Gardening Angel

For my mom's birthday, Matt and I made this garden angel for her yard. When I found the idea HERE I knew my mom would love it.

Garden Angel Supplies:

-old shutter or bi-fold door
-(4) 5.5"x6' cedar fence slats for wings and arms
-wood circle for the head
-screws

Directions:

First, cut the shutter to the length you want.

Next, cut three wings out of the cedar fence slats.

Once the wings were cut, we cut the ends so they had an angled look.

Next, make a pattern for the arm.

Cut two arms out of a cedar fence board.

Next, cut or find a circle for the head. In the end I hated how it looked, so I added something else.

Finally, screw the arms to the shutter, then flip it over and screw the wings and head to the back of the shutter.

Like I said above, I hated how the head looked, so I found a copper lid and glued it onto the wood head.

My mom loved it and found a great spot for it in her backyard.

My sister saw this "Grow, Damn ya." sign on Pinterest, so I made one for her and one for my mom for Mother's Day. They funny thing is that they both wanted it, but they both don't want neighbors to see it. All I can do is chuckle...

Pallet Flag

I jumped on the bandwagon and made myself a pallet flag. I love the US Flag. I love what it stands for and what it means.

Pallet Flag Supplies:

-pallet
-red, white, and blue paint
-painters tape
-measuring tape
-star stencil
-sander

First, I had Matt dismantle the wood pallet.

I used seven boards and attached them together like so. Make sure the good side of the boards are on the front.

Next, I measured the stripes and star box. I taped each section off like so.

I painted my red stripes first. Once the red paint was dry, I covered the red stripes with tape and painted the remaining stripes white. Once the white paint was dry, I taped around the star box and painted it blue.

After the paint was dry, I made a star stencil with my Cricut and stenciled on the 50 stars.

Finally, after the flag was completely dry, I sanded it down to give it an aged look. To protect it, I sprayed the flag with clear glaze spray.

Here is the flag proudly displayed on my shelf.

God Bless America, Land That I Love...

Garden Boxes

Last year we had our garden in the ground. By the middle of the summer, the weeds took over and the dirt turned into swamp land. At one point while I was weeding, I lost my shoe. It was horrible. This year I told Matt that we were moving the garden area to the other end of the yard and we were going to build boxes.

My neighbor friend and I got serious with this gardening stuff and even took a Square Foot Gardening class through Community Ed. We both learned a lot and decided that that was the way we wanted to set up our garden areas.

Matt and I came up with a layout for our garden area. We decided on (4) 4'x 4'x 12" (2) 4' x 11' x 12" and (1) 4' x 10' x 12" boxes. We went to Home Depot to buy our supplies.

Garden Box Supply List:
-pine Boards
-paint
-Lin Seed Oil
-weed guard fabric
-deck screws

First, Matt cut the boards to the sizes we needed. Next, I spent hours painting the front, sides and ends of each board. I chose to paint my garden boxes Behr's Teal Zeal.

In the gardening class, I learned that if you are going to use wood as your building material for the garden boxes, you need to seal the wood that the dirt is going to touch. The best thing to use that is natural and doesn't have chemicals in it is LinSeed Oil. So, after the paint was dry, we turned the boards over and and rubbed the oil on with a paper towel. Once the oil is applied you have to let the boards sit for about 24 hrs. Just a side note, LinSeed Oil smells yucky. You need to wear gloves if you dont want your hands saturated with this stuff.

Next, attach the boards together using deck screws.

Before we put the boxes outside, in our prepared garden spot, we laid down weed barrier fabric. I hate weeds, so this stuff is a must in my yard.

We rented a dump trailer at South Davis Rental and went to Evergreen Soils in Layton, Ut to get our garden soil mix. We ended up getting six yards of dirt to fill the boxes. We spent around $200. Not bad.

A few days later, I planted my crops. I planted tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, corn, ghords, herbs, and cucumbers.

Two months ago, this is what our backyard looked like... covered in weeds.

Matt had to weed eat this whole backyard many times.

As it stands today, we have lawn and garden boxes. We even put in some gravel to make a place to park our trailer. Matt is working on cement curbing to divide our garden, trailer parking, and lawn areas. We have big plans for the old garden area. We hope to put in a pergola and fire pit. Hopefully we get to those things this year...

Uncle Sam

The other day while on Pinterest, I came across a pin with an adorable Uncle Sam. I clicked on the picture and it brought me to THIS BLOG/POST. Needless to say, I fell in love even more. So, down to my wood shop I went and made myself a replica of her Uncle Sam.



Supplies:

-8'x12' cut to 4 feet (body)
-2"x2" cut to 16.5 inches (hat brim)
-nose
(2) eyebrows
paint


Once all the pieces were cut, I traced where I wanted the face and beard to be.

After I painted the Uncle Sam, I distressed and stained. Next, I glued his nose, eyebrows, and hat brim onto the body. I let the glue dry overnight.

He turned out so cute. I love when a project turns out just how you pictured it.

Here are my fireworks I made last year. You can find that post HERE.

This is my porch decorated for the 4th of July.

I made these cute stars and hung them on my bannister.




God Bless America!