$75 Giveaway!

Hi friends! I'm excited to treat you guys today to a fun little giveaway!

With summer just around the corner, I know most of us are spending a lot of time sprucing up our outdoor spaces. Gotta be ready for all of those upcoming BBQ's, right?! 

Today, Empire Patio Covers is here to help one of you with that process. They offer a huge range of patio furniture covers in several different finishes, including classic nutmeg, metro brown and hunter green.

Their covers fit chairs, tables, chaise lounges, sofas, hot tubs, fire pits, grills, air conditioners and more. I'm telling you, they have a great selection! I'd love to be able to cover our patio furniture when we're not using it, instead of cleaning it off every time we go outside!

Empire also has a collection of pet accessories, including some great pet seat covers. I know Maggie and Tucker would love one of these! Actually I would love it for them... less hair to vacuum out of my car at the end of every trip! Sounds like a dream come true.

Today, Empire Patio Covers is giving away to one of you a $75 gift certificate to any item in their shop! You'll also get free shipping of your products within the U.S. and Canada. Think of all the possibilities... your backyard will be fitted for summer, that's for sure.

G I V E A W A Y     R U L E S :

1)  Visit Empire Patio Covers and leave a comment telling me which item you'd like! 

Please be a follower of Ten June.

2) For an additional chance to win, link to this giveaway on either your Facebook or on your Twitter, then leave a second comment telling me where you linked (FB or Twitter). Please link with the phrase "patio furniture covers!"

3) For a third chance to win, "like" Ten June on Facebook, then leave an additional comment letting me know you liked the Facebook page.

One winner will be chosen at random. Giveaway ends at midnight EST on Saturday, May 12th. A winner will be announced next Sunday morning! Good luck!

Props to Mother Nature

Hey mother nature... job well done.

I spent the weekend enjoying (and managing!) all of these gorgeous blooms. All I have to say is thank goodness my lack of a green thumb doesn't kill these beauties year after year. David and I worked in the yard all weekend and I remembered how little I know about gardening and yard work. Let's just say the hydrangea bush in our backyard might be a leeeetle lopsided this year... oops! The backyard hasn't bloomed yet, but those little hydrangeas and peonies will be here any day! Can't wait.

Has your yard begun to bloom yet for spring?

PS. Have any fun Easter or spring inspired projects that you'd like to share with Ten June readers? Shoot me an email (please put "Easter Project!" in the subject line) with pictures and a description or a link to your post on the project by Wednesday at midnight, EST (April 4th) and I may feature it later this week! tenjuneblog@gmail.com

She's Wearing New Duds: Our Painted House

Hello hello! I've been out of town on business all week, so I apologize for being a little disconnected. But I'm back at home now and (although exhausted!) ready to pick back up on blogging. I'm looking forward to catching up on my DVR + all of your blogs tonight! : )

While I was away, guess what happened? Our sweet little casa got a new outfit in the form of a fresh exterior paint job! Woot woot. Our realtor recommended that we go ahead and invest in getting her painted before listing the house for sale on the market. And we agreed- she had some spots that were certainly showing her wear. But now she's freshly painted and all sparkly for potential buyers.

Previously, I did pretty good about editing my pictures of the house to hide the "wow, I need to be painted" views, so I'm a little lacking in before pictures. But who wants to see peeling paint anyways, right? On to the beautiful after shots!

We chose to stick with our current colors- white siding + black shutters + red front door. I think it's such a classic combination, don't you? And no, we did not paint the brick base white- that was done by the previous owners. At first it wasn't my favorite- I love red brick! But it's just about impossible to get paint off of brick (we've tried). So we've made it work and I've even grown to love it a little bit. All part of our sweet casa's character.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love our slate + moss covered sidewalk? I love it. A lot.

Here's a never-before-seen shot of the side of our house, all freshly painted.

The back of the house is looking all sparkly and new, too!

Thanks to our paint guy for giving our casa a new paint job! I think it definitely ups the curb appeal and will attract a lot of buyers. Now hopefully some of our beautiful spring landscaping will start coming through to really show off how gorgeous this house can be!

Have you done anything to spruce up your curb appeal lately?

Weekend Wrap Up

Hotdogs? Check. American flag? Check. Pink lemonade? Check. I think it was a successful Memorial Day over at our house!

David and I had a crew of people over to celebrate the Memorial Day holiday. We are so blessed to have such amazing friends and family in our lives, and so we felt lucky to be able to share the holiday with them! The party was held in our backyard, under our screened in porch and out by the pool. It was a wonderful day!

For the record, pool pics with no makeup and bad hair are never really a good idea....

Here are a few shots of the backyard, before the party got started.

It would have made sense to take a picture of the amazing food spread we had, but I'm not that brilliant and didn't think about that, so you get to see an empty table : ) But don't fret, because I snapped lots of food pics throughout the day.

Heres D grilling up fresh corn on the cob (we grill it with the husks on, after soaking in water), chicken skewers and hot dogs.

Strawberry cupcakes (compliments of Cassie, recipe found here)

Corona ice pops (modeled by my little sister, Callie!)... not gonna lie, these were not that good! Beer is better in the bottle, not frozen....

The party was a blast. But the best part? Summer has officially arrived!!

The Great Outdoors

I'm just going to go ahead and throw it out there... this is going to get embarrassing.

This weekend, David and I spent a lot of time in the yard. With good reason. It was a jungle. Between the recent tornado/storm weather Georgia has had and our recent jaunts around the world, our yard has been low on the priority list. And you know I always keep it real here at Ten June, so here goes nothing.

Let's just take a walk through the madness. 

My front trainwreck patio.

Our grass seed has a-bloomed. Like woah.

Oh hello, weeds. 

Just call our yard Weeds McGee.

Still jealous of our peonies?

After about six hours of David and I working with our hands in the dirt all day Saturday, it's looking a little bit cleaner in the yard these days! I still want to put down mulch in all of the beds, but at least there's no more Weeds McGee. 

I wrapped my peony bushes in tomato cages- previously, the blooms were so heavy that they drooped and fell off. Now they're standing tall and proud. And gorg.

The only thing we didn't trim is the hydrangea bush. It's kind of monstrous, but I'm afraid to cut the blooms back for fear of losing the almost-flower buds. Any experts out there with advice?

As you can see, we've still got to get our pool opened for the season. And it's got to be done sooner than later, because we're hosting a big Memorial Day party at our house! We've also got to finish planting our vegetable/flower garden. So far we've got three different kinds of tomatoes, sweet peppers and lavender in the ground- I'll share more details on the garden later!

In an interesting turn of events, I'm no longer embarrassed to get out of my car if a neighbor is walking by. It's kind of weird how the lack of knee-high grass puts a little spring in my step! ; )

Sharing with:

Centsational Girl

Between Naps on the Porch

The Girl Creative

Dittle Dattle

Decor Chick

Perfect for A Day Like This

I finally flipped through my recent edition of House Beautiful last night. While I was, as usual, oohing and ahhing over the incredible design talent on the magazine's pages, I was stopped in my tracks by this image. Most. Adorable. Hammock. Ever. I seriously want it in my backyard! It would be perfect for a beautiful spring day like today! Does Santa come in May?

The Grass is Always Greener!

...in my yard! I hope you guys don't think I'm literally the most boring blogger in the history of the world, but I am seriously going to talk about grass today. And not the kind we kept getting offered while on our Caribbean vaca last week.

But the kind that made me say HOLY COW when we pulled into the driveway (ie. this is a crappy iPhone pic) after 10 days away. Green grass.

Yes, it's still filled with got some minor weed issues, but my yard is filling in with grass. Holla.

Seriously though, can you blame a girl whose yard used to look like this just one short year ago?

Exactly, you love it too. So I get to be that weird girl who blogs about grass. 

I was really flipping excited when we got home to this. I even jumped up and down and said WHAT THE FESCUE!!!!! Okay, maybe I'm going a little overboard, but as you saw here, our front yard is rocking it this spring!

We were told to let the little baby grass grow in, so we can't cut it for awhile. Yessssss, we get to be those people in the neighborhood who don't cut their grass. As if I wasn't already "that girl" based upon the fact that I was standing in my yard, taking pictures of my grass.... 

Hopefully I'll be showing you more shots of our front yard looking like this, in no time at all.

Have you ever been this excited about yard work? Lets here about it! Maybe then I'll sound a little more sane ; )