The Great Outdoors

Summer  , for me is synonymous with eating , and entertaining outdoors. Only thing is, to make the outdoors more appealing, there is usually a fair amount of sweat, labor and flea marketing involved .  Since our house is built into a hill , our backyard patio lies about 25 feet below street level providing lots of privacy, but also meaning a giant 15 foot concrete wall. We decided the only way to punch up all the grey would be to add lots of popping colors so that the patio could go from drab to fab.   While I was researching some ideas for bringing some festive color to the patio,  I stumbled across this cute diy idea for embellishing paper lanterns . 

Punch up plain lanterns with
festive colored tissue paper 

Also, another great way to save cash and reduce waste is to scour your local thrift stores, flea markets and garage sales. Even if you find a piece that doesn't exactly scream perfection, a trip to the Home Depot and a little creativity can really lend itself to creating a one of a kind piece. Have fun prettying up your patio, and send us pics of your before and afters !