Featuring: Plant Depot's "It's always summer somewhere" image creation

Summer may be coming to a close here in the Northern Hemisphere but really, it's summer somewhere else in the world--Hello Southern Hemisphere! It's good to think that a plane ride could drop you right back into summer.

Creating this image for Plant Depot was a fun challenge because finding a watermelon WITH seeds was a challenge in itself!  Although sometimes you cut seedless melon and find one or two black seeds, I didn't want to have to dig through and ruin the whole melon to find them as I was using this one to photograph!  I lucked out and found a couple of seeds in the first cut to photograph individually on a white background.  I also photographed the melon on a white background, which provided the main parts of my image to put together in photoshop.

I gave the melon a little bit of cleanup in photoshop to make it more attractive ;-) and set to work to create my letters.

From my image of the black seeds, I used one perfect seed duplicated to create the letters.

Finally, I used a little more photoshop magic to take a "bite" out of the melon.

Looks good enough to eat!

This is the Instagram version of the image--Head over to Plant Depot's Facebook page to check out the finished Facebook cover image here!  You can also find them on Instagram @plantdepotsjc

Our finished project.

Several weeks ago, I had photographed a beautiful Spanish home and came home sooo inspired.  I showed my husband the images and our wheels started turning with projects for our own house.  We decided to tackle removing the last two remaining planters in the front courtyard.  Long story short, our smaller project turned into a bigger project as we discovered the structural insufficiencies of the pillars that held up that part of the roof.  No strangers to remodeling, we completely understand that demolition of any part of a house most often results in a bigger job than originally intended!  So being that we had to redo the footings, we decided to tackle the front walkway as well.  We'd always wanted to replace the red cement tile trying to be saltillo with flagstone.  (We'd done this at our old house and loved the look.)  We dived in.

It's been many weeks, but we've finally finished!  We pushed hard over this past weekend to put the finishing touches on the courtyard which included repotting and reorganizing most of my succulent collection.  Succulents are fantastic--mostly slow growing, lovers of packed containers and low water, but just as with any plants, they need a clean up now and again.  A new glazed pot and red blooming aloe for the entry and "I just couldn't resist the tillandsia" from Plant Depot (I attached them to a piece of driftwood we found last year at Doheny and they now  grace my sofa table.) completed the project.

Zoe (always willing to have her photograph taken) seems to like the new walkway and Michael and I, while not ready to quit our day jobs, think we did a pretty good job!

Before

After!  I can't wait for the plants to grow in!

The welcoming committee

After

My experimental planting!

Tillandsia project

Featuring Plant Depot

One of my favorite clients is now on Instagram!  Plant Depot is not only my favorite place to buy plants, but one of my very favorite clients!  Plant Depot's employees are a wealth of information--not only on plants and their care, but for help in designing your garden and no matter what your question, someone there can answer it.  Our latest project showcases cool plants,  but soon, there's some new projects in store!

In honor of their jump onto Instagram, here's a few favorite images from my work with Plant Depot, Instagram style! Find them on Instagram at plantdepotsjc