Can't You Feel Its Pain....?

Before I get to Fern Gully and my sympathies, an announcement.

Have you seen the retiring stamp list for Stampin' Up! yet?  Um, WOW.  The list has never ever been this extensive.  It's very likely that some of your favorites may be retiring, and some of these sets are only as supplies last, so you'll want to snatch them up!  Last chance to order is May 31st.  You can click on over to my website to order online, or shoot me an email at diykindagirl@hotmail.com and I'd be happy to help you figure out your order.

Okay, so now let's talk about Fern Gully.

So last spring, our very first spring as homeowners, we attacked our front yard.  'Cause it was awful.

This photo doesn't even begin to show the disaster state it was in (the owners moved out in August, we closed in February...months of neglect), not to mention the terrible landscaping.  I mean, who plants a tree RIGHT in front of the door?!  And all the shrubs and trees were situated in "mounds," as we call them.  Oh, and let's not forget the heart shaped strawberry patch in the middle of the yard.  Awesome.

Anyway, we tore out tons of shrubs, and one tree (which I tried to replant in another place...totally didn't work) and leveled the "mounds."  Except around the trees.  We couldn't, or the trees would be no more.  And I love trees.  I REALLY love trees.

However, the trauma of it all evidently took a toll on the smallest of the three remaining trees...and about a third of it died.  Plus the mound was especially terrible around that tree, and it was hard for my husband to mow.  So....after much difficult deliberation, I decided that my husband could cut it down, which he's been aching to do ever since we starting ripping our yard apart the first time.

I informed him of this as we were driving up to spend the day at his folks' house on Saturday.  Before we left that evening, he borrowed a saw, and when we pulled into our driveway, he got out of the car, opened the back, grabbed the saw and walked straight over to the tree and started sawing.

Just to shed some light on things, it was 7:30 PM, we had two small tired hungry children that needed to be taken care of, and the next day was Sunday, which for us means the Sabbath, a day of worship, rest and definitely no yard work.

His only defense: I had to cut it down before you changed your mind.

I guess he had a point.

Maybe it was Chrysta's influence at a young age (either that, or Anne's influence), but watching anyone cut down a tree leaves me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.  It was no different this time.  I'm a tree killer.

On the bright side. our yard is going to look much better....you know, once we get around to digging the stump out of the ground, leveling the "mound" and planting grass.....

Rustic Wood Wreath

We had a great weekend!  Got a table saw, for one!  A worthwhile investment that will help save us a ton of money...since we're using it to build those good ole cabinets for my craft room.  I might have mentioned them once...or twice.... ;)
I also got to go to my first quarterly Stampin' Up! meeting.  It was a blast, I got to see some new techniques demonstrated, as well as a new product.  Not to mention 5 fabulous Make & Takes, treats and socializing!  I'll post some photos later this week.
And last (but definitely not least!!!), my brother-in-law announced that HE IS GETTING MARRIED!!!!!!  I'm giddy as a school girl over this one.  My husband and I are both the oldest, we've been married for coming up on seven years and between the two of us, we have six younger siblings.  Not one of them is married.  But that will change soon!  In addition to gaining a sister-in-law, I also get to help plan a luncheon or dinner AND throw a fabulous bridal shower.
I'm almost ridiculously excited.

Anyway, onto today's post!
I saw this wreath awhile ago over at Shabby Love and pinned it, thinking it would be a perfect post-holiday winter wreath for my front door.  I thought right!  :)

I did it a little differently than Melissa did, however.  I used an 18" raffia wreath as my base, didn't even take off the plastic!

Then I cut three inch wide strips of dark brown felt

and wrapped them all around the wreath, using good ole hot glue to hold them in place.  It took about 250 inches in length to wrap around the entire wreath, with plenty of overlap so none of the raffia showed through.

A couple months ago, I took all the limbs from my pruning adventures and sliced them into about a quarter to a half inch thick discs with the chop saw (make sure your branches are all dried out before you do this).  They've been sitting in a bag in my garage waiting for me to get around to this!  So I dug out that bag,

and started hot gluing away!  It really was like a puzzle, as Melissa said, getting everything to fit just right with as little space as possible showing through.  Just kept going until it was done...I cut around 450 discs, and I used all but maybe 30.

Then I hung it on the door...rustic wood juxtaposed with sparkly silver ribbon (found on clearance after Christmas).  I completely love it!!!!

 The whole project cost me about $5.  Not bad at all!

Linking up here:

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Goodbye 'til January...

Yeah, I know, my blogging has been...well, nonexistent.  It's not that I don't have things to share, I do.  It's that I've been working my tail off to get all my projects done by the end of the year, the holidays are in full swing, and I've had migraine episodes with greater than normal frequency.  All in all, no time to blog.  So here's one more project as a grand send off  until January...when I'll tell you all about what I've been up to!  

This has been a long time coming.  I posted on my personal Facebook page the other day..."WELL. We closed on this house February 3rd. I've been planning on painting the garage doors, front door and adding shutters and a windowbox since we made our offer January 4th. And now, December 3rd, it is finally all done. Shutters and windowbox are up. And I totally love it!"

We used cedar fence slats, cut them to size, sanded them down a bit, painted them to match our newly painted garage doors, and screwed them into place.  Sounds easier than it was!  But either way, it was very inexpensive.  It took 3 of the 5.5 inch slats to make the window box...3 @ $1.87=$5.61.  12 total 3.5 inch slats for the shutters (6 per window)...12 @ $1.17=$14.04.  Not bad, eh?  Now, just because it makes me happy, before (i.e., what it looked like when we bought it) and after:

And with that, have a WONDERFUL holiday season!!!!!  I may pop in if I have a holiday related craft that is easy to blog about, but otherwise see y'all in January!

Linking up here:

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Digging in the dirt.

My son would be jealous.

This soggy barren flowerbed represents an afternoon of hard work, planting 129 bulbs.

I don't think I really like gardening (this IS my first house, remember, so I'm not totally sure).  But I do like flowers.  Hence planting bulbs.  I love the idea that I can plant these babies once, and every spring they will bloom, for years to come.  Genius.  If that doesn't prove divine design, I don't know what does!  (I think I'm so funny.)

Anyway, despite the fact that I was bent over digging in the dirt so my back hurts now, it was a lovely day for it. Overcast, but dry.  Comfortably cool.  I even enjoyed the smell of the dirt...well, at least until I unearthed what looked suspiciously like cat poop on the verge of petrification.  Not quite petrified (though it held its shape remarkably well) since there was a bit of a...smell......

Moving on, there is a reason we ripped out all our shrubs and garden beds and seeded everything.  I don't want to garden.  And looking at my little rectangle, I was kinda thinking that was too much!  But it's done now.  I'll be on the look out for other perennials come spring.  Any recommendations?

Painting the town RED

So we've spent a great deal of time fixing up our house.  Mostly on the inside.  We (well, my husband) did do a tremendous amount of work on the front yard, but...the yard is still DEFINITELY not where we want it to be.  Nonetheless, we have some other curb appeal projects just waiting for us to get to them.  Finally, I decided to JUST DO one of them.

I painted our front door.  Red.  (insert big toothy smile here.)  I love red.  It makes me happy.

I also installed a new door handle/lock set (ALL BY MYSELF, as those of you who follow me on Facebook already know), which I think looks pretty sharp.  That was kinda an accident.  We were going to wait until next spring to replace the door hardware, along with acquiring a rather expensive door knocker and doorbell I have my eye on.  And the lighting.  But the tape leaked, so I got red paint on the old lock and knob (shoulda just taken them off), and when I tried using nail polish remover to get it off (bad idea)...I pretty much ruined 'em.  Well, they didn't look much worse than they already did, but still....not something I wanted to put on my beautiful red door.  So I headed off to Lowe's and found an awesome set that regularly was $124...but on clearance for $31.  Yes, over 90 bucks off.  AWESOME.

Anyway, thought I'd show you some photos.

This is our house when it was first put up for sale.  Notice the mounds of mulch covered dirt, the tree directly in front of our front door, lots of shrubs and the very odd patch in the middle of our lawn (strawberries, as it turns out).  Unfortunately, this is not what it looked like by the time we bought it in February.  It had been empty since August, so underneath all the snow was a very overgrown yard.  My husband dug out the little tree, all the shrubs (except those by the tree in the left corner of the photo, they hide a large green electrical box we didn't even know was in our yard until we closed on our house), flattened the mounds as much as possible, dug out the strawberry patch, and seeded the whole she-bang.

So here is what it looked like a few days ago.  Much better for our purposes (the grass is still coming in though).  However, my big tree is blocking the view of the front door.  And the front door is dingy and scuffed.  And plain white.

And this is what it looks like now!!!  Painted red, new hardware, and I got on a ladder with a saw and pruned some branches myself.  Don't know the first thing about pruning trees, and didn't bother Googling it (the source of all knowledge) so hopefully I didn't do any permanent damage!

We still are in the process of building shutters and a windowbox, and we will be painting the trim around the front door, the railing and the garage doors soon.  It will look AWESOME and oh so charming when I'm done.  Stay tuned!

Link up at : {M} Ask Anna-Skip to My Lou-The DIY Showoff-Mad in Crafts-Marvelously Messy-Pinkopotamus-The Girl Creative-Sumo's Sweet Stuff-Making the World Cuter-Sew Can Do- C.R.A.F.T.- Keeping It Simple-Mo Momma {T} Creating a House of Grace-Today's Creative Blog-Tip Junkie-Cherished Bliss-A Diamond in the Stuff-Sugar Bee Crafts-Vintage Wanna Bee-Reasons to Skip the Housework-The Kurtz Corner-Me and My Boys-Embellishing Life-All Thingz Related {W} Tea Rose Home-Someday Crafts-Lil' Luna-Creations by Kara-Eisy Morgan-Bella Before and After-Sew Woodsy -Goodbye City Hello Suburbs-Blue Cricket Design-Sew Much Ado-My Girlish Whims -A Mommy's Life with a touch  of yellow {Th} The Shabby Creek Cottage-House of Hepworths-The Brambleberry Cottage-The 36th Avenue-Yesterday on Tuesday-Saved by Love Creations-Momnivore's Dilemma  {F} Thirty Handmade Days-Just a Girl-Romantic Home-Remodelaholic-Shabby Nest-Young & Crafty-Lovely Crafty Home-WhipperBerry-At the Picket Fence-Finding Fabulous-delicate CONSTRUCTION-My Repurposed Life-Naptime Crafters-Chic on a Shoestring Budget Decorating-A Little Knick Knack-Fingerprints on the Fridge -504 Main-Cookie Nut Creations-Making Lemonade-French Country Cottage {S} Funky Junk Interior-Ladybird Lane-Tatertots and Jello-Craft Envy-A Law Student's Journey

Maybe I'm a snob...

But I don't like having things that are just like what someone else has.  (I suppose that isn't surprising, coming from a girl who goes shopping and can't bear to actually buy anything, thinking, "I could make that."  Whether that is really true or not.)  This applies especially with regards to our home.  And even more especially with regards to the curb appeal of our home!
The previous owners had these tacky tacky tacky adhesive numbers in one of the bedroom windows.  You know, this kind:

Horrifying, I know.  So needless to say, replacing those numbers with something else was HIGH on the priority list.  Like as soon as possible.
But I just couldn't find house numbers I liked.  I didn't want the same kind of numbers everyone has.  No way.  I want the outside of our house to be charming and unique...just like us (pardon my husband's laughter in the background...though he's probably right, we may be unique but not charming).
So I went to Etsy.  And oh, did I find what I was looking for.
Winfield Designs (shop name: metalgardenart) will cut out the numbers you need in any font you want, steel and 8 inches tall.  $7.95 a piece, plus S&H.  Very reasonable, as some of the more unique house number designs I found online are $11.95 each!!!
So after much downloading of new fonts, playing in Word and deliberation, I decided to go with the Melanie font.  With this font, the numbers are not of uniform height, and Winfield Designs noticed and asked me if I wanted the numbers to stay in their original sizes relative to each other, or if I wanted each number to be the full eight inches.  So considerate of them, and great attention to detail!  (I chose to have the numbers stay in their original size...I think they are cuter that way!)
They arrived nice and clean, ready to paint:

And I painted them with Krylon Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint.

Don't they look great?  They will look even better once they are up on our house!!!
Thanks Winfield Designs!
(and no, I did not get any form of compensation for this post, I just wanted to share a good find.)
(and the cabinets are a comin' I promise...)