Mother's Day Gift Ideas

Give the gift of love to Mom this year with the absolutely gorgeous MoMo Panache hand carved and painted wine glass!  Gorgeously gift boxed - it's certain to be a hit for Mother's, girlfriends, and wives.  Wine charm, gift box and bow also included.

 Only $24.99!

Click here to purchase!

For additional unique gift ideas please visit us at:

http://crystalsandtrinkets.com/

Thanks for visiting with us - enjoy your day!

Bob and Gail

Unique Mother's Day Gift Ideas

Mother's day is coming up.  Though here in the North East it sure doesn't feel like spring with 8 - 15" of snow predicted tomorrow!  We've decided to ignore it - the warmer weather will arrive soon :-)

Our on-line store carried a wide variety of unique gift ideas for women, your mom, your girlfriend or just a special friend!  Unless otherwise noted - shipping is free on all of our items.

Today we are featuring our wide assortment of empty, refillable perfume bottles.  They make a wonderful gift idea.  We even have a few that are suitable for men's colognes.  We have both contemporary sprayer styles and antique Victorian bulb atomizer styles to choose from. 

If you are looking for a bulk lot of six or more perfume bottles - please feel free to e-mail us at hinz1@roadrunner.com - we'll be happy to work with you.

We hope you'll visit us at

http://crystalsandtrinkets.com/

Have a wonderful day!

Bob and Gail

Coming Soon - Ne'Qwa Handpainted Wine Bottle Stoppers

We are pleased to announce that we will be adding Ne'Qwa reverse hand painted wine bottle stoppers to our assortment of wine accessories!

Ne'Qwa is an ancient form of painting on the inside of glass. To ensure the survival of this ancient art form, Ne'Qwa Art develops new artists through its own art school in China. After completing years of training, artisans working in Ne'Qwa Art's wholly owned manufacturing facility follow artistic traditions passed down from generation to generation.

These beautiful wine bottle stoppers are gift boxed in a gorgeous satin lined velvet box. A certificate of authenticity comes with your purchase.

Ne'Qwa wine bottle stoppers will be available in our store the week of March 20th. You can visit us at:

http://CrystalsAndTrinkets.com

Thanks so much for visiting with us!

Bob and Gail

The Planting Of The Lilacs...

Spring was in the air today - and it's only March 7th! We can only hope this trend continues and spring will make it's arrival early.

This week we'll be talking about lilacs. We had a learning experience with lilacs last year when Bob and I decided to use lilacs as a privacy wall to the back yard. We found there were many different lilacs - both regular and hybrid - and that you could purchase lilacs in various sizes.

We ended up deciding on 3 Donald Wyman Lilacs as our privacy wall. We choose this particular lilac for a number of reasons - it's form (nicely rounded), it's size (8-10 feet tall and 4-10 feet wide) and most importantly - it blooms two weeks after most lilacs. This enabled us to lengthen our lilac blooms well into June.

As we intended our lilacs to be a privacy wall, we decided to purchase mature shrubs rather than buying an inexpensive smaller shrub and waiting five years for our privacy... We will warn you, however - this is not an inexpensive venture. It was, however, well worth the money.

We first decided on a reputable greenhouse in our area. Really, if you are going to spend the money on mature shrubs - get a guarantee on them! The greenhouse we chose guarantees their shrubs (provided they are zoned for our area) for up to 3 years. We then obtained a list of plants, trees and shrubs that they carry - or could order.

From the list we researched each of the lilacs our nursery carried or could obtain. We were looking at size, price, disease resistance, mold resistance (a problem here in Maine...) and how quickly each lilac grew.

Once we decided on the Donald Wyman Lilac we visited the nursery to place our order. Because we wanted five foot shrubs, they had to be special ordered. Our spring last year was very bad - rainy and cold. We waited impatiently and finally by late May, about a month after ordering, we received the call saying our lilacs had arrived.

Being impatient and so ready to get our long awaited plants into the ground, Bob decided he would pick them up so we could get them into the ground that weekend.

Bob's 1972 Chevy Pickup comes in handy for this type of thing - as well as hauling dirt and mulch and a number of other gardening related things.

We did not, however, realize how big the root balls of these 5' lilac shrubs were going to be. Poor Old Yellow had it's work cut out in more ways than one when it came to our lilac adventure.

As soon as Bob pulled into the driveway with our long awaited treasures it was immediately apparent that we should have paid for the delivery of our shrubs... Each shrub easily weighed over 200 pounds. That's each - something we didn't expect. Our advice - have them delivered and put in the exact spot you intent to plant them!

So you're probably wondering - how in the world did they get the lilacs off the truck. It wasn't easy - nor was it even safe - this we can tell you... Luckily we have a strong teenage boy who helped his dad drag the first shrub to the back of the truck. We then made the boy move to a safe area while dad dropped the shrub off the truck. You would have thought we had dropped a tree with the thud it made... One by one they came off the truck in the approximate spot we intended to plant them.

Now that we've seen the burlap root balls we've realized - we were going to need huge, huge holes. Of course, we picked probably the only hot, humid weekend we had last year to do this and lilacs need full sun... Once the holes were dug, we still had the chore of getting the very heavy shrubs into the holes. Again, Old Yellow Truck came to the rescue. We ended up dragging each shrub into it's hole with a tow rope.

This picture was taken about three weeks after the lilacs were planted. They bloomed magnificently. I wish I had taken a picture this fall showing their growth throughout the summer. I can no longer fit the riding mower between them - which I could here. The shrub to the right gave us a surprise this fall and opened a single lilac bloom!

In our previous post we mentioned the planning of a new hosta/perennial bed for this spring. As you can see, behind the lilacs is an open palate awaiting color and plants.

Spring In Maine & New England

March is finally here. It appears it will come in like a lion in Maine - but we are hoping it will go out like a lamb! For a family of gardeners, it's been a very long winter.

Bob is particular interested in hosta gardening. He's been pretty good about letting me sneak in a few flowering perennials and annuals amongst the hostas for a little color, though. We have both done some research this year on companion plants and the new bed planned for this spring will host a variety of plants. Hmmm - a small water garden amongst the plants would be nice, too...

Last year's gardening adventures included a new raised hosta bed. Unfortunately, we had a hail storm come through in early June last year that wrecked havoc on most of our hostas. We're hoping for a much nicer/drier summer this year.

The picture to the left is the early stages of the 2008 garden. We had an idea on paper of what we would like and the plants were ordered in February to insure we would get the selection we wanted from our favorite Hosta seller.

July 2008 - not a great picture, but as you can see, the new flower bed (s) - we extended the back bed along the property line, also...) came to life and survived the hail storm. We added turtlehead and ferns for height. The Dancing In The Rain around the tree were planted in 2005 as very small one eyed plants. Bit mistake - they've proven to be very slow growers!

I like a variety of perennials and shrubs and have several "sun" gardens. These are only a few of my favorites.

In our blog next week we'll be exploring lilacs. Oh how beautiful they are when they bloom! Yes, we have several of those, too!

Wishing everyone a wonderfull 2009 growing season!

Bob and Gail

Crystals And Trinkets

You'll find high quality, but reasonably price, hair accessories and jewelry, Lenox Fine China, Villeroy & Boch and other delightful items at http://crystalsandtrinkets.com/

Whether you have long or short hair, you'll love our hair toys! You'll find hair picks & sticks, twisters and spinners, bobby pins and french clips - all guaranteed to dazzle you with their beauty! Bridal and wedding hair accessories are also available.

We also carry a wonderful line of folk art glass coin sun catchers. This line has delighted many of our repeat customers! We've even fulfilled a large special order where they were to be used as wedding favors. Unique and useful, not something your guests will take home and throw away! Perfect as everyday party favors, too!

With fall in the air, our attention is drifting towards the holidays. You'll find many unique Christmas gift and stocking stuffer ideas in our store. Our trinket boxes will make a delightful gift item! Most come with a gift box, too.

Our newest addition will be art glass perfume bottles - from tiny purse sized and key chain types to larger vanity bottles. If an expensive bottle of perfume is on your gift giving list - why not add a pretty decorative bottle to make the gift that much more special :-)


Lenox holiday items are always a favorite. You'll find them reasonably priced in our store. We have everything from snowmen figurines to delightful tree ornaments!

Villeroy & Boch items include andgels from the Angeli Di Natale Series, Ginger Fancy, and other gorgeous items!

Thanks for visiting with us!

Gail