Picture Frames out of Pallets

I have been thinking about what to put on my stairs forever! Finally I saw some picture frames I loved on pintrest. They looked like reclaimed wood, so I figured I could use an old pallet. Simple, right?

Not as simple as I thought. It's a pain in the rear taking those things apart. My job was much easier when I got ahold of a sawszall. Now I have my nice pretty old wood.

I split some boards when I was trying to take the pallets apart with just a hammer. I used my son's tools to put it back together. It actually worked quite nicely.

I needed the wood to look old and parts of this wood looked new where it was protected. I used apple cider vinegar, black tea and steel wool. It worked great! This picture is after one coat.

Here is an idea of what they will look like. The only problem is once I laid it out, I thought it was going to be too big. I went back to the store for the smaller mats and cut down all the wood for smaller frames.

Now that the frames are done, I taped up where they will go and realized those were too small. Ugh! Back to taking apart another pallet.

Much better.

Yay! Here they are, finally all done!

I love the way they turned out. In the picture it's hard to see the individual pieces of wood, but they look very old.

Now I have 3 smaller frames and don't know what to do with them.

Bathroom Remodel

Finally, our yucky, yucky bathroom is getting re modeled! Yay! The sink barley dripped out water, the floor was discussing and the toilet was hardly cleanable.

At first glance it wasn't so bad.

But you take a closer look and here is what you see.

We pulled out that old linoleum and put in some nice cheap Home Depot tile.

Then, there was the shower. I scrubbed and scrubbed the shower so many times and this is the cleanest it would get.

We went for a nice quick fix where we just had it sprayed with a new finish. (I'm not sure what it is called.) It turned out great, clean and bright white. 

Then, replace a toilet, sink, mirror and light. We actually bought the sink and light over a year ago when our local Home Depot moved and had it's clearance. So, it's been stored till we got the energy for another project. Actually till I just couldn't handle it anymore.

Out with the old...

In with the new…

We also put a nice fresh coat of paint. It's a light grey that goes nicely with the light green in the room outside the bathroom.

This is the almost completed bathroom. I need to hang the hand towel rack and we need a shower door. Plus, once it was all put in and the sink was plumbed, we tested it, all the new plumbing worked great, but we saw water seeping through wall. Now we have to cut out drywall and fix more plumbing. At least it looks nice while I muster up the motivation to do drywall work.

Lotion

L and I get eczema and years ago I discovered that Shea butter gets rid of it. However, Shea Butter by itself isn't very easy to rub into the skin. That's when I started experimenting to make something that I could rub into our skin easier. After researching different oils and how to make lotion, I came up with my own special blend.

Little batches seem to work best for me, but I love what I came up with. I found that it also heals those cracked, dry, flip flop wearing heals.

One of my friends noticed my soft feet and wanted some lotion for herself. She found these adorable jars at World Market. I absolutely love them!

Now I have eczema free, baby soft feet and lotion that we love around here!

To make my lotion, I take equal parts of Coconut Oil* and this Unrefined Shea butter. I mix that up until it is a uniform consistency and add in a little almond and avocado oil. The almond and avocado oil are about 1/2 parts of the Shea butter. This seems to give me the best creamy consistency without adding beeswax.

This lotion works best after an olive oil and salt scrub on the feet. For eczema, I will put the creamy lotion on the eczema patch about 3 times a day. If you are able to wrap the patch after putting on this cream, even better.

*I buy such a big coconut oil because I also use it in cooking every day. Pancakes are so much better with a little coconut oil in the pan then butter. Or any baking recipe that calls for oil, I always use coconut oil.

New Chicken Fence

Here is our latest project!

In the last post, I showed you the comparison from last Thanksgiving to this Thanksgiving. After we finished the living room we took about a month or 2 off and then did some more work for about a month. Since then, we haven't done anything until now. 

One of our chickens died and we were not getting enough eggs with 2 chickens. So, we got 2 more chickens. Well, Bult, this red one

and blacky, this black one were not being very nice to our new chickens.

In-fact, they were attacking them when left in the coop. We had to let them roam so the new little ones, Lucy

and Jewl would be safe. But with the chickens having run of the entire yard, there was poop everywhere! Yes, EVERYWHERE. I couldn't stand walking out the back to to poop.

We decided to fence off the side of the yard so the chickens had a big enough area that they could share. They are getting along better and they stay with each other all day, but when it comes to food, they still fight. There is a definite pecking order with Blacky at the top and Jewl at the bottom.

I love the way the fence turned out! It blends right in and when my garden is growing this spring, it will look great. The only problem is Jewl is small enough that she can fly over it. At least the others can't!

While our fence was going up, Papa re-built with a few modifications C's climbing tower. It's now more like a tree house since it sits under the trees. C & L spend every possible moment in it now. They LOVE it!

Glamping Thanksgiving

Every Thanksgiving we go camping somewhere. This year we went glamping. That's camping with full hook ups and no dirt. This year it was in Palm Springs. Here was where we stayed...

I've been to Palm Springs many times growing up, but never explored the area. I'm so glad we did, there is actually a lot to do there. On Thanksgiving, we took the Aerial Tramway up to the top where it is typically 40 degrees cooler then the bottom. That was pretty neat, there was some snow on the ground. If we had gone the next day, it we would have seen the snow coming down. Oh well, Friday worked out better for shopping in the rain.

It feels like you are going straight up the side of the mountain!

It made Mr. C a little nervous when we went over the rollers by the towers. It really got your stomach.

It is so close to Palm Springs, but so different. What a difference 6,000 feet in elevation makes! Dry desert at the bottom, cold, mountainy forest at the top.

L was dying to show off her sticks. She posed like this about 5 times before I actually took the picture.

I love bridges! I must take a picture at every bridge we cross!

And now to Thanksgiving evening. We always plan our trip and invite who ever wants to go. This year some family friends came and we had a big Thanksgiving dinner with them.

Look how cute! It was all decorated complete with a thankful table runner at one of the campsites.

The kids got to scooter between all the campsites while we waited for dinner.

They shared things they were thankful for like camping and colors.

And after dinner they got to watch a movie. Piled in a little trailer bed.

Saturday after some good Black Friday shopping at the outlets, we took a hike in Palm Springs. I had no idea there was such beautiful hiking in Palm Springs. It is a huge natural Palm grove with stream feed by natural springs.

It was absolutely amazing to see this beauty in the middle of the desert. It is on Indian land. Can you just imagine how it felt for the Indians to discover this in the middle of the desert?

As we hiked up from the canyon and around the mountain, this was the scenery. What an amazing difference in just a few steps. What an amazing creator we have!

2 completely different views from one point.

I am so glad we got to see some of the hidden beauties of Palm Springs. It was a very fun and relaxing weekend. Every afternoon we got to swim in the 89 degree pool and soak in the hot spa. Now, it's back to reality with the hustle and bustle of daily life, schedules and chores.