My Connecticut Garden-and FREE Pineapple Stencil Download

Since I left my day job in March due to a difficult commute; my husband and I are living off one income now, his. As I move forward to build up my Etsy shops our budget is tight. So I'm working my imagination overtime to use objects we have to enhance the garden and outside exterior of our beautiful historical property. It's with great gratitude that we found this home and could afford it.

The former owners kept a very standard garden with a few surprises, a beautiful rose bush by our solarium; but the yard gardens were over-grown with English ivy, daylillies, irises, lilies of the field and– when we moved here three years ago I got hosta crazy-too many hostas.  These plants had so multiplied that they were hard to separate and re-plant. I'm still working on this now.

Because our yard is long, and I'm a novice gardener, I've decided to create vignettes incorporating interesting objects-some I've repainted-paired with perennials and a few annuals-I call this "Staging" it makes gardening more fun for me, and more fun the viewer. BTW one can get flowering plants and shrubs for a DEAL on Craigslist-gardening enthusiasts sell them at great prices fresh from their own gardens.

Since our house is historically registered, I have to be careful with what I do in the front. I was inspired by a homeowner around the corner who'd hand-lettered–or stamped the word: "Welcome" in English, Italian, French, and German on her front porch steps leading up to her door. Not wanting to totally copy her idea-plus we only have two steps leading up to our front door; I elected to stencil a pineapple on our front brownstone stoop-step. Luckily I had some patio paint in harvest gold-the color of our home and through some googling found a free pineapple stencil.

The pineapple was a symbol of friendship that colonists displayed to welcome visitors to their home.  So, I thought it fitting to stencil one on our front step. I'm quite pleased with the result. The stencil is appro. 7.5" in height. I cleaned it up in photoshop, saved it as a jpg, printed out on cardstock then cut out the stencil with a sharp exacto knife. This is the patio paint I used:PATIOPAINT if you would like this stencil for your own creative projects herewith the jpg:

I hope you'll share pics with what you created with this stencil with me: suzanneurbandesigns(@)gmail.com