Wood Pallet Christmas Tree

Good Wednesday Morning everyone! Thanksgiving came and went and I am now up to my ears in Christmas ornaments, scattering them throughout the house in every bowl, vase, and lantern I can get my hands on. Tis the season, right?!

In the midst of all my indoor decorating, my husband stayed outside stringing the lights around each door and window. And when he finished that, he moved on to a new lawn ornament for the holidays. Adam has been wanting to do a pallet project for months now, and we finally decided on something we would both enjoy... a wood pallet Christmas tree. And we made it for a whopping $4! Inexpensive projects are truly my favorite ones!

Adam used a towel to brush on some white paint, making sure it looked a little weathered. Then, he stapled some Christmas lights onto in the shape of a tree and added a stump of wood as the trunk. Once that was finished, he put it up outside using to stakes and simply slid the pallet onto the stakes.

I got to do the fun part... the decorating! :)
The ornaments and star were purchased at the Dollar Tree.

I used ornament hooks to hang them onto the tree and made sure to twist the hooks so the ornaments wouldn't fall off. I also used ornament hooks to attach the star.  

It's so cute I almost didn't want to leave it outside!

Do you decorate the outside of your home with Christmas lights?

We are one of only two houses around us that have lights up and it makes me sad. 

Garden Update Part Two: 2014

Ladies and gentlemen, we have vegetables! Lots and lots and lots of vegetables!

The past few weeks, our garden has been giving us so many delicious fresh veggies, and we couldn't be more excited about it! At the beginning of August, we decided the tomato plants were getting too tall and the cages weren't able to support their height. A good problem to have, but still we needed a fix. We got creative with supplies we had on hand and ended up using zip ties to tie the to tall posts in the center of the plants.

Remember when I said I was excited for a salsa garden? Well, a salsa garden I got! I whipped up three batches of salsa last week, and I am planing to make even more this weekend. 

Not too much difference in August, at least not much that you can see from a distant picture. But if you look closer, there is a whole lot of growing going on in there.

It seemed to take forever for our tomatoes to redden, but now that they have, we have tomatoes growing out of our ears!

Our cucumbers are also doing great! One day I was saying how sad I was that none were growing, and then all of a sudden 8 were ready to pick. We have not been able to keep up with the cucumbers at all. For a while, every time we ate one, we picked two more!

Our peppers are also doing really well, but I decided I may need to double the green pepper plants for next year. We have had a decent amount of them, I just feel like if we have more, we would definitely eat them right up. 

We also planted red onions, and they grew, but they are very tiny. I just purchased them at a nursery and transferred them to the ground, but I am thinking they just didn't have enough room to grow. I haven't decided if I will plant onions again, but if I do I will be sure to spread them out. 

As our first garden, we are very pleasantly surprised with how well everything grew! 

We will most definitely be planting another vegetable garden next year!

How are your gardens doing?

Does anyone else have vegetables coming out their ears? 

How To Hang a Hammock and My New Happy Place

Welcome to my new happy place, my backyard hammock! 

When we moved in to our house, I always thought those three trees in a row would be the perfect place to hang a hammock. This summer, we finally made it happen. We found this rope hammock at Lowe's. It was an $80 hammock, but we managed to get it for $40. Score! 

Our hammock came with the supplies to hang it, but we did need to purchase some extra chain since our trees were so far apart. The hanging process was much easier than I had anticipated. We drilled a hole into the tree and twisted the eye bolts into the tree with the hooks attached. The hardest part has been figuring out how much chain to put on each side. We need that perfect balance so it is not too high, but also not so low our bums skim the grass when we lay on it, but I think we've finally found it.

I love curling up on this hammock with a good book (or good drink) in hand. It has even been a good place for cuddling with my man. It's just so peaceful out there.

Garden Update: 2014

After our vacation, it seems as though everything in our garden is really starting to grow. We have vegetables popping up everywhere, and I'm definitely not complaining! I thought I'd share a little garden update with you today.

As you can see, things sure have changed since my last garden post. Everything is doing great! We have tomato plants over 4 feet tall, a green pepper that's already 3 inches long, and baby cucumbers that are just starting to grow. I am also loving have a constant source of FRESH cilantro and parsley to add into my recipes. It's hard to tell what the onion is doing since it's buried in the ground, but so far everything looks good! The only thing that really didn't do well this year was our lettuce. When we got back from vacation it appeared to be all rotted (disgusting!), so we pulled it. 

How are your gardens coming along?

Happy Men Tell All Monday Friends!

It's Mexican night at our house, so I'll be enjoying a margarita or two while I wait to see Chris and Marcus one more time.

Wine Cork Garden Markers {and our first garden}

This year, we planted our first garden! I call it my salsa garden because I have every intention to ma ke all kinds of yummy fresh garden salsa with these vegetables. We planted tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, red onions and cilantro. We still had some extra space, so we also planted cucumbers, lettuce, and parsley. Neither of us have really ever had a garden, so we can't really be sure we will have vegetables by the end of summer. We have just been watering the plants every night and things seem to be growing quite well. 

I decided I wanted to put in some garden markers, so I pulled out my wine corks, skewers, and a permanent marker. 

I simply wrote each vegetable on a wine cork with my marker, and then stabbed a skewer into the bottom of the cork. Within minutes, I had fun garden markers ready to stick into the dirt. 

And now we wait! Hopefully we will have vegetables coming out of ears in no time. 

What do you usually grow in your garden? 

I'm kind of regretting not throwing a few strawberry plants in there. There's always next year, right?

Have a great weekend!

Vibrant Adirondack Chairs

Today I am sharing with you a project that I have been dying to complete for over a year!
Over the past few weekends, Adam built me these wonderful Adirondack chairs for the backyard, and I just finished painting them this week (just in time for the BBQ we are hosting on Sunday). Hooray! 

We used Ana White's book, The Handbuilt Home, as a reference to build these beauties. It was pretty inexpensive to buy all of the supplies, and overall took Adam two afternoons to build both chairs and the table. Once they were built, Adam sanded them down so they were ready for me to paint.

Speaking of painting, I had one heck of a time deciding which colors to go with. We spent Memorial Day weekend up north on Long Lake, and talk about immense amounts of brightly colored Adirondack chairs. One cottage had a row of chairs painted every color of the rainbow. It was to die for! Each cottage we passed had at least a few brightly colored chairs sitting in the lawn overlooking the water. I debated for-ev-er and each color combination seemed just as perfect as the next. Blues, yellows, pinks, oranges, greens. How was I ever going to decide?! I ended up narrowing it down to a few options and let Adam have the final say. He's a good decision maker when I am too indecisive. What can I say, I picked a winner. We finally decided to go with blue, green, and pink. I primed each piece, gave each piece two coats of paint, and used a spray sealer for some extra protection since they will be outside all summer long. 

I am thrilled with how they turned out, and even more excited to be sharing them with you!

What colors would you paint your Adirondack chairs?