DIY Seasonal Barn Board Display

Nothing like having a little Pinterest Party with your girlfriend one evening and making a seasonal barn board display for outside.

Luckily I have an endless supply to barn boards over at the farm, so getting a rustic board was not a problem, we didn't need a 7 foot long board, so I had M cut one board in half.

Supplies Needed:

- barn board

- palm sander with sand paper

- black paint

- stencils (printed our own with paper)

- pencil or marker for tracing

- paint brushes

First we took the boards outside and gave them a quick sand with a palm sander, since they are real barn boards and were rather rough.

J printed out letters for us to cut out and then trace onto the boards

We just used a black acrylic craft paint and filled in the letters on the board we traced out.

We decided to freehand some Halloween art - which if I'm being honest, I blew my spider web and hate it, but it will do for now until I figure out a way to fix it.

here is my finished board:

and both of our boards finished:

In December, we decided we would do the other side of our boards for Christmas!!

This side of my board was definitely rougher, but still not to bad to work with!

We bought Santa hats from the dollar store to help dress them up a bit

I really like the way this side of the board turned out at least! It does suck that I couldn't get a picture of the board dry, as we had gotten a lot of rain, but you get the idea! I don't have a picture of J's board.

Overall the project was pretty easy, fun and didn't require a lot of time. I think we had each side done within 2 hours!

Monday Already??

Clearly this week is going to zoom right on by while I'm coping with Noah turning one THIS weekend!! This seems like such a big deal to me and I can't even pretend to not be a little sad about it, although I am super happy at the same time! He seriously is just the best thing that has happened to Mike and I - we are soo blessed!!

So this week we will be party prepping and getting ready for Noah's big day!! Much like we did this past weekend!

Friday night was low key. We went into town to pick up my car (oil change) and grabbed some groceries and dinner!! We came home, ate and then hung out!

Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast and then we braved Costco on a weekend! It's always dangerous when M comes... We spent too much money, but got most of the things I needed for the party, a few extras,  aside from produce, which I will get later this week somehow! Noah had some crazy hair going on while we ate out for lunch!

Saturday afternoon M and I cleaned out behind the bar while Noah napped and then I decided to try a little Pinterest project! We all know how I love Kelsey's spinach dip, so when I saw a recipe on Pinterest that said it tasted just like it, I had to try it! I followed the recipe up until it called for a tablespoon of red bell pepper, well I assumed this was a spice... And couldn't find it at the grocery store, turns t they meant fresh! Oops!! My bad! So our recipe didn't have this! I also forgot to put the cayenne pepper under the cheese on top.

But it was soo yummy!!! We will totally make this more often!! It was also soo easy to make!!

Gracie was tuckered out after her walk with Daddy and Lily while I put Noah down. Up next was the Dirty 30 work out! I actually really enjoy that one!! We have also gone back to following the meal plan instead of calorie counting because we weren't dropping the weight like we expected to that first week of round 2! 

After our work out I watched the movie The Best Of Me, which is another movie based off of a Nicholas Sparks book. I love all his movies! This one was good too and without spoiling the ending completely, I wasn't expecting that ending!! 

Sunday morning Noah woke us at 5:30 with much surprise to our eyes, he was sitting there looking at us (through the monitor)! Sitting being the biggest shock! He just learned to sit up on his own Friday but we still weren't expecting to see him sitting up in his crib!! Little bum! He had his bottle and went back to bed until 8 and I slept in until 9! 

We met C and S for breakfast at 10 and had a nice catch up! Then we worked away at laundry! Grandma and Grandpa popped in for a visit with Noah before his afternoon nap and they had fun playing! 

It was a nice low key day!! We finished up the night with yoga and then I watched the Grammy's!! 

Loved Taylor Swifts dress! Loved Gwen Stefani and Adam Levines performance!! I was happy to see Sam Smith win and of course Beyoncé!! I was happy to see Miranda Lambert win best country album! I don't get the Kayne West interuption... 

Saw It. Pinned It. Did It: Striped Wall

I am linking up with Steph again for:

 

 

This week I attempted:

PIN

PIN

 

and I could not be happier with the results!

We went from the blue wall:

(excuse the crappy photo.... I just wanted to get this done and only used my phone to document this change).

 

We originally wanted to do a chevron wall but changed our minds last minute because what the heck can you hang on them? I didn't want it to be too busy and this is my only wall to showcase any art work.

 

So we primed and painted the wall white. I used Devine Pleasure by Behr.

 

 

It is actually the white that you will find throughout our house. It is not a true bright white, kind of a creamy or marshmallow color.

 

Then came the fun part. The only part where I dragged my husband into this project. We decided to do 10 inch stripes. Our wall was 101 inches - not counting the wide baseboard on the bottom. So we started the pencil process I will call it.

 

Mike figured that we could just make 3 marks along the wall and then tape along the marks. Okay - great idea, maybe in a new house where everything is square.

 

Our house is old, therefore our walls, our floors and our ceilings are far from square anymore. So we got a level out and ended up drawing a line across the whole wall. Okay wait I made that sound too easy! First I went and looked up how to paint stripes in an old house... nothing. How to paint stripes on an unlevel wall... eye ball it. Ha! So we did a combination of using the level, eye balling and measuring.

 

The problem mainly landed in the corner above the door way. The door frame was level, but the ceiling was not.

 

After we tackled that issue it really was smooth sailing from there.Just 3 marks on the wall and then tape on the marks. We were just assuming that the painters tape was straight!

 

 

Mike was being a smart ass and put tape in the middle of the lines that I should not paint! It actually helped.

I just painted the stripes with West Coast Grey by Behr. Our yellow walls we didn't change which are Melted Butter by Behr

Overall I am impressed that the lines are straight!!! I still have some touch ups to do on the yellow wall, but that's a simple fix!

I love how it has changed the total feel of the room. Now it has some class and style. It is fresh and just what I wanted. I still need to find some art work for the wall, as well as some curtains. I plan to make chevron place mats for the table.

Here is the finished product:

 

 

 

Saw It. Pinned It. Did It.

 

I am sharing not 1, but 2 pins that I have tried lately!

 

First off:

 

PIN

Press And Seal on your fridge shelves.

 

After tackling a project on my spring cleaning list, I decided I would make life easier on myself and apply the press and seal on the shelves after washing them.

 

I will be honest, it was a pain in the butt to to and didn't stick perfectly, but I have kept them in. I notice the corners are peeling up, but either way it should help with keeping the shelves a bit cleaner!

 

Here is my before picture:

 

 

And after:

 

 

I still have yet to clean the outside of the fridge!

 

 

On to the next pin that I did not photograph at all:

PIN

 

It was delicious, very sweet, but overall at a hit at Easter this year!!

 

 

Saw It.. Pinned It... Did It.. Take 2

I am linking up again with Steph and Katie for Saw It. Pinned It. Did It.

 

I had given you a sneak peak on the weekend of what M and I had been up to this weekend and today I am soo excited to share it!!

 

I saw this and thought how perfect it would be for under the great room window. We used to have a bow window that we could sit in and miss having that extra seating area:

 

PIN

 

Sooo while I was out "antiquing" I saw a similar shelf. M and I had been collecting foam, and M's Mom happened to have quite a bit!!  I bought the chevron fabric in the states more than 6 months ago and I have been dying to use it!! This was the perfect project for it!!! It's a nice heavy duty fabric too so it should stand up well!!

 

 

 

We bought the legs at Home Depot because there is a heat register under there!

 

Can I just say that stuffing the foam into that cover we made was HARD - it took M and I both to do it, not once but twice because we mismeasured the fabric and had too much foam!!

 

It is the perfect addition to the room. I plan to get some baskets for inside those cubbies eventually.

 

Soo happy to cross this project off the list and M only had to add the legs - he got off easy as far as building me one went!!

 

Saw It. Pinned It. Did it.

 

Today I am linking up with Katie and Steph for the first time! I am pretty excited to share a project M and I did a few weekend's ago and it was super simple and cheap!!

 

I saw this:

PIN

 

We had a white board on our fridge but I hated seeing it and then one day it fell and broke and that was the end of meal planning!

 

I love meal planning! It makes life soo much easier, especially if you don't like cooking, it solves half the problem of figuring out what to make and whether or not you have all the ingredients.

 

So M and I make a meal plan on the weekend before we go grocery shopping, M can get the meat out of the freezer if necessary and we are set to eat dinner at a decent time!

 

So here is the final product:

 

 

Did we paint it? No?

 

We plan to sell the house within 5 years and didn't want anything permanent. So I was shopping at Chapters and found these chalk board stickers on sale!! There are actually two stickers on and it is not the full length of the cupboard which is fine. Worked out perfect!!

Now we can get back on track with meal planning!!