DIY deck storage benches

we built our deck awhile back and we are finally getting the benches built.well, thats the plan anyway.
we will be starting them, of that i am certain.
so here is the half of the deck we are working on today.

so, there is the before. im just gonna go ahead and post this now so it doesnt stay a draft for the next month. 

hope to bring the results in the next few days

we got a mini

I cant recall if i mentioned that our goats had to be re homed.  it was a sad day when our female, Bella, went to live on a farm with a cousin of mine. We decided that it was best for her to be with "family" so we could still visit. i put family in parenthesis because while we are distantly related we are not close. turns out we haven't been allowed to visit her and it still breaks our hearts. short story with our male. once he didn't have a female he tried to mate with everything. i mean everything and if you know goats then you know the spraying and the smell was just too much.

 let me introduce y'all to Marron.

i will be posting more about Marron soon. plus, the pallet paddock and how we built it. 

till next time, keep it Green, clean, and classy. 

medicine cabinet makeover - ideas

so, that is the before and after of the medicine cabinet makeover

that is the medicine cabinet i found at thrift and i ended up covering it with a vintage map that i had laying around.

i also covered the frame with the map and since then i have kept looking at it thinking "is that too much map?"      i think that the answer might be yes and i have an idea on how to change it without undoing the work i already put into it.
more on that later..
more makeover ideas...

mirrors are just glass with a treatment done to them, you could remove the mirror treatment so that it was just glass again and store your small office supplies in it in cute containers or labeled glass jars.

concrete LadyBug part 2

there it is!!! its finally finished...well the statue is and now i need to landscrape around it, haha.

so, y'all know that this project started with dirt, lots of dirt. 

my brother came by on day two and helped me shape the mold. i had done some shaping on it day one but then the chickens came by and investigated my work and ended up chicken scratching it to a shapeless blob.....thanks chicas

 finally it was shaped and right away we started adding concrete to it. i first put a crocheted shawl on it so the concrete would have something to grip to. ..... I'm giving instructions of what i did, not what you should do. i have zero sculptor/concrete/statue making skills but what i did, did work.

oh yeah, to apply this concrete my brother and i just used our hands which i highly suggest you NOT TO DO. The concrete will chemically burn your hands. 

after, we had it covered half way...we ran out of concrete, my brother stood guard because the chickens kept coming over and trying to get on it and leaving chicken foot prints all over. ugh, sometimes farm life is a pain.

day 3 my brother and i got up early and headed to lowes for even more concrete, this time i got even more than we thought we would need. we got the ladybug covered!!!!! 

day 4 i covered the ladybug with the second coating of concrete and for this i wanted a smooth finish so it wouldn't be all bumpy and scratchy on my baby Z.

now, for this one i didnt use my hands...ok, well i did but that was not making it smooth enough and i had a brilliant idea to use a stick on tile because they are flexible and very smooth

the white heart is where Z put her hand prints in the wet concert. i knew i couldn't make it look realistic so i went with cartoon and added the black border at the bottom to blend it in. i will be putting a circular border around it and filling with mulch

a GREAT visit

so, over the last weekend my mom and me took off on a roadtrip to take baby Z to meet her great grandma. the visit went smooth and we took Z to a park that i had found on line. it was so beautiful and they had so many statues that kids could play on even a ladybug which is Zs favorite. she fell in love with this ladybug and an ant (i love it mommy its nice and wont bite me) haha.
the love was so profound that everyday she reminds me of the ladybug and says "bring ladybug here so daddy can visit and i wont miss it" too cute
so, as a conclusion to this story...im now experimenting with statue making. it needs to be big enough and strong enough for her to sit on plus smooth for her perfect skin.
brainstorming with my family and we all came up with this....

a pile of dirt....

haha, part two coming soon

old medicine cabinet repurposed

y'all know I've mentioned before that my house is small so storage is key. i picked up this old metal medicine cabinet for $10 and knew right away i liked that it was metal,  the storage it could provide for all of our small junk, and that it opened three ways. what i didn't love was that it was a mirror. i have one open wall in my living room that it would fit perfectly on but i wanted the wall to have art not a mirror.

in comes decoupage. i did a d.i.y. modge podge with some generic school glue only 57 cents to adhere an old world map that i had laying around, so free.
 there it is. done didn't take but maybe 20 minutes and total cost was $10.57

the map i used is actually big enough that i could wrap the frame with it as well. you can see i did it already on the bottom middle section, to see if i like it and i do.

ill post the cabinet frame wrapped when i get it done.

chicken coop on WHEELS

i have been meaning to post this one for a long time, over a year. we were tired of the chicken coop clean up and wanted a new design that would mean less cleaning time. around the same time my brother, works in construction and remodel, had a job with a tongue and grove demo. he asked if i wanted the wood...free lumber that's a big YES PLEASE!!!!

my brother is the greatest y'all. he delivered the lumber and stayed to help me build it.  we live in Texas where it is 100 degrees 90% of the time...i may be slightly exaggerating  but keeping the chickens cool and not warm was the main objective. so, that is why the walls are mostly just chicken wire and not solid. i wanted whatever breeze we had to be able to blow in. we do add a heat lamp for the few cold nights that we get. 

we ended up using sheet metal, for a roof, as the walls on the upper part to keep chickens safe from predators. even in a coop a  raccoon can reach in and hurt or kill one or several chickens. chickens like to perch up high so they are never on the lower beams. we put them in just as a step to the higher beams. 

the inside view. we only put in perching beams and no boxes. we have their boxes built somewhere else and its so great! if the boxes are part of the coop the eggs get so much poop on them, its way better this way

so the above picture is what the bottom looks like from the inside....dirty. this is real life, chickens poop like 24/7 haha. the coop is on wheels and every few days we roll it around and usually i spray the inside down before movoing it but i havent kept up with it due to a crzy cold front in texas. we got snow!!!! that never happens and it was before freezing for days. my husband even had to take a snow day at work haha. 

i do have pictures illustrating the build step by step so comment if yall want more pics or instructions. till next time.

DIY Sring art

So, my brothers girlfriend asked if i could make some string art (specifically this one  and i knew i could but i hadn't in forever so here is a little refresher course for everyone.

  i started with drawing out an outline of the shape i wanted, or shapes....print them to save yourself more time. for this my shapes were the outlines of the good ole USA and Brazil. my brother is currently in a super long distance relationship, she lives in Brazil. which is why she asked me to make this for him instead of making it herself. its their love from one country to another, how cute right?

 back to the instructions.... get ready for some time to pass as you slowly nail in the nails along the outline. when you are done just rip the paper out

then, weave your string between the nails. i chose to go vertically but it doesn't mater

its a neat project with a cool finished look. 

Dry brush painting technique

I'm making over this mantel to better fit our tiny home. This started out as an electric fireplace but the mantel was so much larger than the heating "fireplace" portion that I disassembled it. 

I wanted to age the mantel and give it added texture so I used dry brushing technic to paint it.

Dry painting is what it sounds like, painting with a dry brush. Keep a rag with you to continually wipe down your paint brush so that it doesn't soak up too much paint. It helps a lot if you just tip the brush in and not dunk the brush deeply. 

I really got in there and also painted the inside. 

The point was to add texture so I didn't apply a thick even coat instead gave the paint attention in the crevices. Keep your painting strokes long. You will see were the paint brush stops and starts with dry brushing so longer is cleaner. 

My darling Bella came along and she is learning "up" so she wanted to swap places with the mantel.  

Too stinking cute!  I just want to eat her up:) 

Ok back to the boring mantel.

I didn't want the end product to be so aged with the dark peaking out everywhere. I added one more layer of paint but this time I used spray paint that I sprayed in quick sweeping motions so it wouldn't be a solid layer. 

I did this in small steps so it wouldn't be too solid. 

Notice the difference between the front and the sides.  

This is the paint I used. I will be styling the mantel later (and posting that) but I need to find some spare time first:) 

That's that for now. Y'all enjoy your weekend and remember while y'all are out there Christmas shopping that the Christmas spirit is one of love, joy, and understanding. Let's all practice the manners our mommas taught us and please hold the door for ladies...especially if you are a lady. 

Green, clean, classy

Shalimar 

Holiday DIY light Ball

An easy diy ball chandelier of Christmas lights. For this diy I used three strings of multi-colored lights... Now let's pause for a second so I can explain myself. They are not LED and for that I'm really sad but they still work and I needed the Christmas spirit plus an actual light source in our tent. So yeah that sums that up. We only turn it on when we have company or Christmas night outdoor tent activities, haha that sounds almost naughty. What I mean is outdoor movie nights watching Christmas movies and musical shows, wrapping presents, and making ugly sweaters :) 

Using two wire plant thing, you can get them at most dollar stores. 

Then using one string of lights wrapping them loosely around your hand to make a ball roughly the size of the inside of the basket. 

Then, use the remaining two strands to wrap the outside of the basket ball contraption. I wrapped one horizontally and the other vertically. Ta da you've got yourself a quick light. 

Next up I have an extra strand of lights and what nots so I'm putting on the crafty cap. 

Till next time y'all keep it green, clean, and classy. 

Shalimar