Cuter Puppy Bed

Pin It So this is a follow-up to my previous post (don't know what I'm talking about? Click here). My husband chose the fabric for the first one, and I chose the fabric for the second doggy bed... this one is more living room worthy! It has cuter (but cheaper - Walmart clearance!) fabric and has more fluff to it. Again, my puppy is a Weimaraner, so she'll get BIG, you may want to adjust the number of pillows depending on how big your puppy is.

Cute Doggy Bed Project: $46.5
6 Pillows: $24 - Again, I used old ones (so they smell like us) and put the new ones on our bed!
1 Shower Curtain: $7
2 Yards Main Fabric (Burlap): $5
1 Yard Trim Fabric (Yellow): $2.50
Zipper: $8
Duck Tape, Thread, Sewing Machine: Already Had

The first step was to make the same type of removable, waterproof interior using the shower curtains and pillows, but this time with six pillows. Again, see my previous post.

Then, measure the height, length, and width to cut 4 strips of fabric out of the trim. Next, measure the length and width of the main fabric and cut two identical pieces.

Pretty sophisticated measuring huh? Ha!

Sew together the yellow trim pieces at the corners. Then sew on the tops, again its a pretty simple pattern that I just winged. Add the zipper between the trim and top fabric and you're done! None of the pictures I took really show the process - check out my previous post if you need more of an idea, its a similar pattern. Here are the finished pictures!

I'm sure she'll grow into it!

Big belly!

Sooo sweet! Check out this GIANT paws!

Apparently the husband likes the dog beds too?

Front Yard

Pin It First of all I'd like to say my mom is a superstar... amazing... incredible.

She has come up to visit us (3 hour trip both ways!) the last two weekends to help us with our house. And by help, I mean really help and tell us what to do - we've never done this after all! But fist she prepared us an awesome and adorable picnic lunch.

Back to the yard... Yesterday she weed-wacked everything like a pro. This morning I woke up to her doing our very dirty dishes (thanks mama!). Then today, she masterminded, and did more than a fair share of the labor for this amazing feat (plus the backyard... which is to come later).

Yep, she is amazing... and this doesn't even show it all! And my amazing husband is a pretty great hard worker too, I think he took about 100 yards to the recycling center to haul all the yard waste... oh yea and he carried all the granite landscape rock! But can you see that stone edging... all me baby! (Even if that is pretty much all I did!)

Here is what we did, mixed in with several trips to the recycling center and the store:
1) Trimmed bushes
2) Raked around bushes
3) Pruned (lopped) off the unwanted bushes
4) Laid PREEN 25 year fabric over the ground to prevent weeds
5) Stapled in the PREEN
6) Relocated rocks to create a natural edger
7) Transplanted and watered some flowers (not in the picture) into the PREEN
8) Put 43 bags of pink granite over PREEN

And tomorrow we will go buy more... because we still aren't done, but the store was sold out of our color of stone! Steps 1-2 were last weekend and the rest we did this weekend.
I've got a hardworking husband and mom... maybe it has something to do with them sharing the same birthday? I swear they're the same... more on that strangeness later, ha!

Fancy and Shiny

Pin It Today was our first day here that we really did nothing on the apartment! Four of Zach's high school friends came to visit and I spent most of the day cooking. It really was a lot of fun and I know the guys had fun at the local waterpark - apparently they have slides and diving boards (emphasis added by the 22 year old men) ha! :) So today I'll post a picture of a project that was recently completed.

Two projects in one picture - more for your reading!

I  messed up by not taking a before picture. The only picture I have of the apartment was when I first saw it and took pictures on my phone to send to Zach - needless to say, they're poor quality! Anyway, if you look hard you can get an idea of what it looked like before (with the previous tenants' stuff).

As I mentioned before, we painted - so that definitely helps change it up. I really wanted to jazz up the accent wall, but didn't want to spend a ton of money on it (think wall decals, wallpaper, etc). I made a wall stamp from a wood block and foam, but that failed. So as a last ditch effort I tried to make a stencil. I went on Google images (strict filters on! lol) and searched for stencil patterns. I printed off one I liked, taped it onto a left over piece of contact paper, and cut it out with an exacto knife. Peeled it off, stuck it to the wall and painted. We really like it!

As you may have noticed, that light fixture is really painfully outdated! A light wood, white metal, gold chain, and frosted white shades just aren't our style. I picked up a can of spray paint (Zach painted!), ditched the shades and bought new light bulbs. I think Zach did a great job on it, but you can judge for yourself! (We still don't have pictures hung up, so forgive that... maybe by tomorrow!)

Pretty proud of our very low cost projects!

Stencil Cost:
Left over paint: basically free
Left over contact paper: basically free

Light Fixture Cost:
Spray Paint: $3.42
Light Bulbs: $2.12 for a pack of 6

Definitely fits a teacher's budget! :)