How to Keep Hydrangeas Alive

Here we are back to the week friends!  And back to my 5am mornings! I hope y’all had a great weekend!  We had lots of baseball (two games and a party), but also got a few things done around the house, which always feels good.  And I ordered this for our backyard and can’t wait to get it! Will be loads of fun for Jordan since it’s already getting so hot here!
Today is another ‘This & That’ post, which is quickly becoming my favorite way to catch you up on lots of what’s going on here in one big round up post.  These posts are my version of casual phone chit chat with you where we sit down have have some girl talk.
Jordan and I kicked off the weekend with a Friday morning brunch with some blogger friends (and their precious babies)!  We do this once a month (not always with kids) but this brunch was hosted by @kidsxplorhtx (which offers class passes to kids up to 12 years old) so bringing the kiddos was a fun change of pace.
I’ve had this tank for awhile and the little v-strap detail is fun and of course, I love the stripes.  It comes in a few colors and fits TTS.  For the brunch I wore this tank with my favorite white distressed jeans and wedges, but changed into shorts when we got home.  It’s kind of hard to tell in the pic, but the shorts are high-waisted, so nice for keeping you all tucked in.  And I like the sliced distressing on this shorts.  They’ll be a favorite all summer long!
Jordan wore this same little one-piece dress that we took our family photos in.  She looks so cute in those colors and the little ruffle on the sleeve is darling!  Baby girl clothes will be the death of me, I swear!  But this was only $8 at Target!

 

Jordan’s Dress (with snaps underneath) | Sandals
How cute are these babies!! Ford was born just before Jordan and little Liam is 9 months old.  Isn’t is so funny to watch little babes interact?!
Ford | Jordan | Liam
At home, Jordan is starting to climb on everything!  I caught her standing on this stool in the kitchen and she’s been climbing onto the living room ottoman too!  But she doesn’t yet know how to get down, so we’re trying to teach her.
Whenever I share pics of our kitchen, I always get lots of questions about our Runner Rug, which is from Dash & Albert.  I love the pretty blue color and subtle chevron pattern.  We have three of them in the kitchen-  two smaller ones by the stove and sink, and a super long that runs the length of the island and beyond.
In between baseball games, I had a chance to run a few errands.  My new pink tennies arrived and I was so relieved to see they were as comfy as they are cute!

 

Sneakers | Shorts (size down) | Tee (XS) | Bag & Here
I usually wear a 6 or 6 1/2 in athletic shoes and I went with the 6 in these bc I wear thin ‘no show’ socks.
During the season, these little boys played their hearts out, even though they didn’t have the best record.  One day when Grandma came with and helped me watch Jordan, I got some pics of the players in action.  James always cracks me up because he celebrates everything with such gusto!
He happened to score the game ball that day!  We’re still in Dad Coach pitch, and it makes me a nervous wreck watching my husband pitch to them!  I’m like, “Babe, please throw them a good one!” He joked with me one time that if he could get every pitch to go exactly like he wanted it to, he’d be in the major leagues!
The two All-Star games this weekend were especially fun to watch, but also made for a really long day!
One of the team parents’ hosted a lovely party at their home on Sunday evening.  It was a great way to end the season!

 

Speaking of shoes, I have some new shoe storage to share with you! A few months ago when we had our downstairs repainted, I  took the opportunity to freshen up my closet with a clean coat of white paint.  If you’ve been a longtime reader (first of all, thank you!), but secondly, you might remember about two years ago I painted part of the closet bright pink with a faux Tanzania wallpaper effect, which was fun at the time, but I got tired of it eventually and wanted a clean slate.
I had my friend Ruben spray the whole closet with Sherwin Williams Alabaster, which is a nice, soft bright white.  It actually shocked me at first when it was all done because that white is kind of sterile looking compared to the creamy Divine White we have in the rest of the house.

 

As I was chatting with Ruben, I mentioned that I’d really love to create more shoe shelving along that back wall where the window was and he said he could do it rather easily by sheetrocking the window and adding wooden boards to create additional shelving.
I was fine with covering the window because I still have two other windows on the other side and I found that if I put clothing in front of the window it faded the clothes!  Some of you had some great suggestions for tinting the window to reduce that fading effect, but I wanted the seamless look of a wall on that side for the additional shoe shelves.

 

Some of you might have caught Ruben on my Stories when we were determining the height of the shelves.  He started telling me which shoes he liked and the pair that he didn’t care for at all, “I don’t know why you have this one.” He was so funny!!

Below is the window getting sheetrocked and if we decide in the future we want the window back, he said we could do that.  The window is high enough up that from outside, you can’t even tell that it’s been sheetrocked inside.

I still need to arrange my tall boots on the top shelf, but I love how it turned out!  Now I have all my colorful shoes on the right side, and my neutrals on the other side.

Having this plentiful shoe storage is a dream come true!  For so many years, with apartment living and the small townhouse we lived in when we first got married, I had barely any closet space.  There was never enough room for shoes, so I was always having to try to finagle a way to store things and it was never very good!

I need to clean things up more before I can give you a proper tour, but wanted to share one more organizational thing that might be helpful to you.  It’s always hard to figure out how to store and display your necklaces, but I like to see mine instead of hiding them away in a jewelry box.
Right now, I’m using a cedar belt and tie rack to organize my long necklaces and it’s working like a charm!  I used to just have push pins stuck into the wall, but this looks much better and is more sturdy.  If you don’t have a blank wall in your closet for this, maybe you could attach it to the back of the door??
How do you store your necklaces?

Now this is something I hope will be very useful for you!  And I wouldn’t have believed it myself if my current bunch of hydrangeas hadn’t been gloriously blooming for the last 13 days without barely a brown spot!  Before this, my hydrangeas would only last a couple of days, tops!  I have 5 stems of hydrangeas I got at the grocery store and look at how pretty they still are!  This picture was taken on Day 13.
I first read my friend Bree’s post about how she keeps her hydrangeas alive and how you can sometimes get them to rehydrate by soaking the blooms in water overnight.  I tried that and it did help a previous bunch.
But then I googled how to keep them thriving from the get go and here’s what I found and what I did and it works!
1) Fill a clean vase with lukewarm water and let it come to room temperature.
2)  Fill a saucepan with water and put it on the stove to boil.
3)  After the water comes to a boil, turn off the heat, and let it cool for several minutes.
4) Cut your hydrangea stems at a 45-degree angle.
5)  Make a slit in the bottom inch of the stem, cutting up through its center.
6)  Place the stem in the hot water for 30 seconds.
7)  Immediately place the stem in the vase of the room temperature water.
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8) I also added the plant food packet to the water (the kind you get at the grocery store for free).  I’ve requested additional packets and they gave them to me.
9)  Every other day, I change the water, and recut the stems just a tad, and added a flower food packet. I say every other day, but I think I’ve gone 2-3 days in there before changing the water and recutting the stems.
My blooms from the grocery store have been going strong for almost 2 weeks with no signs of slowing down.  I will be sure to let you know how long they last.  They are on our breakfast table in a simple mason jar.
Do you have any flower tricks to share?

 

Have a great week, friends! ?
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Meet Megan

Hi! I’m Megan, mom to a thoughtful teenager and spunky young girl. We call Houston home and recently moved into our dream home. I traded my lawyer hat to become a full-time blogger in 2010. I love sharing my passion for affordable fashion, home decor, organization, & fitness to help inspire you to take care of you!

18 Comments

  1. Good tip on the hydrangeas! I wish I knew this before. My son gave me the most beautiful bouquet with roses and hydrangea for Mother's Day and they wilted by that night =(
    I can't wait to try this tip. Thanks!

  2. Love the new shelves! Random question, but do you still use a Nikon to shoot your photos? What lens do you use? I love how the action photos of James came out.

  3. Shoe shelf envy here! The new shelves look great!!!! Putting shelves in the master bedroom closet is on my to-do list but I don't think I will get to it this year because I have some other projects going on. I just finished up my linen closet makeover recently. I am definitely missing the high heels though. I'm scheduled for bilateral knee replacements later this year and the first question I asked the surgeon was if I could wear high heels again and he gave me a big yes. So hopefully lots of new high heels will be in my future next year:) Yay! As for necklace storage, I have my necklaces and scarves on some hooks behind my bedroom door. It works great. I'm getting to be more of a minimalist at my age but nothing too drastic, lol!

    Would love a post on your marble refinishing for the kitchen. I need to do that in my bathroom and I'd love to hear what you have to say on that.

  4. So I have done your Hydrangea trick and we are going 10 days and they look like I just bought them and have only changed the water twice!! Awesome tip!!!

    1. My grocery store finally had mini hydrangeas in stock on Friday, so I got them and just tried this again. I’m hoping I get the same results!

  5. Hi Megan,
    I wanted to tell you that I bought some hydrangeas that my supermarket had on sale on 3/19. I bought 5 of them at $1 each! I figured for $5, even if they only lasted a day or two I’d be ok with it. But then I remembered you had a tip on them, so I looked up your post.
    I followed your directions exactly and have been changing the water and trimming them every 3 days since. I’m happy to report that your tip worked so well!!! We’re They have been doing great all of this time and they’ve only just started to fade a bit.
    Thank you so much for sharing this tip!

    1. Isn’t that awesome?! I swear my hydrangeas used to die so quickly until I started doing this. Now they’ll easily last two weeks! Thanks so much for sharing your success!

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