Lovely chair! I finally decided to post. I am a new garden junkart enthusiast. My hubby helps me, but, he is not always thrilled with my garden art. He does it to make me happy. I am still a bit apprehensive to stop my truck and retrieve somebody elses throw-aways, but I want to so bad. I was pretty excited the other day with what I broght home from the triftshop. a 4 tier green plastic fountain for $1.00 and at another place a metal dolls bed (I think) for $3 something. Any Ideas for me.?

Is this a cistern...or an old cesspool? That alone might dictate which way to go. The other is whether there is city or well water in the neighborhood - and whether there are any close neighbors. As a real estate appraiser who has valued several "superfund" sites, environmental issues can and do affect value - big time. I've seen situations so bad that the land - a prime, corner retail site in one case - had a *negative* value about double what the land was worth if free and clear, the cost of mitigation being so high. As the recipient of such a dubious 'gift' from the previous owners, you may be able to employ the "innocent landowner" defense if things go bad - legal-wise. You might even be able to get the prior owner to pay for the cleanup - but you have to be able to prove the knuckleheads knew about/caused it. I've seen other cases where parties two or more owners back in the chain of title were held legally responsible, but this was with big corporate entities with deep pockets. You may want to contact an environmental firm and ask for "Phase One" report. Good luck

I think maybe she should be encouraged to explore collage. It would be similar enough to what she's doing now, but would produce things that could be filed away FLAT and rotated in "the gallery" that is your home. My daughter used to do her drawings on a million loose pieces of paper. I was always encouraging her to draw in her spiral art book so I wouldn't lose anything. It sometimes worked... It might help to let her know that almost all museums only display a small percentage of their collection. Lots and lots of art is put in storage and brought out only occasionally or maybe never at all. I think the idea of photographing the work, cataloging it as a museum would, could be an interesting project. You could do some learning together about how museums work and give her a context for putting things in storage. If every single piece of art a museum owned was out on display, it would detract from the overall experience. One would not be able to appreciate the qualities of each piece. I think that is the overwhelm you are feeling. Is there a delicate way to convince her that you are not able to enjoy the beauty of each individual work of art with so many piled up? I also agree that the hurt she may feel could be long-lasting and therefore urge you to handle this very gently. It is said that there is a moment, when we are young, when our view of our parents changes irrevocably. We are suddenly aware that they are not the perfect people we thought they were and it usually involves a sense of hurt or betrayal. I absolutely know when my moment was with my own mother. Not sure about my daughter's moment with me...she's not in therapy yet! ;-)

My method is very simple. When I find an idea I like, I simply drag the photograph from the web page to a Microsoft Word document. Dragging is soooo fast! Once the picture is there (on the MS doc) it has the little corner markers so that I can resize it by doing nothing more than dragging one corner marker toward the diagonal corner till it's the size I need. To add the instructional text: I highlight it on the web page... click Edit then Copy.... and then I set my cursor beside the photograph on my Microsoft Word document... and then I click Edit then Paste. It actually takes longer to say it than to do it. I save the Microsoft Word document in a folder on my desktop entitled Creative Ideas. That way I never have to search for photos and instructions because I know they're all saved in that one folder.... and it's in plain sight. Inside that main folder are numerous other folders, each with their own titles, such as Jewelry.... sewing... garden art, etc. Once I've saved several new documents to the main folder... I go in and drag them into their appropriate sub folders. Often times, I use the same document for dozens of pictures or ideas. I'll put an example here. With this particular document... entitled "Composite Crazy Quilt Designs" each time I find a new picture of a crazy quilt online, I drag it to this same MS document and when I'm finished... I save the changes. So far I've added 11 different website pictures to this one document. I'll add a dozen more as they come along. I do realize I'm a bit of a neat freak... but this really is a great way to store ideas and find them easily. Here is a link that might be useful: