graduated.

this came rather unceremoniously in the mail today.

now what...

flowers.

fresh flowers make everything better. these came from the hydrangea bushes in the front yard. some how they've survived the incessant heat. magic.

and queen ann's lace is about the only thing growing in my garden (not intentionally), as i've kind of been neglecting it this year.

this display kind of makes us look like drunks...

bench.

we built a bench!

the bench is in our mud room. which used to house the recycling bin, broom, and the giant mirror that we took down from the living room and only got carried as far as the mud room (and has now made it as far as the garage).

the whole mud room redo came about because while browsing the clearance section at lowes, we found two super cheap boxes of nice laminate wood flooring. we bought them expecting it to be enough to cover the mud room floor, only to find out that we were about a foot and a half short. but have no fear! we're resourceful. a little lumber and paint later, bench!

it also has a hinged top, so it can hold the recycling, reusable grocery bags, umbrellas and other miscellanea. and i made pillows.

i clearly had fun playing with pleats. i just cut the front fabric half an inch longer for every pleat that i wanted, and then ironed down the pleats and sewed quarter inch seams along the outside. i used white thread on the dark gray fabric, partly for contrast and partly because that's what i had in the machine and i'm kind of lazy. i also used fabric glue to close up the final hole used to stuff the pillows, rather than hand stitching.

the mud room looks very different now--much cheerier. i'll post pictures sometime, but we're not quite done with it yet.