diy benches how to

i cant believe I'm posting so soon after doing a project. we worked on the benches over the weekend but as i thought would happen we did not finish the project. just regular life with a toddler and a million errands and homestead chores along with some badly timed rain. we did however manage to complete the build of one of them. now, i just need to get them sanded and stained which im hopeful i will be able to complete this week, fingers crossed.
so, here is the photo how to instructions

so we built a rectangle with the dimensions that we wanted then in each corner added a vertical 2x4 to the height we wanted. then we added an identical rectangle frame to the top.

next, we spent some time breaking down some pallets, cutting those to 18 inch pieces and using a 150 psi staple gun to attach them. we alternated the pallet pieces we used so one big one small and tried to keep the color pattern random. 

to make the top we used 2x6 boards and laid those out, evenly spaced then screwed them to a couple of fence boards we had, flipped them over and attached with 3 inch door hinges. 

done. we had the staples, some screws, the tools, the pallets, and my dad gave me the hinges so our total for this project came in at $137 and some change, but that also covers the wood for the second bench we will be building. this one is 19.5 inches tall and 2x8 the second will be same height and depth but 10 feet long. 

really happy with the added storage we achieved with this. we have a small house and no attic so storage is like the number one key word around here. 

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

psorisis update

i started a UVB light therapy. i posted before that i struggled with psoriasis and that it had gotten bad enough that it affected my life. i was losing sleep and felt embarrassed to exposed it so i was stuck wearing long hot pants and anyone in Texas knows that we need to be in shorts at least 10 months a year.

within one week of treatment i noticed that it wasn't itching so badly. two weeks and i felt immense relief from the constant itch t visually there wasn't a major difference. well, its been just over two months and I'm so happy to report that i feel great. every now and then it will still itch, but its more like just dry skin itch.

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. 

life struggles --- psoriasis

as the title states, I'm talking about life struggles today which is not my norm at all. sure we all have struggles and most of them are mundanely common so why bother talking about them (money, steady rise in the cost of gas, traffic, lack of sleep...)
however, today I'm talking about psoriasis. its a disease that millions suffer from and i am in that number.
for me, i had my first break out when i was just 19. after, that i didn't have it again for years and when it would come back i would head out for more sunlight or hit the tanning bed, yikes!!! i was literally baking my skin, the horror.
i have been struggling for months with another break out and not to sound too vain but the spot that popped up on my forehead along my scalp was the final straw that broke the camels back. i am starting UVB light therapy.
i will share my progress and story with y'all so that any readers out there with psoriasis doesn't feel alone.

that is the largest breakout and the one that itches the most. keep posted for more updates. wish me luck and prayers are appreciated. 

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