How does your garden grow?

The other day I found this cute little Zinnia mini planter starter kit at Home Depot and it only cost 2.79 which I thought was pretty reasonable.  It comes with a sweet little metal watering can, some coir pellets and white "purity" zinnia seeds.  It's very easy, and all you do is put the dry pellets in the watering can, add some water and the pellets will expand to fill it up.

  

Press a few seeds gently into the soil

Place in a sunny area(at least 6 hrs of sunlight a day), 

and a few days later...

  voila!

you have some seedlings starting. 

take one zinnia kit...

(sorry, the picture is sideways ~ i tried rotating it, but was having trouble) oh well-lol

 add some seeds...

five days later...

you get a seedling!

eight days later...

two seedlings, with another one starting.

Once you have two sets of leaves, transfer to a larger container.

This would make such a great gift for a gardener...maybe that's you:)

This inspired me to create a garden fairy necklace, using some of the zinnia seeds that I put into a mini glass jar, along with a fairy charm and some vintage charms.

the seeds can either be planted, or left in their cute jar.

she's available in my etsy shop!

I will do a follow up post with photos of the grown zinnias.

(hopefully they'll be beautiful!)

Have a wonderful weekend and I hope you get to do a little gardening, if that's your thing!

Sharon

The Naperville River Walk Tour

We are having some really nice weather here in the midwest this weekend, so I thought it would be nice to visit Naperville, Illinois, a quaint historic town about 30 miles from Chicago.  They have a beautiful riverwalk with several small ponds and a meandering river along with a beautiful bell tower, rustic bridges, quaint shops and fabulous restaurants, one of the largest outdoor swimming pools with a sand beach, and it's also a great place to people watch.  I love coming here, especially in the summer, where you can also rent paddle boats and they have various events and concerts going on throughout the year.   It's an artistic community and they have bronze statues, beautiful murals and sculptures made by different artists.

    

A great place to spend the day!

one of my favorite spots!

 

one of several bridges

 

meandering paths

 

so picturesque!

native wildflowers

 

duck, duck...

goose! 

 

delicate flowers

 

 

sweet robin

 

 

this bridge takes you over to... 

 

the bell tower!

This beautiful tower is 160 ft tall and has 72 bells and there is an observation deck you can go up to.  It chimes beautifully and they hold concerts in a small park area from time to time.

some fun benches made out of mosaic tiles by area artists.

another bronze statue

an artist painted this beautiful mural on one of the building's walls.

this bronze dick tracy statue is pretty darn cool!

  

A concrete wall with faces molded by local artists representing the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001

 an eternal flame

 some kayaking

another one of my favorite spots...it overlooks the area that you can rent pontoon boats 

~ always a lot of fun!

quaint shops...

fabulous places to eat!

You can easily spend the whole day here, and if you're ever in the area it's definitely worth checking out!

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Sharon

Happy Monday!

I love mondays...to me it's sort of a fresh start and I feel recharged and motivated to get things done.  This weekend we had some really mild weather and I definitely have spring fever.  I love the sound of the birds singing and the smell of rain and spring in the air!  

Happy Monday to you!

Sharon