[have a before & after you'd like to share on d*s? just shoot me an email right here with your images (low res, please).]

CLICK HERE for pei’s headboard makeover after the jump!

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[have a before & after you'd like to share on d*s? just shoot me an email right here with your images (low res, please).]

CLICK HERE to see kim’s office wall calendar after the jump!

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These perennials are ideal candidates for potted gardens, but grow amazingly well almost anywhere in the garden with little attention and can continue to bloom for years (keep these sun-loving beauties out of the shade and they’ll be happiest). The varieties that Bill the Bulb Baron grows happen to be best for growing in our area of California, in a Mediterranean-like climate, but traditionally daffodils or dutch bulbs are very cold tolerant and actually need a “freeze” treatment in order to flower, so don’t despair if you live in colder climates. The daffodil recently became the official flower of New York City and thanks to the city’s Daffodil Project, begun as a commemoration of September 11th in an effort to replace the city’s neglected open spaces with flowers, nearly four million daffodils bloom in New York City annually with another 500,000 bulbs being planted each year. If these flowers can live through an east coast winter and still come out swinging, then we think we can endorse them for almost any garden.

If you’re getting flowers from your own garden make sure not to damage any leaves as these tender greens store the energy that will be required to produce next season’s flowers. If the plant’s leaves are cut before they naturally die down, the bulbs won’t get the nourishment that they need. If you plan on using daffodils with other flowers in any arrangement, make sure to separate them in their own bucket of water for a few hours beforehand to help leach out some of the sappy toxins that can quickly clog the stems of other flowers.

We gathered an armful of Bill’s offerings combined with some larger varieties from the flower market to make daffodil hills, small round arrangements that work best with lots of tightly packed blooms. We thought these fun little mounds would be great centerpieces for a spring brunch and look great combined with single stems in bottles and jars. Start with a few stems of different varieties, forming a round shape on top. While holding the stems tightly, add a row of more flowers very close together under the first few stems. The second row should help push up and support the heads as they sometimes like to look down. Continue adding rows to your bundle until you have a tallish, round mound. You may need to feed in a few stems from the top to fill out the shape. When you are happy with your hill, rubber band the stems together at the bottom of the stalks, then slide it up to the very top to keep your tightly bunched shape. Then cut the stems really short and rest them on a shallow vase or dish of water to display. Use a floral frog if your hill is too tall to remain upright and balanced on its own. In cut arrangements or given as potted bulbs, these sunny flowers help take the gray out of any day.

CLICK HERE for more beautiful daffodil images after the jump!

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I keep that box stocked with favorite crafting products that both my son and I like. Including some of these:

Links from left to right: colored pencils, butcher paper, recycled star crayons, eco playdough, rubber stamps, stencils

There are also a lot of favorite everyday products we incorporate into his “crafting”, including these:

The Ikea paper table cloth is not necessarily for crafting but I always keep a few rolls of it around – its affordable, looks good and works well for covering tables for messier projects (as well as wrapping large gifts!).

That’s it for me this week! I’ve really enjoyed being here on Design*Sponge – thanks so much for reading.

over at the d*s guest blog, suann is finishing up her time with a great post on crafting with children. click here to check out her ideas…

When I was young, my grandmother, Ruby (more commonly known as “Nanny”), remarried, moved from her well-manicured home in the suburbs of Virginia Beach, VA to a bit of farmland in neighboring Chesapeake, and became the owner, along with her husband, of a small farm. The property came with an established blueberry orchard, which Nanny and Papa John turned into a modest U-Pick operation. There was a goat, Howard, who was completely insane. There were chickens, and dogs (Sadie and Pepper), a barn, and a big chestnut tree (I painfully remember falling into a gathered pile of its collected, prickle-clad nuts and getting them firmly lodged into the tights my 5 year-old self was wearing; many tears were shed that day). There was a tractor, and a pond (with the most amazing bullfrogs!), and lots of canning going on in the kitchen. Most importantly, there was a garden. It seemed enormous to me at the time, although it was probably in reality not nearly as vast as I recall it having been. In that garden, I unearthed, with my older brother, potatoes for the very first time. You’d have thought we’d found Blackbeard’s hidden treasure. We were so completely thrilled. I was hooked. If it come out of the ground and you could eat it, I wanted everything to do with it.

Gardening, of the fruit, vegetable, herbal, ornamental, and beyond persuasions, is now one of my favorite hobbies. I like doing it, reading about it, and being around other people who also want to read about it, do it, and talk about it. I love exploring farmer’s markets, friend’s backyard plots, and nurseries packed with growing things. I’m quite excited with the rise in gardening that has been occurring across the United States. From the garden on the White House lawn to Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estates movement (which works to replace front lawns and other unused green spaces with edible crops), people are returning to the soil.

Perhaps, though, you don’t have the time, or perhaps even the inclination, to grow your own food. Maybe you’re short on space or worried about killing off crops accidentally or finding things overcome by a blight or an infestation (it happens to all of us, eventually). You love the idea of eating locally grown produce, but you don’t know if you’re the one that should be growing it. For you, then, the solution can be found in today’s small measure-C.S.A. shares. C.S.A.’s are Community Supported Agriculture operations. In this situation, a consumer (you) pays a farmer a predetermined amount in advance of a growing season. As my farming friends Kevin Toomey and Christina Carter of neighboring Ten Mile Farm expertly describe it on their C.S.A. page , C.S.A. shares represent “A seasonal contract between the farmer and the members. You, as a member, purchase a share of the season’s harvest in advance. By purchasing a share in advance, you enable the farm to have the much needed collateral at the beginning of the season, when a majority of the spending happens all at once. We, as the farmers, commit to providing you with a weekly box of healthy, locally grown food throughout the growing season. This interdependence helps to ensure the longevity of small farms, while also reconnecting people to the land that helps to sustain them.”

CLICK HERE for the rest of Ashley’s post on CSA shares and how to participate in one near you!

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CLICK HERE for the full Lemon Tart recipe (and more about Marjorie) after the jump!

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• must-read posts of the week: biz ladies- how to price your work, sneak peek: sibella court, sewing 101- curtains
• new guest column: sewing 101-curtains
• new sneak peeks: max wanger, lauren of dear golden, sneak peek sibella court (one of my fav of all time), ltl architects
• new city guides: madrid, spain and fredericksburg, texas
• biz ladies 2010: how to price your work (a must read)
• past & present: the history of murphy beds (and a spring bedding roundup!)
• living in: the red shoes
• new diy projects: test tube vase, cold weather picnic pack, sewing 101- curtains
• new before & afters: ana’s bookcase + briana’s table, bryn’s bedroom + living room, ryan’s bowling lane table + pei’s headboard, kristin’s couch + kim’s office calendar
• we like it wild: daffodil hill
• small measures with ashley: CSA farm shares
• new recipe: in the kitchen with marjorie taylor’s lemon tart!
• new d*s guest blog: craft and letterpress ideas from suann song!
• misc.: patterned seed packets, anneke von bommel’s spoons, custom house stamps (love these!), heather chontos garden shots, coordinating bookjacket and bookmarks, susan schwake bird print, vintage frame chalkboards