General Store Birdhouse

My latest birdhouse is a General Store. I cut the side slats out of a scrap 2 x 4, cut all the little roof tiles from the same, added a curtained window on one side, a store sign on the other side, a barrel I painted on the front porch, a crate, and a dog. It turned out pretty cute - I made it for my boyfriend's sister and gave it to her yesterday.

New life on the farm at the moment :)

Here are the two litters of kittens that I do know about out in the calf barn. Cute, cute, cute.

Inspired creativeness!

Update: here is the point I am at now. Between Fencing, building birdhouses, sewing the blue jean quilt I'm workin' on, I haven't been able to get to far yet -
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Beginning:

Okay, here is where I'm at so far on my inspired creativeness during my sew mama sew travels. AND I love that the idea was from my own head, I haven't ever seen anything like this yet. This will be a wall hanging when I am finished. I have to spend hours today putting up fence wire so unfortunately I won't get much time to work on it today...maybe tonight, or I can pray we get the rain we 'might' get, but then again, fence has to get up, so for now, here is what I have. I cut my blocks, drill them, stained them, got my fabric pieces done and slid threw the holes and wah-lah - here I am.

WOW!!!! I'm So Impressed!!

Okay, this was my first SewMamaSew Contest trip and WOW, what an impression, so overwhelming with trying to visit so many web sites, checking a little something on each one to decide whether or not to follow it, what inspiration...I actually was inspired to do a cool wall hanging - AND it feels soooo good because it was my own creativeness that spurred it. I really didn't see any quilt wall hangings on my journey through creative blog land but it did make me start thinking creatively - WAIT till you see this wall hanging - I will tell you it has to do with wood - yes - wood and fabric! :) There were way too many sites for me to get to even half of them this time around as we have been working hard on putting in fence post and 4 strands of wire around 7-8 acres of pasture for our beef cow mama's and babies that are coming as soon as the fence is ready. Since my boyfriend works off farm 70-90 hrs. a week a lot of that is on me to do alone(well, me, the skidsteer, the shovel, tamper, and our two blue heelers - and yeah, their a lot of help - they sit in the shade and watch me :) I was also inspired to put together some more of my quilt squares for the bluejean quilt I started a month and a half ago - yesterday - until the needle loosened up and fell out of my machine, then I jumped to another project for awhile - painting on one of my current-in-progress birdhouses. Had a funeral today to attend so I missed the last 12 hrs. of the contest but am happy and excited to get checking out the sites I have chose to follow. Happy day to you.

IH Quillow

Here is one of my latest quillows. I have made many over the years, some I have pics somewhere of and others not. I just made a John Deere one that I let escape without pics of. :( For those of you who don't know, a quillow is a quilt that folds up into a pillow. The pocket is on the back of the quilt that makes the pillow cover, usually blends right in with the fabric of the backing as you can see in the last pic.

Recycled pop can

My boyfriend is all about IH farm equipment. Just for a cool 'man cave' decoration I took an empty pop can, taped off some of the items on it and painted the rest IH red. I then painted a sticker the IH white and with IH symbol and stuck it on(got it slightly crooked though), then used scrapbooking stickers to put the word 'cola' on it. Turned out pretty neat.

Drawing/Painting

This first pic is my very first chalk drawing. For the most part I copied it off of a picture of my me and my boyfriend. It's not perfect but trying my hand at chalk drawing.
The next 4 pics are paint or colored pencil artwork.

Here is a pencil drawing I did on 8.5 x 11 from a pic off a vhs cover of John Wayne.

Below is a snow tiger I started to draw.

Okay, these next two colored pencil drawings are my try to touch base with what my kids were drawing at the time...anime. I like being involoved in my kids life and sometimes that means taking interest in what they are doing.

This last pencil drawing is one I did for thank you notes. I wanted something personal. I copied this onto card stock and printed them off giving me a tender thank you to send out for other's kindnesses to me and my family.

Barn Bird House

Here is one of my latest bird houses. This is a "2" resident bird house barn. I put a seperater in the inside so that both houses are seperate.

Cement/stone pad

There had been an unused dirt bed here since before I moved in with my boyfriend and he always cut across the front porch to the sidewalk over the dirt, so, I dug out the dirt, laid stones and put my dry cement around them(I framed the ends until the cement was dry). I watered the cement and let it set. I put in a fresh flower bed next to it and transplanted a hosta there. I now have flowers in also(not pictured) but it looks so much better and fixed a walkway eyesore. Can't wait till we get our larch siding up on the house...will look much better then the insulation board. :)

Satilite dish bird bath

We had this old satilite dish that was of no use anymore, the post rusty, the site ugly...sooooo, I wire brushed the rust off the post, took out 2 of the bolts holding the dish, tipped the dish as far as it would go on the swivel it has to lean back and then bent it slighly to become flat for a bird bath. I gave it a paint job(not the dish itself) and planted a creeping vine at the base. The birds love it! And it is not an unused yard eyesore anymore! Hooray!

Birdhouse

I actually used a scrap piece of 2 x 4 and cut it into thin slices with the table saw for the side and roof slats. After the natural wood sealer was dry I stuck stickers on the front and then spray sealed them with a few coats of sealer.

Tractor Birdhouse

I am trying hard to come up with projects to use my smaller scrap pieces of wood on, so birdhouses are one of my latest projects. I also got some tires from my boyfriend that he couldn't use on refurbished tractors which added a cool touch. All I have to do is add my hook.

Little Girls on Swings

Years ago my grandmother bought a little wooden girl on a swing and hung on her porch to swing in the wind. My grandmother is in a nursing home now but I have this little wooden girl. 2 days ago I decided to make two to sell with some of the scrape pieces of plywood I found in the wagon shed. I traced my pieces and went to work. I don't have the rope attached through the swing and up through the hooks on the hands but other than that they are done.

Spring Update!

Whew! Okay, it's been awhile since I have been on here or the computer at all as I have been busy. I just updated 2 posts and posted many new post of new projects. I still have a few to get on here as I finished my first ever chalk pastel drawing and a couple of other projects. I have been sandblasting toy tractors for my boyfriend and helping drill out the rivets, and create and print off the decals for them. We sold our dairy cows the beginning of March and just this past week bought our first black angus cows and babies. We have some fence to get ready before they get here though. I have been getting my flower beds ready and I work a couple of part time jobs each week that add up to about 6 hrs. a week. I also try to accomplish every day one project of home improvement big or small depending on day's agenda and a happy me type home improvement project like plant flowers, hang curtains, hang a new pic or whatever. I will try not to be so long to post next time. :)

Reserved Parking Sign

I wanted to make this sign for my boyfriend so I grabbed a scrap of wood, cut it to the size I wanted, drew out my lettering and went to work painting my sign. I started it at 1 am one night when my boyfriend got called out to work at midnight and I finished it at 6 am. I had originally wanted diamond plating for the sign like the ones you buy but used what I had. He says he likes the wood sign better than the diamond plate ones though - so that's happy.

Wooden Farm Chess Set

Okay, my idea here is that I have never seen a 'farm' chess set -tractors, silos, combines, ect. Soooo, I bought some smaller craft wood items and started carving. I used the dremel to carve out my tractor. I did attach the back wheels already (not pictured) but am working on the front ones. This is my first piece so far and I am quite happy with how it is turning out. This project will most likely take me a bit of time to do as I only work on it here and there but it is exciting and unique none the less.

Start of brick BBQ pit/grill

So, we get a lot of dry 'waste' cement left over from my boyfriends work an have been cementing our driveway from the dirt road, past the house, past the barn, out to the manure pit - probably a quarter of a mile all together. But anyways, I just can't help myself with the thought of wanting to do something creative with some of that cement - so, I decided that I would make use a brick BBQ grill. Step 1 would be a cement pad. Step 2 is that I am using old bricks we have laying around the farm AND even better I am collecting one or more bricks from all of our friends we get together with to make the actual grill/pit. (so, I am guessing that it will be a month or two before I get to actually work on building the grill/pit part).

I measured, squared, and spray painted my line on the grass to dig. I dug down 4" deep an set a 2 x 4 frame around the edge of the hole and weighted it with a paint can and one of my other cement experiments(dug a tractor shape in the ground, lined with foil, sprayed with cooking spray, poured my cement, let harden and lifted out my cement tractor 2 days later slicker than slick). I filled my whole with the dry cement and sprayed it with the hose soaking it, letting that be, then repeating two more times. All the sod from the top of my whole I cut out with the shovel in sections and placed them around the base of one of our trees.

I had also took a small piece of wood and pushed in the IH shape which I painted later when I took off the wood frame.

IH Clock

I made this IH clock for my boyfriend's 'mancave'. I found an old ugly clock at a yard sale, bought a cheap wood craft box about 2" in depth an open in the back, cut the hole for just the clock part to stick through so that I didn't have to mess with taking the clock apart just to use the part I needed. I bought wood letters and cut them to make the IH. Bought a little wood car at Michaels, (as one can not find a wood tractor in any store or craft store around here) and made a tractor out of it. I originally bought raffia to make corn stalks out of but for lack of time and configuration I painted them on for now. along with the scenery I painted. I drilled a little whole for the cord to come down through.

Yard Bench

This Pile of wood on the front porch is what I stood looking at thinkin' 'there's gotta be something creative an useful I can build outta this pile of scrap wood that dad Moyer brought over. I decided we needed more seating out by our firepit - so a yard bench is what was to become of the scrap wood.

So, I got busy measuring, cutting, screwing, and nailing! (Always with the help of our blue heelers...young one behind swing - older one layin' in front of swing:)


AH!!!! All done an ready to put out by the pit!