pumpkin patch so you can get ready for Halloween, food and drink, and the shops will have specials.  Dragonfly Garden will be open until at least 9pm both nights, so come on by and enjoy the fun!

Like our Facebook page for Stirling Commons to find out more, and maybe see your picture after the event is over!

Hummingbirds Need Your Help This Fall

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Birds, hummingbird feeders, hummingbird migration, hummingbirds, migratory season

It’s that time of year again.  The days are getting shorter and its back to school, the start of fall sports, and hummingbird migration!  What, you don’t put that on your busy calender?  Right about now something inside those tiny flying jewels is telling them to fly South, where they’ll spend the winter months in the warmth of Mexico at their favorite breeding grounds.

photo courtesy of GraphicsHunt.com

It is typically the best time of year for hummingbird smorgasboards between blooming plants and feeders, but weather conditions across the country this summer have had a huge impact on the plants and insect population that hummingbirds rely upon.  Drought in Texas, fires in Arizona and Hurricane Irene’s destruction up the East Coast are all factors adding to the limited natural hummingbird food sources right now.

Migration season is the best season for hummingbirds in Florida – our customers say they have maybe one or two regulars at their feeders all summer, but there are many more during the spring and summer migratory periods.

Please keep those hummingbird feeders full of sweet nectar – the hummingbirds need the help!  Did you know that hummingbirds typically add an extra 25% to 40% of their body weight before they head south?  Put out a hanging feeder, add a small feeder stake to a hanging basket or use a window feeder with a suction cup.

One of our best selling feeders - click for more info

A good rule of thumb is to keep your hummingbird feeders accessible and full until the risk of frost.  You just never know when a straggler will fly by.

Creative Gardening: A Hanging Gutter Garden

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DIY, vertical gardening

Welcome to Creative Gardening – a new feature where we highlight some fun and creative DIY gardening projects that we’ve found on the web.

On a website called a Ha! Creative Gardening, I spotted this fun project for using vertical space.  Its called a Hanging Gutter Garden and looks easy to make with components you’ll find at your local hardware store or lumber yard.

photo courtesy of aHa! Home and Garden

There are several benefits to creating this kind of garden, not only the use of vertical space but it also can create a privacy barrier of sorts. Its a great idea if you have a gardener with mobility issues, because you can adjust the height of the gutters to a convenient level.  Its also a good way to keep pets out of your plants too!

The hanging gutters would make a great herb garden or a lovely flower border.  Use trailing vines on the top level and if you try something like cardinal climber or trumpet vine you might even see a hummingbird or two!

You’ll find lots of other useful information on the aHa! Home and Garden website.  Its the home of the Nest In Style podcast, and they can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Bye, bye June. Hello July!

Can you believe June is almost over?  The year is just flying by!  Some quick local events:

The 2nd Annual Dunedin Orange Festival is Saturday July 2.  The fun starts at 8:30 with the Green Market in Pioneer Park, and there will be music on stage there all day too.  The parade through town will begin in the park at 9:45.  Miss Dunedin Orange Queen will be crowned later in the morning, and then there is a Mojo Cookoff from 11:30 to 1pm.  There are activities for the kids all day, and there will also be a silent auction for some festive Orange Bonnets created by downtown merchants.  Proceeds from the Festival go to the Dunedin Historical Museum.  For more information,visit the Festival’s webpage.

On Sunday July 3rd, the Dunedin Blue Jays have a full schedule of fun planned for the holiday.  The Blue Jays play the Daytona Cubs at 4pm, then there’s a two hour concert and a spectacular fireworks display to cap off the evening and celebrate the 4th.  And the whole thing is free, thanks to Budweiser.  How cool is that?  For more info, visit the Jay’s website here.

And don’t forget we’re having a sale in the shop.  All flags, windsocks, mailbox wraps and wind chimes are 20% off now through July 5th.  Stop by this weekend!

 

Have a safe and fun holiday weekend.  Happy 4th of July, America!

Hammock Park Butterfly Garden

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butterfly garden, Dunedin, Hammock Park

Have you been to the Butterfly Garden in Hammock Park?  I took  a quick trip the other day to see what’s blooming and there were a few butterflies checking out the blossoms too.  Its a beautiful space!  I took these photos with my cell phone, so they’re not high quality – I’ll take the real camera next time for sure!

Here’s a monarch

 

And then I found what I think is a female Tiger Swallowtail

And a shot of some of the plant beds – they’ve done a lovely job of creating different spaces for different plants to attract the butterflies.  The trellis’ with vines are a lovely touch – I can’t wait to see them all abloom!

Wordless Wednesday

Some recent blooms

Check out this natural idea for starting

Check out this natural idea for starting seeds. Use empty eggshells to grow the seeds, then transplant the whole thing in the garden once the seedlings are good to go. A great idea from Natural Home Magazine http://ow.ly/41q65

photo courtesy of Natural Home Magazine

Wordless Wednesday

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Dunedin, mailboxes

Some fun mailboxes spotted around town in Dunedin