Whether you’re designing a new garden or want to revamp an old one, gardening projects require a lot of planning.

If you want your garden to be a horticultural haven, use calm and subtle colors in all aspects of your garden. Pastel shades work best, particularly when planted in ‘drifts’ of colour.

Don’t be afraid to have a go at making your own garden ornaments. Something as simple as a sundial or a birdbath can add the personal touch to your garden. Try your local salvage yard for interesting materials.

If you need inspiration for garden designs; have a look at these designs. The right landscaping ideas and container gardening combinations can make your backyard an inviting retreat.

Urban Basement Garden

Sogo Garden

(Designer: Lizzie Taylor & Dawn Issac)

Float Garden

(Designer: by Jack Merlo)

Cocoon Garden

(Designer: by Jack Merlo)

Moss Garden

(Designer: by Jack Merlo)

Roof Garden

Design From Auckland Botanical Gardens

Blue Stick Garden

Mediterranean-style courtyard

Garden Designs From Chelsea Flower Shows

(Designer: Andy Sturgeon)

Source

Zarcero, Costa Rica

Zarcero’s fresh, spring-like air and high-altitude temperatures are a wonderful respite from the tropical Costa Rican heat.

Located along the northern edge of the Central Valley, the small town is known for its crisp climate and dramatic mountain landscapes. Culinary connoisseurs will love the area’s local produce, much of which is organically farmed. Vine-ripened tomatoes, fresh basil, and savory cheese (locally known as queso palmito) are some of the district’s distinct delicacies. Fresh sour cream, sweet buns, and a sugary treat of crystallized grapefruits filled with a creamy condensed milk round out the town’s notable gastronomic delights.

Without a doubt, Zarcero’s most popular attraction is its surreal topiary gardens. Wavy arches carved from conifer cypress invite visitors to explore artist-landscaper Evangelisto Blanco’s latest inventions. Here, spectators are given a rare opportunity to step through the looking glass. Shrubs and trees manifest as dancing animals, stylized creatures and other unique abstractions.

Somehow I stumbled upon this…

Black Barbie

Ostlie’s site, Tabloach Productions is a showcase of her work. Fair and freckled dolls sit next to dolls modeled after real women – like pop star, Brandy. Ostlie has even reworked Skipper – Barbie’s long-neglected kid sister.

I want this one!

For any of you who aren’t familiar with the show, Dexter is about a serial killer of the same name, who works by day as a forensic analyst for the Miami police department, and by night, cleansing the city of the evil criminals who slip through the cracks of our faulty judicial system.  Every serial killer has to keep his mementos and Dexter’s trophy case, consists of a box of slides, each containing one drop of blood from each victim.

Here’s how to make your own slide treats!

Biohazard Blood Slides

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup light corn syrup
• 2 Tbs water
• red food dye
• bamboo skewer or tooth pic Read the rest of this entry »

Adam Lambert embroidery… click here to see some closeups and instructions.

Since I was bored I thought I’d try my hand at Polyvore’s create function.

I posted on my facebook account and I got a request for a clubbing outfit that didn’t emphasize too much on the stomach area and her favorite color is pink.  Here’s the results.

Olympia’s Club Outfit by Deltrice featuring Christian Louboutin shoes

Aside from the earings, everything is moderately priced.

1. You Forget 90% of Your Dreams

Within 5 minutes of waking, half of your dream is forgotten. Within 10, 90% is gone.

2. Blind People also Dream

People who became blind after birth can see images in their dreams. People who are born blind do not see any images, but have dreams equally vivid involving their other senses of sound, smell, touch and emotion.

3. Everybody Dreams

Every human being dreams (except in cases of extreme psychological disorder). If you think, you are not dreaming, you just forget your dreams.

4. In Our Dreams We Only See Faces, That We already Know

Our mind is not inventing faces – in our dreams we see real faces of real people that we have seen during our life but may not know or remember. We have all seen hundreds of thousands of faces throughout our lives, so we have an endless supply of characters for our brain to utilize during ourdreams.

5. Not Everybody Dreams in Color

A full 12% of sighted people dream exclusively in black and white. The remaining number dream in full color. Studies from 1915 through to the 1950s maintained that the majority of dreams were in black and white, but these results began to change in the 1960s. Today, only 4.4% of the dreams of under-25 year-olds are in black and white. Recent research has suggested that those changing results may be linked to the switch from black-and-white film and TV to color media.

Read More Here

NBC looks at the myth that “fat = unhealthy”

By Jessica O’Brien, Beauty Editor

After watching this video, and hearing the assumption that is presented about the heavier woman, I see this is a great example of what I go through some times as a plus size woman. After moving from Massachusetts to South Carolina with my husband in fall 2008, I was rejected by two different insurance companies because of my weight. I begged and pleaded for them to let me appeal. I told them to do the research to see my weight loss results over the past three years, and to look at things like my fitness abilities and how phenomenal my physicals look on paper as a measure of my health and risk. I have great cholesterol (including great triglycerides and HDL), great BP, great resting pulse, etc… Even at my highest weight of 350ish, I had great numbers. I’m not saying everyone at that weight reads so healthy, but for me, that’s how it was.

Yes, I need to lose more weight for my future health, but wouldn’t taking overweight people on to insurance company and providing incentives to help foster healthy habits be a more positive approach vs. giving me one less chance to have proper health coverage? I did finally find a company to cover me on an individual plan in October ‘08, but, basically, the coverage sucks. To boot, I pay a $75 per month “surcharge” because of my BMI. I need to weight under 216 for 6 consecutive months to get the charge dropped. Yes, it is easy to just say that I should lose the weight. And, some day, hopefully this year, maybe next, I will be below that weight.

My point is that I am not going to hit a crash diet to get to that weight, and I am very happy that I *am* as healthy as I am today. I do not need a number on the scale to define my self worth.

This video also brings up a term called “Normal Weight Obesity” which I think is important for people to hear about. Thin doesn’t always equal healthy, and overweight doesn’t always equal unhealthy. Health is not just the “absence of disease”. Like the doctor discusses at the end, it’s really not a “get out of jail free card” for people to just go and gain weight, but a wake up call to our society that fitting into a size 2 does not guarantee a clean bill of health. Yes, there are people who may naturally be a size 2, but most women are not. Like I mentioned on the SKORCH Face Book page about one of the Dove videos that speak to “fabricating beauty” via Photoshop, families need to reinforce to our young ladies that bodies come in different sizes and shapes, and I’ll be damned if my future daughters don’t have anything else in their life than a positive self image!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

okc talk

On this season of “I want to work for diddy” the star of the house had to be Ms Queen Bitch, Ivory.  Ivory was the one always causing drama but something really bothered me about her…. that damn white eye shadow.  I wish I could find a picture of the gaudy ass blue eye shadow she wore, which wasn’t too much better than the white.

By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent in Chicago

Lack of connection with others not only makes us unhappy but it is also bad for the wellbeing of the body and mind, research finds.

A sense of rejection or isolation increases blood pressure, stress levels and general wear and tear as well as increases your chances of developing Alzheimer’s Disease.

It also reduces will power and perseverance, thus affecting the ability to follow a healthy lifestyle, according to scientists.

The findings were outlined by Professor John Cacioppo, of the University of Chicago, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference.

Loneliness not only alters behavior, but loneliness is related to greater resistance to blood flow through your cardiovascular system, Professor Cacioppo said.

Loneliness leads to higher rises in morning levels of the stress hormone cortisol, affects the immune system, higher blood pressure and an increased level of depression.

Loneliness, or perceived social isolation, also is related to difficulty getting a deep sleep and a faster progression of Alzheimer’s disease, said Professor Cacioppo.

Healthwise, he said the difference between a lonely person and a popular person was akin to “a smoker and a non-smoker”.

“That stunned all of us, myself and all my colleagues in terms of the effects it had,” he said. “It shows just how powerful it is.

“The lonely have poor health. They exercise less, are more likely to quit. Eat more calories. They comfort eat more fats and sugars.

“Loneliness lowers the ability to control yourself. It is really easy after a bad day to have a second scotch and a third to get some comfort.”

One of the founders of a new discipline called social neuroscience, Professor Cacioppo, traced the need for connection to its evolutionary roots.

In order to survive in the past, humans needed to bond to rear their children. In order to flourish, they needed to extend their altruistic and cooperate, he concluded.

Just as physical pain is a prompt to change behavior, such as moving a finger away from the fire, loneliness evolved as a prompt to action, signaling an ancestral need to repair the social bonds.

The problem of social isolation is likely to grow as conventional family structures die out, said Professor Cacioppo, the author of Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection.

People are living longer, having fewer children later in life and increasingly mobile around the world.

Surveys also show that people report significantly fewer close friends and confidants than those a generation ago.

Source

As quickly as it started, the first decade of 2000, dotted with the ill-predicted Y2k and not ending with exactly a “space odyssey” quite yet, the first decade of the 2000’s is coming to a close.

Surf smarter, stop using Microsoft Internet Explorer, don’t download those free movies, free ringtones, free software, free pr0n… just come back to good ol’ Pixelvomit for all your good R&B, gossip, sex talk, and randomness in 2010.