I couple weeks ago I snagged a neat globe for $5 at a yard sale.
It looked cute on the TV console.
But then I pinned this.
And yesterday I worked a little magic on that globe…
And the after…
I painted all the oceans and large bodies of water with a regular artist brush and two coats of chalkboard paint.
The idea came from a random snapshot in a post on the Pleated Poppy blog. It was one of those pins that I pinned and completed in like a week.
I love it.
What do you think?
We recently we had a little staycation at my mother in law’s while they were out of town. We needed a little family time and she needed someone to water the plants. Plus there is a lake, a hammock, a fire pit and it’s a beautiful house. It was a win – win. But I think we were the bigger winners. =)
We wrangled a huge toad while we were there…
It was all kinds of gross and exciting.
I finally checked off a major must have … bath pictures of the kids so I can blackmail them when they are older. My bathroom is tiny, and has horrible lighting, so I took full advantage of my mother in law’s pretty bathroom, amazing tub and natural light and took some valuable bath pictures of the kiddos…
My girl is the toy hoarder…
She loves grandma’s shark toy as long as it’s not biting her. In which case she screams bloody murder. That is more intense and more painful that just screaming murder. In case you were wondering.
Fun stuff. I went the classy route: no visible parts that have to be covered up with rubber ducky stickers in the baby books… MOM! Jeeze.
We had movie time…
Susie actually initiated that cuddle, believe it or not. If you know her, you might not.
Anyway it was a lovely stay. Thanks, mom-in-law! I think I kept all your plants alive. (cringe)
I have some thrift store finds to share with you from a recent trip.
You’re shocked aren’t you?
I love these little glass spice bottles. They had a couple dozen. $0.99 each. So cute.
I picked up a couple mugs for my mismatched set. They remind me of dandelions and I love the blue insides. So sweet.
Measuring spoons because I want to buy some Charlie’s Soap laundry detergent and have it out with these scoops in it, being at the ready and looking cute. They were $0.99. Also a cute little white prep dish (I have a little stack of mismatching ones) that are always handy to have in the kitchen for ingredient prep. Also $0.99.
A funny tin for a collage in my entry way. It says something in another language about automobiles and look at how the horses are all angry at the automobile! So funny. $3.99.
I always snag clipboards – they’re usually $1 or $2. The kids feel important using them while coloring and I am hoarding some up to do a wall arrangement like this or this.
About four yards of flannel for $5. Going to make matching PJ pants for me and Susie.
Okay, this isn’t a thrift store find, but I got it because my dear friends knows I am a thrifting junky…
Old bingo cards and bingo chips! And I love the peanut man! My friend gave this to me from her grandmother’s estate because it “looked like something I would like”… uh, yeah! She said she knew I would find something to do with it. Well, Kristel, it is still just sitting on my desk, but I admire it every day, so does that count as doing something with it?
Have you all had any good finds lately?
I was so excited for summer break.
So excited to have no plans.
To have no schedule.
To do fun summery things every day.
To do nothing.
Like me and the kiddos would just be bored and quiet and lazy and then I come up with some superMom craft and everyone loves it and we craft the day away because it’s summer and we can.
So far it hasn’t really happened… just busy craziness!
Oh man – I need a schedule!!!
I think I need to plan some fun things for the kiddos, one week at a time. I also need to get back onto a daily schedule for myself. Hubby is going into work extra early right now, which means it is extra hard for me to stay awake after he leaves, which means it is extra hard for me to find non-distracted time to read my bible, plan meals and kid activities, blog, and just breathe without interruption. Back on the schedule bandwagon. Schedule-less summer: you were fun hectic while you lasted.
Enter summer to-do list…
This should be a good motivator since I am a little on the OCD side and get a little high from checking things off a to-do list. And it shouldn’t be too hard; pick one or two things a week and tackle them and check them off. How do you all roll? Schedule or free spirit?
My husband works for a company that cuts trees and branches away from power lines. On the weekends, he operates his own tree service company. This means we have a plethora of firewood. Piles. And piles. And piles! And when it takes months to gradually chop and stack all those piles of firewood, the bark falls off the wood and you are left with piles and piles of bark...
So what do you do with a bunch of bark piles? Well, hubby had a Martha Stewart moment and decided to make us some homemade, organic, fresh bark mulch for our gardens. So environmentally friendly of him to make something useful out of something that would otherwise have been wasted.
He “simply” ran the piles of bark through his commercial wood chipper (which normally used for up to 16-inch-thick whole trees)…
And out the other end comes Ty’s special recipe: Homemade, Organic, Fresh Bark Mulch.
We tag teamed all the flower beds around the house and more in the yard, adding the mulch to our flower beds in a matter of an hour or less. Very worth the efforts…
It is chunkier than nursery beauty bark - it’s a little rustic and I like it that way. Before we did this I didn’t even want to spend time in the yard and be forced to look at the house and gardens in neglect, and now the yard looks nice and clean and the plants don’t look like weeds anymore! The bark will also help keep weeds down – phew! I couldn’t keep up with weeding before!
Yay for a little curb appeal! Good idea, Ty! Now we just need to replace our soffits and paint the whole house white! =D
Last week, I went to check the chicken eggs, only to find a sweet little rabbit in the garden munching away at our raspberry plants. But it didn’t look like our typical wild rabbits from these parts.
I rushed into the house, grabbed my camera, and snuck back out to the garden… cautiously shooting pictures from afar, in case he dashed away at any moment…
Slowly inching closer and closer…
…army crawling now…
After the above picture is about the time he hopped over, sniffed my camera, and then hopped about his business eating our raspberry bushes. WHAT!? I was so shocked I didn’t even get a picture!
I told the girls to quick go get him a carrot out of the fridge.
He waited patiently as if he knew exactly what was going on…
And gladly accepted our offering…
Despite being unafraid of us, he wasn’t ready to just hop in our laps. I recruited the neighbor boy (I still call him that even though he is grown up now), to help us corral and catch him.
It worked, but he was still nervous and I was not convinced he wouldn’t scratch and bite us if given the chance.
Hubby took him out to a trailer we have so he couldn’t escape and the kids could play with him…
There was no scratching or biting.
We made him a makeshift home in the house for those first nights…
Two laundry baskets zip-tied together. We’re that redneck inventive.
These pictures were from a week ago. Now we have gotten him indoor and outdoor cages (craigslist), and have started cuddling and house training him. After removing 4 ticks from his face (eeew!).
He has become quite the little pet. Has a little attitude but I hear that’s how they are. I’ll have to do an update this week.
Now we just need to decide on a name. Velveteen or Thumper?
The broody, unwed hen and co-op chick adoption is going superbly!
She has been an excellent mother, protecting the chickies and teaching them how to be chickens, and let me tell you- they are so much smarter than chicks raised with no ‘mama’. They already love going outside with their mama and they come in by themselves at night! Previously we would have a flock of grown hens and then introduce some chicks, keeping them separate until they could defend themselves because the hens would peck them horribly. Then it was like they were so scared of the hens the chick teenagers would just hide in the coop all day and we had to flush them out every morning so they could get some air and eat some greens and bugs, then herd them back in at night, for weeks.
This situation is so much less work for us!…
I used a milk crate to make a chicks-only feeding station with their chick food and their water (they can’t yet reach in the hens water bucket)…
Usually it is flat against the wall but spaced out about 4 inches so the chicks can get inside it but not the hens (I pulled it away from the wall for the second picture). They know right where to go to get their meals.
They are still trying to figure out how to roost with mama now that she has given up on the nest. She comes in first and waits patiently on the roost for an hour or two while they make their way inside and run around squawking and jumping and flapping…
The problem is, even if they are brave enough to flap their wings and take the leap, the other ladies aren’t very generous with the space on the roost…
Mama gives them a what-for if they look at the chickies the wrong way, but she lets the chicks elbow wing their own way in there. She’s a good teacher.
So far only one of the little peepers is able to make the leap to the roost, and dash into the safety of mama’s wings…
They encourage the others…
But so far, they have wimped out and decided to keep each other warm in the good old nest.
Just a matter of time before they are big, fat, fluffy, glorious hens!
