If You Want Something Done Right, DIY

    As you all know by now, I'm in full stay-at-home-mommy mode.  This means more time for crafts, more time for DIY projects, more time for new recipes, well, just more time!  So lately I've actually been making things I've "pinned", and since I'm so proud of them, I'd like to share a few.

   Before I left my last position, I realized that I had access to all the wooden crates my little heart desired.  Unfortunately that wound up only amounting to about three before my last day, but I've been making use of them.  First, I made this to decorate our little garden:

   I just think it looks so cute, and it makes me smile every time I see it when we pull into our subdivision.  I got the idea from this awesome website that has all these great things you can do with a wood pallet.  It was easy too.  Once you get the pallet torn down into pieces (for an easy how-to visit this video), you simply lay out your seven pieces side-by-side and begin to paint.

Here's a fun fact, regardless of if the flag is to be displayed horizontally or vertically, the blue should be in the top left.

Red is supposed to begin and end the flag, but I think I can be forgiven for a DIY error.

Did you know that the 13 stripes represent the original 13 colonies? 

   That's enough flag trivia for one evening.  Now let's move on to another DIY project I've been working on.  This was pretty fun.  I did this at work, so I had a bunch of power tools at my disposal.  That was way more fun, and possibly more frightening to my co-workers, than I could have thought possible.  The result was pretty good too.

They love their new bed.

   I could have used a wood pallet for this project too, but on one of my last days at work, I discovered a beautiful piece of wood trim in the trash, and my boss told me I could have it if I wanted.  It was enough to make two dog beds.  One was about 3 1/2' x 3 1/2' and the other was 1 1/2' x 1 1/2'.  The bigger one, as you can see, is big enough for both my dogs.

   I used seven 1 1/2' pieces for the small bed, one of which I cut in half lengthwise.  For the larger bed, I used 10 1/2  of the 3 1/2' pieces.  I put them all together like so:

Then I stained them a nice dark brown.

 We had gotten new living room furniture the week before, and I had the foresight to keep the cushions from the old couch, so that's what I used as padding for the bed.

The old cushions.

Remove the covers.

Cut down to size.

I found an old fitted sheet, and cut it to fit around the cushions, and...

Ta-Da!

Unfortunately, Andouille outgrew the small bed the day I finished it, so I gave it to my older sister for their small dog.  Now Andouille shares with Roux.

I'm using the term "shares" loosely.  He may be small, but he fights dirty.

Mine!

   You know when I came up with the title for this blog entry, I thought I could type up a cute, funny, but bitingly sarcastic story of how I asked J to do something, and he did, but failed, so I had to do it myself, but for the life of me, I couldn't think of a thing!  I know that's happened before, but I can't remember any specifics.  Perhaps this looming deployment has me going soft and mushy.  I can't even think of a single thing J did wrong today.  What's wrong with me?  

   Ah well, I guess I need to get off of here and go congratulate my loving husband on not being the center of my latest post.  Goodnight all!