GIFT GUIDE: CUSTOM GIFTS FOR GARDENERS

I held off as long as I could on holiday posts but I think it's time to get the show on the road. I'm planning to do a handful of gift guides (I'm sort of obsessed with them) this year and I thought I'd kick it off with one that you really have to get going on soon. Everything featured here is handmade by Etsy artists and they need a little lead time for orders so don't delay. All of these can be customized for a special touch. Don't forget to use Ebates, which gives you cash back on purchases at most stores, including Etsy. If you want to check it out, here's a referral link if you care to use it. 

1. Handpainted sign: I think this little sign is so cute and any gardener with little helpers around would love it. I could even see working for a community garden. The same seller has all kinds of other cute signs as well.

2. Timber bench: Every garden needs a spot to sit but benches with backs can take up more visual space than you may have room for. This mod bench would work just about anywhere in the garden.

3. Bee stepping stone: Any gardener, particularly one with a passion for pollinators would love this beautiful stepping stone (which also comes in a green color). Plus you will win the contest for the heaviest present.

4. Custom garden tool badge: What a great touch for a favorite tool. This would be especially handy for someone who takes their tools to other gardens to work. No one will question whose spade it is.

5. Copper garden markers: These are flashy and beautiful and I can only imagine how gorgeous they would be after they develop a patina. They are custom stamped and come in sets of four so you could pick labels for special plants or perhaps for a container that sits somewhere they could be appreciated every day.

6. Metal chickens sculpture: If your favorite gardener can't have real chickens, maybe this is the next best thing.

7. Copper birdbath fountain: Can't you just imagine a bird enjoying a dip in this beauty? And it should make a lovely trickling sound in the garden. A special gift for a special gardener.

8. Garden belt: If Santa brings me one thing this year, I hope this is it. I love this belt, which also comes in a version with a scissors holder and other specialized tool belts. Maybe this would, once and for all, make me stop losing tools in the garden. I also love the Floral Belt and I think I'm leaning toward that one being a better fit for me (since I'm on the vertically challenged side).

9. Metal garden sign: Everyone loves a personalized gift and a beautiful sign for a person's garden is pretty much a no-brainer.


Anything strike your fancy (for you or for giving)?

FRIDAY FINDS

Some weeks Friday it feels even better than usual when Friday rolls around. So it goes this week.

Some affiliate links may be used. This means that if you buy what I link to, I may get a small percentage of the purchase price. This helps support this blog and I very much appreciate it!

Before we kick off into Friday Finds, I wanted to tell you that Sharon was the lucky winner of the Daring Forms Allium collection from Longfield Gardens. Thanks to all of you who entered!

And with that, let's get on to what I'm digging on the Interwebs this week.

Deborah Silver does it again. This redesign of a driveway and stunningly mature-looking landscape is so simple but so spot on. How does she do it?

In case you find yourself with a bunch of green tomatoes (I wish! I had such tomato issues this year), here's what you should do with them.

Creative Vegetable Gardener photo

It's garlic planting time! Here's what kind you should be planting this year.

I'm a sucker for a good source roundup. I sort of collect them on Pinterest. Here's one on exterior lighting.

Available from The Purse Co. on Etsy.

I'm not a purse person, but I like to carry a small wristlet with the necessities in it. Every three years or so I wear one out and I go on a hunt for a new one. I love shopping at Etsy for these things because it's unlikely I'll see the same bag elsewhere. I just ordered this leather wristlet last week.

I'm obsessed with these food designs (I don't know what else to call this amazingness) from an Australian company called Your Platter Matters. Take your basic cheese platter and multiply it by the entire table. The pricing is by size: $389 AUS for a square meter. How cool is that? Check out their Instagram feed. I want to have a party just to try this. Of course it would take me five hours to do and by then everything would be uncomfortably warm.


One last thing:While I was shopping on Etsy, I came across this box. This cracks me up because for years one just like this (with the name of the county I grew up in) sat in our garage and was used for newspaper recycling. I wonder if it's still kicking around my parents' house.














Have a great weekend!

GREAT LIGHTING FINDS IN AN UNLIKELY PLACE

I've been trying to source things for our potential bathroom remodel as I make a budget for it and over the weekend I came to the line on my spreadsheet for lighting. I started looking around in all the usual online places, trying to stay mostly in the huge lighting Internet superstores and away from Circa Lighting, where I know I'll fall in love with something that's more than I want to spend.

And then I popped over on Etsy and I couldn't believe all the great lighting there now. Between excellent vintage finds (so many popular lighting styles are vintage these days so why not buy an original for less if you can) and really creative handmade lights (that you can usually have customized if you need to) at pretty amazing prices, I spent hours poring through all the amazing options. Plus, I sort of love the idea of supporting small business owners. 

Here's some of what I found.

1. Vintage ribbed glass globe, $65 // 2. Vintage French chrome & opaline light, $135 // 3. AION wooden pendant, $142 // 4. Vintage crystal glass pendant, $185 // 5. Brass and mint chandelier, $210 // 6. Industrial ceiling mount light, $130 // 7. Vintage French mid-century four-arm light, $108 // 8. Five-bulb urchin chandelier, $499 //  9. Himmeli light diamond pendant cage, $230 // 10. Loft Tom Dixon beat chandelier, $64 each

Do you see anything that strikes your fancy? I'll be honest, there are a couple vintage lights that I didn't include on there because I'm thinking of picking them up for the bathroom and I don't want someone to snag them first! I didn't include any sputnik fixtures or too many bare Edison bulb fixtures, but Etsy is loaded with them, so if you're looking for something like that, I'd start there.

How to salvage a stained marble tabletop

I have been on the hunt for a marble side table for about two years now. I'm pretty sure it's because secretly I would have loved a marble countertop in either the upstairs bathroom or the kitchen but I knew I'd lose my mind with a marble counter. Some people love marble countertops for their patina or are willing to baby them a little, but that person is not me, so I went with no-muss, no-fuss quartz in both places.

But marble is beautiful and I really wanted to bring in a little more white by the blue chair in the living room. Not finding the right thing was just killing me (sometimes I get consumed by these searches) and I was just about to sort of give up and order one from West Elm that I had been eyeing. I liked the table a lot although it was lower than I was looking for and I'm always a little worried to go down the West Elm / Pottery Barn / Ikea road. Its not that I don't love their stuff. It's just that I don't really like it when someone walks in the house and automatically knows where something is from. I already have the Malabar chairs from Pottery Barn (and honestly who doesn't know someone who has or had those chairs) in front of the fireplace so I was just a bit wary of having things look like they were all ordered from a catalog.

West Elm Hex Side Table

Anyway, I was literally on the verge of buying the West Elm table when I decided to do my routine Etsy search for "marble side table" and lo and behold, a new one popped up.

Etsy listing photo

It was this cute little vintage number that cost about half of what that West Elm table cost. It wasn't perfect by any means. The marble top clearly had some stains on it and a few chips. Plus, the legs and the "handle" on the top were shiny fake brass. I like brass, but I like it when it's darkened, and antiqued and, um, real.

There were a number of stains of unknown origin on the tabletop.

When it arrived I set to giving those stains a shot. I really didn't expect them to budge, since I had no idea what kind of stain I was dealing with nor how many years it had been there. Honestly, I would have been fine with the table with the stains patina too. But I did a little bit of googling (how did anyone DIY anything before Google?) and decided to give hydrogen peroxide a shot.

Instead of using regular hydrogen peroxide that comes in a bottle, I went for the industrial strength stuff. And the only place I knew where to find that was in a box of facial bleach. I bought the extra strength Sally Hansen creme facial bleach (I don't know where the extra strength comes in but it sounded good), pulled out the bottle of powder labeled "Activator" and threw out the rest of the contents of the box.

Then I mixed some of the powder with a small amount of ammonia, as I read in this article. I spread it thinly on all the stained areas, covered them with plastic wrap and sealed them with tape. Then I put it in a sunny window for about 10 hours.

Later, I took off the plastic wrap and tape and washed the whole thing with warm water and a little soap. Because of the size of the table top, I was able to stick the entire thing in the kitchen sink.

There were darker areas where the plastic wrap was, but it was just residual moisture. A day later, they were gone.

But then I went back to the tabletop a few days later and I noticed that now the areas that I had treated were actually lighter than the rest of the table. It was a very, very small difference, and it may have even faded with time, but since I was dealing with a very small piece of marble I figured it would be easy enough to fix (I also could have lived with it the way it was). I just mixed up more of the hydrogen peroxide powder and ammonia and spread it (very thinly this time because I didn't have much) over the entire table, and wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap. I kind of forgot about it this time, so I would say it sat for about 20 hours, but I washed it the same way I had the first time.

And this time all I saw was a beautiful, white Carrara marble top.

I've delacquered the legs and handle, but that's as far as I've taken it so far. I'm sort of hoping it will get a little rusty or something (I don't really know what I expect to happen, and I'm pretty sure they are made of aluminum as a magnet doesn't stick to them and I know it's not real brass). My intention is to live with it like this for a little, but I'm also considering spray painting the legs an antiqued brass or bronze color. I also put on a coat of marble sealer to prevent future stains.

Despite that shiny gold glaring at me out of the corner of my eye, I'm just loving this table, and even more so now that the marble looks practically new.