I have to admit . . . I’m not so great at being that really “cool” blogger-mom who is right on top of the latest trends and can whip out an amazing DIY project, take stunning photos, get them uploaded and edited, and then write a step-by-step tutorial for a weekly blog post that will go viral. I do try, I promise, but with all the other things in life that require my attention, I just can’t keep up. That’s why it is the middle of summer and I’m just now getting the pictures of my cute watermelon flower pots posted, along with a blog post that hopefully will encourage someone else not to give up . . . . I guess I just need to start my DIY projects a little earlier if I want them to be somewhat relevant!

Back in June I wrote a blog post about a bunch of watermelon DIY projects that I discovered on Pinterest and other websites, and decided to try my hand at creating a few for our yard and garden. I got started . . .  . and then of course, I also got interrupted. So it took a while to get back to my projects, just like to frequently takes me several days to reply to emails. It is not uncommon for me to have an email land in my inbox on a Friday afternoon or a Saturday morning, and I don’t see it until the middle of the following week. I really do try not to work on the weekends, but I guess not everyone takes a break!

So by Tuesday (sometimes earlier) I’m getting emails with headings like, “Did you get my email? I’ve been waiting to hear from you.” or “This is the last time I will email you until I hear back from you!” or “Just checking to make sure you got my last email . . . . what do you think about my proposal?” About that time (since I actually have OTHER responsibilities that demand my attention on Tuesdays – and Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursday, Fridays, and life claims my attention on Saturday and Sunday) I’m beginning to feel slightly overwhelmed and wonder if it might be better if I just kind of drop out of the whole social media / blogging / writing / teaching / editing world. Maybe one day . . . . .

Often times, after I have been teaching online for three – four hours in a morning, I end up with a headache and my eyes are crossing. That’s when I have to step away from the computer for a while, which makes my problem of being inundated with emails even worse! A few days ago I finished painting these cute watermelon flower pots – that I actually started about three weeks ago. I had them all painted red and green, and then something happened. Can’t remember what it was. Probably supper happened. And my cute little red and green flower pots landed in a corner on the kitchen counter with the paints and brushes all tucked neatly inside. Well, maybe not very “neatly” but at least they were all together in one place. That made me feel better, thinking that when (if?) I ever had the opportunity to get back to that project I would be able to find everything I needed.

After moving those cute little things around for several days, I finally had time (or actually I TOOK time while some people were STILL waiting for me to reply to their emails) and decided to sit down one evening and finish painting the details for my watermelon flower pots. The red and green parts are pretty quick and easy. I suppose the white part would be quick and easy too, if I wasn’t such a perfectionist. But since I had already invested so much time (working and waiting) in this project, I wanted to slow down a bit and take my time finishing up. The tricky part for me was getting the shading right so that the white is right around the rim of the flower pot, right between the green and red, and then gradually shading the white out to the red on the bottom and the green on the top. Kind of like a “real” watermelon, where the white of the rind is in between the green of the outside and the red on the inside.

Here’s the other thing that made me rather anxious about this whole project . . . . I bought one little package of white impatiens to plant in these red and green pots about three weeks ago. Thinking they would be finished much sooner than they were. Those white impatiens got rather straggly looking by the time I was ready to plant them, even though I faithfully kept them watered. You can see in this picture that they are OK and they are even beginning to have a few new blooms on them, but I think they were almost as stressed out as I was in all this heat!

Then, the other day, I decided to pick up three small herb plants which I’ve been wanting to get anyway to use around my hosta plants for ground cover. I used to have a pretty big herb garden when we lived in Michigan and would love to create another one here, but I think we’ve done all of the big outdoor projects for this summer. Maybe next spring . . . . so I put one of those herb plants in each one of the planters, along with some of the white impatiens, and I think they look kind of cute that way!

The rest of my garden display on our front porch, right outside our kitchen door is made up of mostly “junk” that I either found at the thrift shop or had in the back of the garage . . . except for the galvanized metal containers that I bought at Walmart. The periwinkle blue rain boots belonged to my girls, and they wore them outside to play when they were little. A bit of spray paint and voila! they match the little blue watering can that came with my Mother’s Day flowers from my son and the blue bird house that I pulled out of the garage.

The white watering can is from a planter that we had several years ago. It was galvanized metal and starting to look rather shabby, so I gave it a good spray of semi-gloss paint, along with another old birdhouse that I found in the garage. And then there’s my favorite part of this display – the battery powered red lantern that I found at Goodwill a couple of weeks ago. Annie said it reminded her of Florence Nightingale, so for several nights she would turn it on and go around the house at night to make sure all the doors were locked. I picked up the old shabby white scroll / frame at the same time as the lantern, along with the tall plant holder in the corner with more impatiens. That plant has pink blooms but they were “resting” the day I took the picture. They have since burst forth with more, bright flowers.

Then there’s the colorful Welcome mat that I picked up either at Walmart or the Dollar Store, can’t remember which. The hanging basket with white petunias and the impatiens in the galvanized bucket are from our local hardware store. And the little white shelf . . . . that is the top from one of those bathroom shelf units that broke off from the bottom part when we were moving it. I kept the top because I thought it was kind of cute, having no idea where I would use it. So there it sat, in the garage, looking like it needed some cheerful plants and other “accessories” to brighten it up.

Well, this was a fun project, but it took me longer than I anticipated to get everything finished and ready for pictures. If you are one of those amazing bloggers who can come up with brilliant DIY projects, get it made and staged, photographed and blogged about on a regular basis, well, you are truly awesome! I guess I better start on some of my fall DIY projects pretty soon or it’ll be Christmas before I get them finished. Better yet, maybe I should get going on some Christmas projects. What do you think? What should I do next?

Thanks for stopping by. Leave a comment so I know you were here and I’ll do my best to pop ’round and visit you, too. As soon as I answer all those emails that have landed in my inbox since I started writing this blog post! Have a great Tuesday . . . .