Cherry blossoms in your home NOW!

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We just had a party at our house, and I wanted something festive and fresh for the house, and also make it fun.  My mom has a cherry tree that I begged for some branches (it's her beloved tree). To make it fun and festive, I wrapped candy in Japanese paper, and I wrote silly fortunes inside the paper like “you'll never grow old,” or “you'll be married in two years,” or “you'll move to another country 10 years from now.”  I hang these candy fortunes up so that the guests can pick them.

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You can use any paper you like, or wrap anything that fancies you, and write any fortune your imagination can get a hold of… and let these cherry branches be the life of the party!

To get your cherry branches to bloom, put them in very warm water when you bring them in.  Continue to add/change to warm water everyday and if you can put it beside a heater, or on top of a radiator, it will bloom faster.  It usually takes about one and a half to two weeks to bloom.

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More home improvement projects here: Tropical water garden in your house

T-slide closet

Using our T-slide barn door hardware, Stacey transformed his closet into something fun to open everyday! Thanks for sending in your pic Stacey!

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Tropical water garden in your home

I've always wanted to have a pond in my backyard with Koi and water plants but really never had the chance to fulfill it. Moreover, Canadian summers are too short and the pond becomes so desolate in the winter, which is never really a pretty sight. Luckily, our house, the base of 1925WorkBench, has a little mud room with beautiful sunlight, hot in the summer and not too cold in the winter, and I thought, why not use it as a green house? And when you're excited about something, you come up with this crazy idea - Why not make an indoor pond that can take natural sun light AND warm enough to hold water plants all year long?.

Well, this is what I mean:

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This is what I did to build the pond:

• Frame with 2x4

• Line the interior wall with plywood

• Spray foamed the exterior to give it better insulation since I anticipated the need to put a heater in the pond in the winter.

• 7'x10' Tetra pond liner bought from Rona. Home Depot carries Laguna pond liner for 30% cheaper but it was made in China, as opposed to the Tetra, which was made in the USA. I opted to pay extra for the made in USA one for better quality.

• 1x6 cedar for the pond wall.

I also built a little pocket to the left of the pond to house the filter and other equipment.

UPDATE:

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This is what my indoor pond & tropical garden looks like as of February 2013.

You might have seen on the first picture that I have a little radiator heater there keeping the room temperature at 12 C.