GO to my Profile + tap 🔗 + type “Melon Fruit Ice” into the search bar. Summer is right around the corner and with it an abundance of fruit. My son is currently snacking on some frozen blueberries, but come June he will be down by the blueberry bushes snacking away! Until then, the freezer is filled with frozen fruit, including this melon fruit ice! We love adding fruit to our drinks year-round for additional natural sweet flavor, but our favorite way to enjoy it is by freezing it first. This way our drinks aren't watered down and they are extra flavorful! What's your favorite fruit to add to drinks?

GO to my Profile + tap 🔗 + type “DIY Fire Pit” into the search bar. We dreamed of adding a fire pit to this outdoor space for a couple of years and I was so excited when we (or more so he) built us one. Finding beautiful black wood outdoor chairs at a good price was a bit difficult, but we finally found some on sale for well under $100 each. Major score! Especially because a lot of the ones we found were double or well over double that cost. And those planters were a super exciting find too! I love concrete planters, but I didn’t have time to find plastic planters to recreate my viral DIY Faux Concrete Planters. So I was so excited when we found these planters that looked like concrete but without being heavy or expensive. And while we have sold this house and this space is being loved by a new family, we have already picked out a spot on our new land to build a fire pit! I received quite a few questions last year when posting, so I thought I’d answer some of them here. Q. “How will water drain since you have the polythene under?” A. We used landscape fabric, rainwater had no problem going through it as it is very porous. Q. “I love this idea but won’t it be hard to keep clean (leaves and debris) without messing it up? A. We used a blower to keep the area clean. It was super easy. 🙂 Q. “How many stones did it take to construct this? A. All of the details (including the exact number of stones) with extra tips and a step-by-step tutorial are in my blog post.

GO to my Profile + tap 🔗 + type “DIY Faux Concrete Planters” into the search bar. Over the years I have tried a variety of techniques to create faux concrete planters, from plaster of Paris to stucco, but the technique I repeatedly come back to is spray paint. It’s pretty quick, doesn’t easily come apart (like the plaster of Paris), and isn’t a pain to work with (like the stucco patch). One of the most viral summer tutorials on my blog was how to create DIY faux concrete planters. The plastic planters I DIYed looked identical to the real concrete planters that were going for over one hundred each. After years of them being out of stock, they were finally available again last year and IN GREY (last time they were brown which is why I painted them)!! But this time they sold out almost immediately. So I decided to try spray painting planters again, but with a slightly different technique. The original planters that I used had some texture so they only needed to be spray painted with gray paint (in a circular motion) to create the different gradients to make it look like concrete. This time I used shiny plastic planters, so spraying them grey would only make it look like a trash can, and nobody wants their plants to look like they are in the trash. So after some trial and error, I came up with a simple technique to turn smooth and shiny plastic planters into textured faux concrete planters. All of the details with extra tips and a step-by-step tutorial are in my blog post.

GO to my Profile + tap 🔗 + type “DIY Wood Bead Candle Holder” into the search bar. I'm continuing my endeavor to use up some of my craft supplies! For this DIY Wood Bead Candle Holder, I used some leftover rope from my heart & bunny coaster tutorials and wood beads from 6 different DIY wood bead projects. While you can use dried or faux flowers in the wood beads, I opted for fresh flowers that I knew would dry beautifully. I created this little DIY Wood Bead Candle Holder two months ago and it still looks beautiful! I left the candle lit while working on this little project so you could see how I let it create a candle wax memory (I also scooped the soft candle wax out with a spoon) so I could put a flameless tealight candle in the center. Have you tried this flameless candle hack?

GO to my Profile + tap 🔗 + type “Hyacinth Bulbs Centerpiece” into the search bar. I made a bit of a mistake when I created this Hyacinth Bulbs Centerpiece, I didn't realize you aren't supposed to let the bulbs touch the water. Thankfully I am horrible at remembering to water my plants so they survived my mistake and still bloomed. They are currently planted in my parent's yard and we plan to transport them to our new house and land next spring. I'm a little worried they were sitting too long in the water at the end when I took the final pictures. So we will find out next spring if they survived and hopefully, my mistake will help others! What's a garden blunder you've learned from that can help others?