peg board

For Christmas, I made my mom this peg board for her jewelry. She has wanted one for a few years now. She was going to make it herself, but she is not too fond of the table saw. It was not too tough, just time consuming. I found a frame at the second hand store and painted it white. I cut the peg board so it would fit inside the frame and painted diamonds on it. I outlined the diamonds with silver paint. It worked out pretty good.

Christmas Doll house

Christmas was quite fun this year. My beauty girl asked for a barbie sized doll house for Christmas. Have you ever priced a plastic barbie house? $150 is a "Good deal". So I found a bookshelf ($60)that was in the shape of a doll house and converted it! My mom helped with the wall papering of the whole thing (which was lots of work) and I did the decorating and furniture placement(and making in some cases).

The bathtub was a bread pan with glass rocks glued to the top for faucet knobs and to the bottom for feet. The pedestal sink was a candle holder. Both were spray-painted white. The dresser in the upper room was a jewelry box, painted white. The nursery was for twins and the curtains are tassels. The kitchen table was a 19 cent tile glued to a candle holder. The couch was a trinket box, that was stuffed with a cushion (that I made) and the rocking chair was a pincushion, reupholstered and painted white. The fire place was a print out from a website of an actual Victorian replication gas fire place.

The fridge is an actually Barbie refrigerator. But that is the only thing that was truly "Barbie" The rest was a knock off or started out as something quite different.

It was an absolute hit! We finished opening gifts at 7:45am and she played with it until we left at 12:30pm to visit family. When we got home, she was back into her doll house until bed time.

Saddness...bye bye chicks

With heavy hearts, we said goodbye to our beloved chickens. We had a move, and try as we might, we just could not bring them with us. NO! we did not eat them. We found them a happy home with more yard space and lots and lots more bugs. About three weeks after we got the birds settled into their new home, my beauty girl and I went over to visit the chicks. Those dang birds did not even remember us at all. It made my beauty girl so sad. We cried together about the loss, but we were also grateful for the safe home for the birds. We felt like that visit would bring closure to her about the birds adoption by another family. That was at the first of November 09. Today(December 30, 2009), in the car, there were big tears rolling down my beauty's face. She was silent otherwise, not a whimper of sniff, and if I had not looked back, I would not have known. I asked what was wrong. She said that she knew that the chickens had a good home, but she really missed them. I tried to comfort her the best that I could, and still watch the road. Sweet girl. She raised the chicks from day old bird to about one year (almost exactly). Those silly chicks were so good for her. She needed the responsibility and carefree nature of the chickens. But most importantly, those silly chicks brought a sense of purpose for my beauty girl. She needed to have someone depend on her. Some day! I really mean it, I will have more chickens. They are MOST definitely not as high maintenance as a dog, (which we did get to bring with us to our new place.) They are as relaxing to watch as fish in a bowl. Plus, they give back with little white and yellow ovals of protein. Chickens are easy maintenance and quite fun. Good bye big chicks. We will miss you.