High Five For Friday (on the farm)

Happy Friday!

I'm linking up with Lauren again!

1. I ran my second 5K this year and I'm looking forward to running more!

2. My awesome yard sale find! I can't wait to repaint these and get some flowers planted in them.

3. I finally received my spring issue of FOLK magazine. You must get this magazine. 

4. I'm doing a giveaway on my Facebook Page for this awesome banner. Just in time for Memorial Day!

5. Took the boys to the park twice this week. I love summer!

A couple other fun highlights from this past week that I think are worth sharing:

1. We visited an alpaca farm. I fell in love with the alpacas.

2. My neighbor came an tilled up my garden with his tractor. I owe him a nice goody basket.

3. I built compost bins out of some old pallets. I've been wanting to do that for awhile.

4. I found some really cool old ladders at another yard sale to use for trellises in my garden.

5. We added 3 hens to our flock!

6. I made some more dandelion infused oil for salve. I have been whipping these up for end of the year teachers gifts and I made some for Mother's Day gifts.

It's been a busy week.

Now I'm off to clean my house because I have completely neglected it this week.

What are some highlights from your week? I'd love to hear about them!

Project Pinterest: Bird Feeder

This week I am reviewing this pin on making bird feeders.

Overall I would say that this project was a flop, but I did not follow the instructions exactly.

First of all, the instructions on the blog do not tell you how many bird feeders the recipe will make. We made these as Mother's Day gifts and since I had no idea how many we'd get out of the original recipe - I tripled it. 

That was a big mistake. I'm not sure why, but I couldn't get a good consistency going with the bird seed and gelatin mixture. It seemed dry and the seed had a hard time sticking together and hardening.

The ones we made with my canning rings we ended up leaving in the rings and then tying the rope around the ring to secure it. The rope just fell right out of the other cookie shaped ones. 

I'm not saying this is a bad project. I think the idea is super cute, but I think we rushed the process and should have stuck to the recipe. We are going to try it again this week and I'll let you know the outcome.

Also, I put a couple in a baggy to give as a gift to someone and it sat in the baggie for a couple days and started growing mold. Just an FYI.

Memorial Day Giveaway

Remember my DIY Festive Garland Tutorial?

Well I've decided in the spirit of Memorial Day to give one away!

You can win this patriotic inspired fabric banner that is approximately 15ft long.

All you have to do is "Like" and "Share" my Facebook Page.

Then leave a comment here on my Facebook post for this giveaway!

The Coop

I will pick a winner randomly on Saturday, May 18th and send the lucky winner their new banner on Monday, May 20th so that you have it in time for your Memorial Day Celebration.

Good Luck!

How to kill grass without chemicals

I've been dying to get this post written because the results from my little experiment were AMAZING! 

Last year I tried to kill some grass and weeds around my house using the newspaper method as part of one of my Project Pinterest posts. It didn't turn out so well. Looking back on it now, and after doing some research for this project, I think I learned that I didn't use enough newspaper. 

Anyway, moving on...

I was given some strawberry plants and needed to get them in the ground ASAP. I had the perfect spot for them, but the spot was not prepared for growing anything (except grass). I had two options: I could either build a raised bed, which is really what I wanted to do but did not have the time or  I could just plant them right into the ground which is what I did.

The first thing I needed to do was kill the grass. I thought about just taking a shovel to it and digging it up, but I needed to make sure that I didn't have any regrowth on this spot and the only way to that (as I read while researching) was to kill the grass. This was not going to be as easy as I thought because I didn't want to spray it with chemicals and I was on a time crunch.

I read that you can kill grass with vinegar (white distilled vinegar) and after looking at all my options, this one seemed like it was going to get me the results I needed in the time frame I was working with. And it was SUPER easy. 

All I did was take a few gallons of store brand white vinegar, filled my watering can and "watered" the area that I was working with. I soaked it. I did not water down the vinegar at all and I used all three gallons. I covered an area that is approximately 4 x 12 feet.

I wish I would have taken a before picture, but I didn't think about it. I was on a mission. I can assure you it was very green. I also had some lily's planted here that I had to dig up (and still need to replant) - But here is what the area looked like just ONE day after I used the vinegar.

I did a good job of "eye-balling" my rectangle don't you think?

I did let it sit for two days before digging up all the the dead grass and then I planted my strawberries!

 I used wood from an old pallet to make a boarder around my patch.

Eventually I would like to build a nice raised bed in this spot, but I am happy with this set up for now.

It's funny too, because I never really noticed the wood at the bottom of our siding until I was working right here. I wanted to buy a can of white paint for that area and paint it and the pallet wood around my patch. Sometimes I have to force myself to say enough is enough (for now). I have a habit of turning small projects into bigger ones. 

Project Pinterest: DIY Carpet Freshener

DIY Carpet Freshener

It has been awhile since my last "Project Pinterest" post. That doesn't mean I haven't been doing any projects, just that I've been too busy to blog about them. But I'm hoping to get back into that groove because I love trying out these things and sharing the results with you.

This week I tried my hand at making my own carpet freshener from this pin, which led me to Lynda's blog Me and My Pink Mixer. I followed Lynda's instructions except I used a whole box of baking soda and about 10 drops of essential oil. I also didn't let the oil sit in the bag overnight before trying it. I just couldn't wait. I had just cleaned the boys room and HAD to try it out.

The Results:

It works wonderfully!!! I was amazed at how fresh their room smelled. And it lasted for a few days too. It also didn't give me a headache, like the commercial carpet fresheners do. Who knows what kind of toxins are put into those and with a dog and and baby crawling all over the floor, I had to find an alternative.

I've seen other recipes for carpet fresheners on Pinterest as well that call for Borax and Oxy Clean, among other ingredients. I don't want my son crawling on those products either. I feel like Baking soada and essential oils are safe. 

Also, I've seen lots of storage ideas for this like a re-purposed Parmesan Cheese container which I thought was brilliant. But I bought a bunch of these old mason jars a few weeks ago and have been thinking about how I can use them. I love them and want them scattered throughout my house so this was perfect. I also thought that keeping them in a tightly sealed glass container might help hold that scent.

My essential oil of choice was lavender. My favorite.

I hope you give this one a try. It's very easy and worth it.

DIY: Festive Garland

I have seen tons of fun pendant banners all over Pinterest and I have tried my hand at making some of them. They are super cute and you can do so many different things with them. I am still a big fan of the pendant! 

However, I've also been seeing some other fun banners popping up with different shapes.

 I bought some cute egg shaped ones at Target this year to decorate with for Easter.

[I was too busy to make my own but totally could have -- just saying]

To make a somewhat long story short (so I can jump into the tutorial), I needed to decorate a table at our church for Memorial Day. We have an ongoing ministry at our church where we collect hand written thank you cards and colored pictures to send to our soldiers over seas. I hadn't done anything with the decor on the table since Valentine's Day (eek!) and it was time for an update. Don't worry-- the hearts and stuff were no longer up. I was going to do something "springy", but then I remembered that Memorial Day is quickly approaching and that's the angle I ran with. Makes sense to me!

And thus my fun banner was created after seeing this on Pinterest. And to be fair, I highly encourage you to check out Paisley Homemade on Etsy. She really has a great store. And if you don't feel crafty enough to tackle this project (or just don't have time), you can order some from her.

PHOTO CREDIT

This project is SUPER easy. It's great for a beginner and also very versatile. Once you make one, you might be addicted. I'm already planning to make some for Brodey's Birthday party, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. 

Step 1: 

Decide how long you want/need your banner and how big you want your circles to be. My circles are 3in in Diameter. I wouldn't recommend going any larger than that, but you could go smaller and create some really fun garland for you Christmas tree!

These circles are double sided so you will need to double the number of circles that you need for the length. Does that make sense? 

For example: I figured I would need about 7 feet of garland. Since my circles were going to be 3 in, I needed approximately 30 circles (3in x 30 = 90in -- 90in/12in = 7.5ft). But since I wanted them to be double sided, I went with 60. 

Step 2:

Cut your fabric into squares. Since my circles were going to be 3in, I cute squares that were 4inx4in. I am not getting into detail about how to cut your squares, but the easiest way to do it is by cutting your fabric in layers. These squares don't need to be perfect. They are not for quilting.

You should end up with something like this:

Step 3:

Trace your circle onto the backside of ONE piece of fabric like this:

You'll notice that I just traced a cardboard ribbon case (for lack of a better description). I also used a black marker. A fabric marker is unnecessary.

Step 4:

Pin a stack of fabric together to prevent it from moving when you cut.

I experimented here by cutting various amounts of fabric at the same time. I started out with only three squares. Then I quickly started increasing that number. I think I ended up cutting as many as ten squares at one time. This will depend on the thickness of the fabric you are using and the quality of your scissors. I was using fabric cutting scissors. They can cut through a lot and they are very sharp so I felt comfortable doing so many at one time.

You will just have to play around with this part. Do what is comfortable for you and remember that they don't have to be perfect, but you don't want them to be too messy either.

Also, don't get caught up in making sure all the fabric is facing the same way during this process of cutting everything out. If you have folded your fabric to cut multiple squares out at once, your fabric will be facing in different directions. That's fine for now. As long as you flip the top square to the backside for tracing the circle, you'll be fine.

Step 5:

Cut your circles

Using the line you traced for the circle, just manipulate your scissors around the fabric!

You will have to repeat steps 3-5 until all of your circles are cut out. I thought I was going to be cutting for hours, but I think it took me about half an hour to cut them all. And I don't think that's bad.

Step 6:

Prepare to sew your banner.

I created three piles in front of my sewing machine in the order that I wanted my circles to be in the banner. If you have four different kinds of fabric, you'll have four piles. Now you will place the circles  facing wrong sides together, but you can do that as you sew.

Step 7:

Sewing your banner

The easiest and quickest way to do this is to chain stitch your circles. The chain stitch is what holds the circles together. So you will sew two circles together as you see in the picture above, and without lifting your foot you will guide the next two circles into the machine and continue to do this until you have gone through your pile!

So you'll place the wrong sides together of two circles, sew, and repeat. You can choose to do the same fabric on both sides of one circle, or switch it up! Either way, you will get into a groove and you will be done in no time at all.

I think it will be helpful to show you a video on how to chain stitch, so I will work on that this week.

A couple things to note are that I did a back stitch on the first and last circles. Also, You could sew a long piece of ribbon to both ends for hanging.

This project really is simple. I hope I've done a good job of explaining everything. Please ask me questions if you have them.

Here is a picture of table I decorated for the church:

Seriously, there are so many things you could do with a project like this.

I would however, recommend that if you were going to make this for long-term outdoor use - I would sew each circle together all the way around before chain stitching them together. Use a heavy-duty thread and use fabric that is meant for outdoors. Just a thought. I don't think these would hold up in the wind and rain for very long, but they would do great for an outdoor party that would only be for a day or so.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I hope it was informative enough. If you'd like me to show you how to cut multiple pieces of fabric at one time just let me know. It's really easy to do.

High Five For Friday ... on the farm

Happy Friday -- I'm linking up with Lauren again!

This week was fairly uneventful, but filled with blessings nonetheless. Here are five of them:

1. We started soccer practice this week (in the rain and snow). I'm coaching Brodey's soccer team and I am having a blast doing it. All kindergarten age kids -- I love littles!

2. Love this picture of Wyatt enjoying a little sunshine

3. We got almost to 60 degrees this week! Hoping the weather is going to continue on the up and up. I'm itching to get my garden ready.

4. Wyatt got his first hair cut! Looks like such a little man, I can't even take it. I'm growing it back out.

5. I FINALLY got my new shipment of fabric. Looking forward to adding more items to my shop soon!