The latest with my chickens!

This is what a chicken in shock looks like!

Unfortunately my dog Abbey (a flat coat Retriever) shows no sign of accepting the chickens as part of the family.  Her instinct is too strong I guess.  The guy at Cal- Ranch assured me that the dogs even Retriever's will eventually get used to the chickens and leave them alone.  Well Abbey already killed one chicken awhile back and is diligently  always watching for an opportunity to get to the chickens. She does not want to eat them she just wants to hold them in her mouth and retrieve them, but then ends up mauling them to death. My poodle does not want to hurt them, but is curious about them.   

I let the chickens out of their pen a couple times a day to peck around the yard and look for bugs (Which they love to do!) and so we have to make sure Abbey is contained somewhere so someone does not accidentally open the back door without thinking and let her out while the chickens are free roaming.  

My kids took the dogs on a walk a couple of days ago and I thought it was a perfect time to let the chickens out since the dogs would be gone out of the house for a while.  When they got home Abbey was panting really hard and so with out thinking or remembering there chickens were outside I told the kids to let her out back to get a drink from her water bowl.  So I swear at least 5 min. passed and my 9 year old son happened to  notice a chicken fly through the air in front of the kitchen window and he asked me "Mom are the chickens out?"  You can imagine my panic as I ran outside fully expecting to find dead chickens all over the yard,  but luckily we had no deaths, but we had a hard time locating them all.  They were all hiding in different parts of the the yard and  this poor Chicken named "Cricket" had been a close target because there was dog slobber all over her and she was in shock for quite a while!  It was kind of fun though because she totally let us hold her and pet for quite a long time and they have not let us do that since they were little chicks.  She sat their with her eyes as wide as saucers and her beek open.  I am surprised she did not have a heart attack or something she was in such shock!  Anyway I have found it to be a true joy having chickens/hens. They have a lot more personality then I thought and in one more month and they should be old enough to start laying eggs!  I can't wait!

Latest Redo

Hey everyone! Yes, I'm still alive. I don't know why blogging has been so hard for me these past few months. I have several things I need to post, but for now I'm just going to post about the desk that my daughter and I just recently redid for her room.

She's been wanting a desk in her room for a while now and so the other day I got onto craigslist.com and found a desk for $30 that I thought would work. Her room has a lot of turquoise and aqua in it and the desk was already aqua so I thought we might be able to get away with just changing the drawer pulls. When we went to pick it up I realized that it was going to need a lot of work. I was going to leave and keep looking, but my daughter loved the desk and didn't want to leave without it. The lady threw in a free chair, so we piled the desk and the free chair into the van and home we came.



Here is the lovely desk in all its glory!



Here's another picture of the desk with my daughter, Hannah, taking the paint off the top. She really was a huge help and hung in there until almost the very end - about a day and a half!



This is a picture of the lovely free chair, which was actually very filthy and wouldn't even come clean with a magic eraser. We ended up repainting it, too.



And here's a picture of Hannah enjoying the finished product. She absolutely loves it! I love that she loves it and I also think it turned out great! My favorite part, though, was working on a project with my beautiful daughter. I hope we'll continue to do this over the years.



We did this repaint job the old fashioned way, by painting and sanding and painting and sanding and then waxing and buffing because the furniture comes out so much nicer that way, like Amish furniture.

I'll be posting some other things soon!!!

Recycle blue jeans into a purse!

A wonderfully talented lady in my Ward has the neatest purses she has made out jeans.  I have wanted to learn how to make one for myself for awhile now and she is going to teach our neighborhood craft group how to make them on Tues. My 14 year old daughter who has type 1 diabetes wanted a new purse to hold all her "Stuff" because the strap broke on her purse she has been using all year. She has to have a purse that can carry all her diabetes stuff, a juice or snack in case she get low blood sugar, i pod, camera, cell phone, lip gloss etc., but she does not want something to big or bulky, because she has to carry it with her all the time because of her diabetes.  So since funds are tight right now I decided to try my hand at making one yesterday out of an old pair of girls size 10 jeans I had in the D.I. box.  I found a tutorial on how to make it right here.  I did not follow the instructions exactly because I am a short cut crafter type, but it will do the job until I learn in more detail how to make one on Tues.  The strap is a little too long, but she likes to wear her purses across her body and wanted it longer. What I love about these purses is that there are pockets and spaces for everything!  My daughter is going to the Zoo today with a friend and was excited to use the purse :-)  If it meets her approval that says a lot! (she is kind of picky)

June Bug a boo book pick

This is one of my all time favorites!  It is the kind of book you can read every couple of years and you gain more understanding and get different stuff out of it everytime.  I love C.S. Lewis and his writing style! This book is fantasy, but also teaches lessons on how to look at ourselves and hopfully improve ourselves.  It is about how we make choices that divorce us from God.  It helps you understand that it is not just the big sins that will keep you from being with God it is the smaller things like pride, envy, having to be right, selfishness, focusing on worldly possessions etc. 
I first read this book 15 years ago when my husband had to read it for a class at BYU.  I saw it sitting there and was intriqued with the Title.  I started reading and could not put it down!  It is a smaller book so it does not take much of a time investment, but the spiritual investment is huge! So I hope you take the time to read
 " The Great Divorce".

Strawberry peg doll

I know you are probably getting sick of my peg dolls and I know I already posted something today, but last minute this afternoon I decided that i wanted to make a peg doll center piece for my daughters birthday cake.  She is turning 12 today and I can't believe she is becoming a young woman :-)  This peg doll is bigger than my others I have made. This one is 3 1/2 " a perfect size for a cake center piece!

I think the doll and the cake turned out fabulous!  I have made a cake like this before and wanted to again because it was such a hit last time.

Here's Rosie!

Here is my latest peg person Rosie!  I am making a garden series of peg dolls and now I have them at my etsy shop. The link is on the right side of this page.  I have one more to paint to complete my group of cute garden gals:-)