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Make Your Green Thumb Sweetie A Gardener Gift Basket

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If you have an avid gardener in your life or just someone who likes to be amist the flowers and plants, give her a gift basket with a garden theme this year. A gardener’s gift basket is one of the loveliest and most thoughtful things you can give someone who loves to plant and nurture their garden.

The Basket/Container

Consider what you will put your basket in. It doesn’t have to be a true basket, just something that will hold all the items. Consider a bell jar. These glasses resemble upside down wine glasses without the stems. They are perfect for starting and growing seedlings or one perfect plant. You can include everything inside and tie with a nice fat ribbon.

What to Include

Start with a pair of gardening gloves. They can be any color, just make sure they are the size that will fit your friend. Then, include a nail brush and gardener’s soap so that she can scrub her hands clean after playing in the dirt. A garden tool set in miniature is perfect if she likes to work in a greenhouse or with potted indoor plants. They’re also great if she likes terrariums.

Other things you can include are seed packets. If you know she loves flowers, go with all flowers. Or do a mix of vegetable seeds if you know she loves to tend her vegetable garden. A gardening book tailored to her interest is a nice idea. If she’s talking about making a shade garden or a raised bed garden this year, there are books specifically on those topics. Or if you don’t know what she might already have on her bookshelf, give her a gift certificate to a garden shop or bookstore that sells gardening books.

Also include sunblock for when she’s out in the sun, a hat that rolls up would also fit in the basket. You can also include a lip balm in a nice fragrance. Anything she might use when she’s out gardening is perfect.  A gardening themed t-shirt can be rolled up and placed in the basket as well.

If you’re stumped for what to give your gardening friend, go for a trug. These baskets are made for gathering flowers or fruits and vegetables. Any garden catalog or store will have them. Then, you can fill it with flowers and a gift certificate to a nursery that you know she loves. Throw in a magazine subscription about gardening and your gardening gift basket is all set.

A nice set of gardening sheers can be a great addition and a kneeling pad will save her knees. If you know her shoe size, go ahead and include gardening clogs. You might include a wind chime or another outdoor decoration that she can use in her garden and think of you.

Gardeners are a special breed. They love what they do whether they do it as a job or as a hobby. You will show how much you care about their interests and how you really went out of your way to make a gift that they will enjoy. Start making baskets today and you may make baskets for all your birthday and holiday gifting needs. It can be so much fun!

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Barbara Petersen is a crafty writer with a special interest in gift giving and party planning. She regularly contributes to the All About Gifts & Baskets Idea Blog, put on by http://www.aagiftsandbaskets.com.

5 Great Things You Can Do With Your Garden This Summer That Will Make It Look Great

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Have you thought about what your garden is going to look like this summer? When people think about making some great changes to their home it’s always to the inside and the garden is merely an afterthought. That could be something people regret once the sun comes back because they’re going to be spending a lot more time outside. Sitting inside all day when it’s sunny is enough to drive you insane, so if you’re spending all that time outside you want it to be somewhere that’s beautiful.

Why don’t you take this time to think of all the wonderful changes you can make in your garden? It doesn’t need to be something that costs a lot of money and it can still look great if it doesn’t. There are things you can do that will suit all budgets. It’s probably a good idea to go over some things you can do right now. It will plant the idea of making changes in your head and perhaps you might like some of the ideas suggested. Get out your notepad, take some notes and you could be enjoying yourself a lot more than last summer.

Build yourself a pond

They put me here to try to make the world better

When you decide to build a pond you get to put your creative hat on because you can do anything you like. They can be big and fancy like something you’d find in a Japanese garden, or it can be a small hole in the ground with water in it. The choice is up to you and the sky is the limit. They also don’t usually cost much provided you do the work yourself and you don’t fill it with expensive fish. You also need to remember than having a water feature in the garden is a big responsibility if you have children running around.

Paint your fingers green

Your garden might look plain just now, but if you decided to get green fingers you could turn it into a work of art. Looking after flowers is one of the most rewarding things you can do with your garden, but remember that it’s not easy. If flowers are not your thing then maybe you could grow your own vegetables instead. Sometimes it’s nicer putting in all that work if you can be rewarded with food at the end of the day. It’s your garden so you can grow anything you want.

Lay a patio

terrace August 2006

It’s always nice to have a patio if you’ve always been used to grass everywhere you look when you go outside. It turns into a great place to eat your dinner in the evenings during summer because you can buy a proper table and chairs. You can also keep a barbeque on the patio and invite people around for food whenever you want. Of course you can do all this on the grass, but there’s just something about a proper patio that makes it a better option.

Give it the once over

Sometimes you don’t even need to add anything new to your garden to make it look great. Taking away all the crap that’s lying around is enough. You could go one better and paint everything so it looks like the day you moved in. When you’re cleaning out all the crap you do realize you won’t think of it in this way? You’ll think it’s all great stuff, so keep your emotions in check and throw out everything that you don’t need.

Treat yourself to something special

Everything we’ve talked about up until now is just a few nice things you can do to make your garden look nicer. You always have the option of treating yourself to something special, but this option is only available if you have enough money. I’m talking about a swimming pool, sauna, hot-tub, or anything else that would take your breath away every time you went outside. If you do have the money sometimes treating yourself is exactly what you need.

Attached Images:
  •  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://www.andertoons.com
  •  License: Creative Commons image source
  •  License: Creative Commons image source

Jeff Kruger is the owner of a famous Mower Shop in Perth which specializes in custom designed turf equipments to make your yard look great. He spends his free time blogging and watching rugby.

How to Come Up With Amazing Ideas for Your Garden

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For many of us coming up with a layout for our garden is a speedy and routine process. In most cases we will go with the normal design conventions that gardens tend to feature (a patio, a lawn and perhaps some flowers around the edge) and will be happy to keep our garden pretty much the way it was when we moved into the property.


Of course doing this though means that we won’t be taking full advantage of the space, and would mean missing out on many of the great opportunities that a garden presents. Here then we will look at some ways that you can come up with a garden design that will be more creative and that will help you to take full advantage of the space.

Look Around

Of course the first thing you can do to get ideas for your garden is to look around other gardens. This will mean visiting friends, looking around garden centres, or just browsing images of gardens online in order to get a feel for the kind of thing you like and that you might want for your garden. You may find a garden that you want to practically replicate for yourself, or you might just spot particular features and items that you want to use instead. Either way, this is a great place to find inspiration.

Use a Mood Board

(moj) FLAJER / (my) flyer

In any interior – or in this case exterior – design, a mood board can be a very useful tool for coming up with a design you’re happy with. Essentially a mood board is a collage that you create by taking images, photographs and words and attaching them to the page. This way you can start to come up with a general ‘theme’ that you want for your garden and start to get an idea of the colours, the features and the ‘style’ that you want to employ. If nothing else this is a great way to communicate to your landscaping contractors the kind of feel you want for them to work from.

Research

Researching what’s possible in a garden and the kinds of additional features and things you can get for them is another way to expand your horizons and to come up with new ideas. For instance you may never have heard of the ‘office pod’ which is essentially a pod that you can place at the end of your garden to create an enclosed working space. It’s very modern and very cool and completely changes the way you view what’s possible in your garden. Likewise researching the plants you can grow in your climate and your soil can help you to get a realistic idea of what you want to grow in your garden.

Sketch

Less involved than a mood board but just as useful is to simply sketch out some ideas, and as you start to find the features and the items you want for your garden you can use a sketch to come up with an actual layout and a plan for where you want them all and how they’ll work with your larger design.

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Sharon King is a home improvement expert and says that it is a great idea to try new things while designing. She also says that you can take help from landscaping company while designing your garden.

Christmas Flowers Advice

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As children, Christmas is a time when we can hardly wait to get the presents open, but as an adult the key to enjoying Christmas is giving before you get. Simple gifts are the best choice; flowers are one of the best options out there. They are beautiful, have a special meaning and are always appreciated.

The growth outdoors is fairly sparse at this time of year, but that is why we start bringing as much of the outdoors inside as possible. Our bright and decorative Christmas trees not only add warmth to the home but they also bring a bit of the mystery of the forest with them.

When giving Christmas flowers, you can go for a rustic style, if the arrangement has a few branches or pinecones as decoration; you will already have a bit of the Christmas spirit in the design.

Wreaths are also something that should not be left out at Christmas; they do not have to be simple branches with red and green ribbon. Floral accents can really bring a wreath to its full potential. There are many wreaths available now with dried flowers, that will last through the cold months of Christmas and will be the first beautiful accent to welcome your guests.

A favourite Christmas flower is the poinsettia, and this is not a bloom you should leave out during this season. These can be found in the standard bright red colour, but are also available in white or even pink.  These plants can really make a dinner table complete, and are never the wrong gift to give. One interesting fact about this plant is that the coloured ‘petals’ of this flower are actually just foliage, called ‘bracts’, the small yellow centres of this plant are the actual flowers.

This flower is native to Mexico, and it is common practice to use tropical flowers as a part of Christmas décor. For example, Christmas cactus is also a popular flower at this time of year.

Though you will soon see poinsettia blooming on every corner, be careful when selecting your plant. Often the flowers you buy in stores are set out on display for a long time and their quality tends to suffer. If you want to avoid this problem and the crowded shops, have your flowers delivered to friends and family. Some unexpected flowers at the front door are always a welcome treat.

This post is produced by London flower delivery company Flowers24hours.co.uk

Renovation Tips That Will Increase The Value Of Your House

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Selling or renting out your house may not always be easy, especially if it is old. Other than the attachment that you have to it, the house may be too worn out to catch a buyer’s attention. Old houses are harder to sell, since most people assume that they are not as stable as they were. If you are looking to sell your house, you need to make sure that it is in the right condition to be sold. This will help you to sell it for a higher value that it would have sold for, before being refurbished.

Should I renovate my house?

Renovation is a must! One of the most important factors to consider when you make the decision to sell your house is how to make it attractive to potential clients. A customer will only take a product that they feel is better than the last one they saw.

Your home therefore, needs to stand out from others on sale so that people literally keep lining up for it! With this in mind, the following tips will help you find out how to change the outlook of your home to make it look modern and appealing. It will also play a big role in making the value of your home go up.

  • Thorough repairs

If you want people to be attracted to the house you are putting on sale make sure they can tell that the items in your home are new. Fix every sink, faucet, cabinet, surface, counter or any of the spots you know have been broken down for years. When potential buyers come to see the house, they will scrutinize every part of the house to make sure they are not getting less than what they are paying for.

Use affordable, new and modern appliances or parts that will draw people’s attention and make them have more faith in the new house. If they see new parts and well done remodeling, they will definitely be enticed into buying or renting the house. It will also help you have more selling points to use to convince them.

  • Create more rooms

The best way to sell your home for a higher price is to emphasize the amount of square feet that you are selling by creating another room. This may be expensive though if you reinvent a room you stand the chance of selling the house for a higher asking price that you would have. It simply means that you may be able to recover more money than what you will use to create the room.

The cheapest way to do so is by using space that already exists. For instance, you could convert the attic into a self-contained bedroom in order to fetch more money for your home. This is cheaper since you will not need to build an entire room rather you will only be making installations and changes to an already existing space in your house. You can also convert a garage into a guest room if there are enough parking spaces outside. This will also give you the option of renting it out or selling it as a separate entity.

  • Be strategic

When remodeling, pay as much attention to the outer parts of the home as you would to the inner ones. People will be attracted to your house from what they see outside first. Make sure all the paint is fresh and the environment is clean with attractive elements such as flowers, a patio, side porch or veranda. It is also important to consider outer elements like the doors and windows. These will attract people even before they enter the house and give them an expectation on what they will be getting inside when they buy it.

You can use inswing or outswing doors, bars and door grids, molding, the jamb or stile designs in order to draw attention to the design of your home. Doors can also come in many designs like steel, wood or fiberglass depending on the setting of your house. When it comes to windows, you can use several replacements on your home improvement approach like vinyl wood or aluminum. Windows can also be a sales point because of the colors and designs they come in. Make sure the outer part of the house is just as great, if not better than the inner one.

Emma Parkes shares useful tips on home improvement. She works for Windows and Doors which excels in improving home energy efficiency of their clients. You can get her insightful tweets on Twitter by following her.

 

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