Wrought Iron Urns and Taking Advantage of Sales and Cash Back

I have been wanting/needing two of these 28 inch tall large wrought irons urns for the last 2 years.

After seeing one on Pinterest, that was filled with little pumpkins, I knew I wanted/needed two of these.  But first... I needed to find out where I could buy them online.  I searched on and off for about 6 months before I found them. 

I put the two urns in my cart on eBay and waited until they either went on sale, offered free shipping (these are heavy and heavy=$$$), or there was an increase in eBay Bucks or Ebates.

Almost a year later during the Christmas holiday of 2018, I received a code from eBay Bucks that for 2 days I could get 10% back in eBay Bucks.  I then checked Ebates and they were offering 2%.  So I pulled the trigger and bought them.

The price for two was $259.90 + $97.90 for shipping.  Not cheap inexpensive but they are very heavy and well made and they were exactly what I wanted.  I saved $5.20 on Ebates and $25.99 in eBay Bucks for a total savings of $31.19.  The shipping was a lot but when I buy heavy stuff I know that the shipping cost is going to be brutal.

On January 1st eBay Bucks paid out and issued a code for me to save $34.56 on any eBay item or items totalling $34.56.  I currently have $78.12 pending on Ebates and I think they send out their Big Fat checks in February.  So signing up for these free programs do have an upside depending on how much you buy online.   

These urns comes in a lot of colors including just a clear coat over the metal or in a rusty condition. The eBay seller also offers other items in metal including wrought iron gates. 

If you like the large cast iron urns (in freezing conditions you need to protect cast iron urns so that the dirt doesn't freeze/expand and then crack the cast iron) but need something that can handle being left outside all winter, then check out these urns.  I think that these could also work well with a modern style home.

I haven't decided whether I am going to use a coco mat and fill with dirt and geraniums OR fill it with my collection of round rocks (fist size and larger) in the summer and little pumpkins, gourds, and squash in the fall, and then faux small spruce trees in the winter.

I am getting anxious to plant flowers and paint the back of the house.  The fact that we are only 1 month into winter is a real bummer.

Sign up for Ebates and get a $10 gift card of your choice after spending 20 bucks using Ebates.  There are over 2K online sites that participates in the program.

Sign up for eBay Bucks by clicking on eBay Bucks on the left side of your summary page.

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Planting More Flowers

It's amazing how long it takes to plant annuals.  

I've tried several methods for buying and planting my annuals.  I used to 'buy all of them' in one trip but found that overwhelming and I always made mistakes.  I would buy too many of one type and not enough of another.  That resulted in a trip back to buy more.  

So this year I tried the 'buy one type of flower at a time' and plant them before I bought the next type.  This didn't work either. I decided to buy the geraniums first.  I counted and recounted just to make sure.  I was short 4 small geraniums and 3 large geraniums.  

Next was the petunias.  Is it me or has the price of petunias gone up...a lot.  I bought petunias for my window boxes on the house and two square galvanized planters on my deck.  I still need to buy the petunias for the flower boxes on the deck which are six 36 inch boxes and two 72 inch boxes.

Today I also planted two hanging baskets and a galvanized tub. The tub I bought from a local lady who makes them into personalized planters.  I currently have it sitting on a small table in front of the settee on my deck, but I will move it to another table after I make a top for that table.

I planted two hanging baskets today, too.  One was my usual regular size basket that I hung on a shepherd's hook that was my mother's.  The other basket is a very large basket that R found curbside (he has the sharpest curbside picking eye).  I think that this is the first time that I have seen one this large.  I needed to spray paint it black (it was tan color) and buy a new coco liner for it before I could hang it.  The coco liner is from Home Depot.

This coco liner is great.  It has something in the very bottom that holds the water.  I find that the water just blows right thru the regular coco liners.

You can sort of see the water sitting in the bottom of the coco liner in the photo above.

 I also planted a moon flower plant in a faux concrete pot and it is sitting next to one of my favorite pots.  It is a Ty Pennington pot and it is the perfect shade of green.  But back to the moon flower.  I can't say that I know of anyone who has ever planted one so I don't know what to expect.  It's looking rather spindly right now. 

I also started to spray paint a wrought iron chair (I always start with the bottom first) that I bought for 10 bucks.  I went into the house to get a new can of paint and came back to this.....  

  R decided to blow leaves off the driveway so now I have a half painted chair with leaves stuck to it.  Thank heavens that it is the bottom of the chair.

I ran out of daylight so I'll take more photos tomorrow.

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