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Tag Archive for DIY projects

We Made Garden Markers

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Renee Spindle

The gardening season is in full swing and I have a few projects that I’ve been meaning to share with all of you. We are already harvesting our zucchini, and had our first grilled zucchini last week. Oh yum. And by the way how is it possibly the 6th of August already? Didn’t we just celebrate the 4th of July?

I had been wanting to make plant markers for the garden so it would be easy for Evan to know what all of the plants are, and just because I thought it would be cute. Plus I had seen a lot of ideas for the markers on Martha Stewart‘s crafting page, so I was inspired. And as a bonus to the budget, I wanted to spend as little money as possible on this project.

There were these dilapidated stakes from a short border fence we had taken apart at one time or another. Great these will be my new garden markers. Next I went into the garage and perused my leftover paint shelf. There was this great green color just calling my name. I call it my lime sherbet paint.

So off Evan and I went to paint the sticks. This was of course during one of our “Camp Grandma” days. Evan loves to paint so I knew he would be a good helper for this project. We painted one side of the sticks, let them dry, turned them over and then painted the second side. This took up most of our morning, and then we went for a swim. I left the sticks to dry overnight, so we could put the lettering on for the plant names.

The next week at Camp Grandma we painted the plant names on the sticks. I bought some paint pens (the only thing I had to buy!), as I knew this would make it easier for Evan to help me. I was really glad I got them because he had a lot of fun being creative with his lettering.

These are my favorites of everything we painted. I love how Evan got the patriotic theme going. And he did make one marker that says, “Evan is cool”.

Here’s the rest of the finished markers, and how they look in the garden.

This was a great, inexpensive project. It was fun collecting all of the supplies from “stuff” on the shelves around the garage and in the garden shed. Evan and I had a lot of fun together, and the markers look so great in the garden. A great summertime project. Of course Evan had more fun making mud pies. More on that adventure later. Happy Monday everyone!

No comments Posted in Around the House, Crafts, DIY Projects, Family, Gardening

DIY Entryway Project – Finito!

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Renee Spindle

Happy Thursday everyone. Hope you are all enjoying a wonderful week. My sister and her husband are here visiting from Montana, but I wanted to take a few minutes to blog about our finished project. This posting is coming to you in between snacking, and chatting. We finally have our entryway project completed, and wanted to share some pictures with all of you.

First of all a little history on why this project is such a milestone for Travel Man and myself. We will be celebrating our 10th anniversary this year and we have this little list of projects around the house to get done this year. You know the projects I’m talking about the one’s that you have left until you can get “around to it”. Well we’re working on our “around to it” list, and this is one of the projects to get completed. We are ecstatic that this one is coming off of the list. And the reward of the results when this one got done have just been great. It’s like a weight lifted off of your shoulders, because you’ve been wanting to get it done for such a long time.

The before pictures – tile removal, and pre-painting.

Mid Process- Painting Done & flooring in the Works.

Grandma’s Assistant Flooring Complete

The Finish Trim Work

The Finished Product. All done.

The painting technique that I did on the walls was a two-step process. First I rolled on some texture paint, sort of thick, and then got the swirls in the paint with a big 4″ brush. Once that dried for 24 hours I painted over the texturing with a semi-gloss paint. The color is a sea salt blue, and the sheen changes during the day with the light coming into the house. It was a fun process figuring out how I wanted to do the texturing, and I am pleased with how it turned out.

As I told you earlier it’s great to have this project off of our list. Next job we’re tackling is landscaping our front yard. Hopefully we can get this one done before the heat of summer arrives. Happy DIYing to all. What’s the next project on your “around to it” list?