Wild animals…

We have some pretty wild animals living in our house right now…

These two are completely out of control!

Careful, her energy might overwhelm you!

Thanksgiving Placecards & Centerpieces

This year I made place cards for our Thanksgiving feast.We hosted the big day at our house with nearly 20 of our closest family & friends! I had a lot of fun making the place cards and I am already thinking of how I want to do it next year. No place card was alike and I tried to reflect a little bit of the personality of the person I made the card for.

The weather was so beautiful we were able to have it on our back deck, pilgrim style! It was the first time we’ve ever eaten outside for Thanksgiving but it was such a hit that we plan on doing it next year as well(weather permiting!).Eating outside means you can’t have light centerpieces that will blow over or fly away.So this year we opted for mason jars with tealights and mini pumpkins.I got a major deal on the pumpkins! After Halloween I found them for $1/bag (a bag held 5 pumpkins)! I’ve collected a number of different mason jars over the years so it was nice to put them to use.I filled the jars with a little bit of sand and rocks, along with a single tealight.We did have to put rocks under the place cards so  the little bit of wind that we had didn’t send them flying.

*I do realize I am posting this in December (it’s not exactly fall anymore) but it took me this long to recover from Thanksgiving. Now that I’ve recovered I can finally blog about it!

{Painting}

Evidently I like to paint under pressure…

or maybe I like avoiding my mile long To-Do list…

or perhaps I just need to relax and a painting project would to the trick…

well for whatever reason I decided to take on a little painting project 3 days before my 20 Thanksgiving guests arrived!

Did I really have time for this project?

Nope, but sometimes I need to step away from all the To-Do lists and do something I enjoy !

Scrubbing floors and toilets could wait!

I failed to take a before picture(grrr) but here is the after pic…

Large Frame (23″x 29″): $1 from a flea market *previously unfinished wood.

Star Candle Holder: $3 at Home Goods *previously dark brown witch blended into the black iron stand.

Canoe Paddle: $5 at a flea market *previously without the 34.

After I painted everything I hit them with sandpaper to give them each a more distressed look.

The paddle turned out to be my favorite! I offset the two numbers so they didn’t look too perfect.

By distressing the numbers to matched the condition of the paddle, it made it look like the numbers were originally a part of it…

Reminding me of the canoe rentals in northern Minnesota.

11-11-11

Happy 11-11-11!

Finally I have returned to blogging after a long extended break. I was intending on taking a month off but that turned into 8 months off! I know I needed the time to focus on my family & our farm but lately I’ve really been missing the creative outlet of blogging. So here I am. Feeling like I have so much to say, yet not knowing where to start. To say things have been busy here would be an understatement! We’ve been completing back to back DIY projects here on the farm and I can’t wait to share pictures!

~Kait

 

Another reason why I love living in the country…

We have 10 new little girls at our place!

 

CHICKEN BREAKDOWN:

# of Roosters: 2

# of Hens: 4

# of New Chicks: 10

Total # of Chickens: 16

 

 

Right now our chickens are laying about 3 eggs per day (not much but that’s normal for this time of the year).

Once the baby girls are full grown we’ll be seeing at least a dozen per day!!

My view from here…

Another snow day at our house & it’s time to climb Mount WashMore!

Cork Board Makeover

Originally this I baught this large (frame-less) cork board from Hobby Lobby (50% off original price). The poor thing was screaming “I have zero personality! I need a beautiful custom frame”.

Luckily, I know this Hunky Cabinet Maker that could totally build me exactly what I wanted!

So I took a little stroll across my yard to my Hunky Cabinet Maker’s shop for a little visit.

I proposed the idea to him and he happily accepted the job!

We dug throough what we call “our lumber yard” (more on that later) and found the perfect material!

The Hunky Cabinet Maker had this baby whipped together in no time!

Here she is before paint…

You can tell it’s a pretty large cork board (it’s leaning against our deep-freeze if that gives you a size reference).

Once the frame was built,  I spray painted the frame white. It took about 3 light coats to get the coverage I wanted. The trick for me is not spraying it too heavy, that leads to runs.

To give it a bit of a distressed look I took a piece of sand paper after some of the edges and corners. It’s important to only hit the edges/areas that would naturally have paint worn off. For a more antiqued look I could have distressed it more but I wanted it to still have a fresh feel.

Anyways here is the finished product…

Now I get to decorate it up a bit so it doesn’t look so bare!

Oh, and here is a closer look at the frame…

I’m still thinking about painting the cork board but I’m still trying to work out the details on that.

Any ideas people?

Paint it a solid color or stencil a patern?

What color would you paint it?

What type of paint would you use?

Feel free to let me know in the comments below!