{amaryllis & paperwhite bulbs for the holidays}

Growing up I always remember my mother putting together amaryllis and paper white bulbs around late October/early November to display around our house for the holiday season.   When I moved out into my first place in San Francisco, my mother sent me care package filled with bulbs and all the supplies needed to plant some for my new home.  Every year since then, she sends along all the supplies for what has grown to become a long time holiday tradition.  Today I wanted to share with you the very simple yet rewarding process of planting these bulbs for the upcoming holidays.  The cost of these bulbs is low and you should be able to find them at your local garden supply or Home Depot- I have also spotted them in "kits" at Target or Trader Joes.  The ease of putting these together makes them a great hostess gift throughout the holiday season as well!

The process for planting either paper white or amaryllis bulbs is basically the same.  You can use practically any ceramic pot or glass vase you might have around so long as the bulb/bulbs can fit their width in it.  The key with bulb success is making sure not to completely submerge the bulb in water or dirt, but to plant it so that the majority of the bulb is visible above the moss in your container.  If need be place rocks or pebbles in the bottom of your container to get the bulb as high as you would like.  Use moss to anchor the bulb in your container.  Fill the entire container with water, let it sit for a few minutes and then drain all the water out by holding the bulb/moss/pebbles while tipping the container to its side.  This should be the extent of watering your bulb will require.  These potted bulbs can be placed anywhere in your home- they do not require a specific amount of sunlight!  You may want to add water and drain it once more in a few weeks if your home is very dry from air conditioning or weather.

Paperwhites and amaryllis make for great hostess gifts since they are pretty and require little effort on the part of the person you are gifting them to!  Simply plant the bulb into a nice ceramic container following the directions above and attach a cute tag like this sticker tag from Rifle Paper I recently picked up on a trip to Paper Source:

While normally I would show you the end result of planting these bulbs, if I waited that long to share it with you then you wouldn't have time to plant some for yourself!  So here are some photos of what you can hope to achieve.  While the amaryllis is my favorite because it is so dramatically beautiful, I also thoroughly enjoy the strong scent that paperwhites will fill your rooms with:

 {amaryllis}

{paperwhites}

{mini valentine's garland}

Over the weekend, my mom and I picked up a pair of mini rose bushes from the flower mart.  I dont normally buy potted plants besides succulents at the Flower Mart, but we got there a little too late in the day and the selection of fresh flowers was dismal.   We potted these little rose bushes in a white ceramic vase I have.  This vase is not intended for houseplants since it has no drainage so we will see how long these actually last. 

While Chris was making us dinner, I whipped up this mini garland using some construction paper, baker's twine & two bamboo vegetable skewers.   Simply cut the triangle garland and fold it in half; you can see more in depth tutorial along with some free printables here.  I attached the little hearts with a glue stick and then hot glued the triangles onto the baker's twine.  This would be a really great addition to a Valentine's cake- similar to this previous post.

{sprucing up the deck}

Gardening on our deck is a lot more difficult than it looks. Since the artificial grass sits on top of "rooftop" concrete, I have to put down plastic painter's drop cloths whenever I want to garden since any dirt that doesn't make it inside the planters has no where to go but down a tiny drain on the side of the deck.  Because of this, I try to save up gardening projects and do them all at once.  This past weekend, I finally had a chance to plant some succulents I picked up in the downtown Flower Mart into some ceramic urns I scored at Michael's Crafts.  The urns are intended to be used for our upcoming wedding, but until then they'll hang out in the corners of our deck.  I also picked up a small white azalea bush for our dining table.  Other than our cocktail tree, I try to only plant succulents so that I don't have to water that much, but I couldn't resist this girly little plant on a recent trip to Home Depot.

{outdoor deck: before & after}

By far the best part about our loft is the deck; coming by outdoor space like this in downtown Los Angeles is incredibly difficult and that's how we knew this unit was the one for us. Luckily, we already had the outdoor sofa and chairs from our previous house in Silverlake. The synthetic grass (I promise it's not astro turf!) was a great find at Lester's carpets near The Grove in LA. I highly recommend them for turf or large area rugs. We also found a collapsible teak table and three white patio chairs on Craigslist.

{Ikea table, Ikea Urban Chairs}

{trio of glazed pots from Joann's fabrics}

Since our dog would be out here during the day we decided to build the wood planter boxes for the entire ledge since it was only 40 inches high and Muji is a very curious dog.  After extensive calculating and recalculating of all the planks of we would need, we were able to make these boxes relatively quickly (and by "we" I mean Christopher and his dad).  I am mildly obsessed with succulents so this feature is one of my favorites and is still a work in progress as I am currently on the hunt for some more yellow/orange colored succulents to bring some warmer colors into the boxes.

{BHG outdoor sectional, Target outdoor throw pillows}

{Home South Bali chairs, Target tilting umbrella}

This tree was a housewarming gift from my mother, it is a "salad" citrus tree which has 5 different types of citrus on it: Bearss Limes, Valencia oranges, Minneola tangelos, Eureka lemons and Washington oranges. It should be bearing fruit this spring and we are so excited to stop buying citrus for cocktails at the store every week. 

  {deck at night}

{fish bowl terrarium}

Since the gloomy weather this past weekend ruined my plans for some gardening, I decided it was the perfect time to re-plant an indoor terrarium that did not fair well in the move.  The large fish bowl vase was a TJ Maxx find, but you can find vases like these in the LA Flower Mart or at Home Goods.

What you need:

• vase - fish bowl shaped ones work best
• small rocks or gravel
• potting soil
• moss (my favorite is Super Moss' Reindeer Moss)
• various small succulents (Home Depot has a great selection for $1.50)

1. place a small layer of gravel or rocks in the bottom of the vase, for a vase the size of mine (12 inch diameter) I used about an inch worth. This allows for some drainage.
2. top with a couple inches of potting soil 
3. loosely plant succulents in desired locations, you can support them with some of the leftover small rocks if needed.  I recommend working from front to back as you plant the succulents, and then plant the one in the center last.
4. fill uncovered dirt with moss and rocks (this is optional but I think it looks much better with the additional color)
5. lightly water until soil is moist
6. place in area that gets a good amount sunlight and lightly water once a week.

I find that my terrariums will last 3 to 4 months before needing to be re-planted.  I imagine this time period changes based on how much or how little sunlight you get indoors. Our previous house had very little natural light and the terrariums could make it a few months. The loft gets TONS of morning sun so I am hoping this terrarium is going to stick it out for at least 6 months! Terrariums make easy inexpensive gifts as well. You can purchase 5 inch diameter fish bowl vases, fill it with three small succulents and then attach a cute gift tag (like this).