Welcome the the Woods Wednesday Link Party ~ 1

So here's what I've been talking about on the blog

The Incomparable Señor Hotness...the world's most awesome girl dad!

Also this super cute Beehive Sign!

Now on to the party!

You Know You're a Girl Dad When...

Not every dad is cut out to be a girl dad.  It takes a special guy to be the lone source of testosterone in a sea of estrogen.  So I thought I would compile things that might clue you in to whether a guy is a dad to just ladies.

Just a heads up.  Little girls are all about accessorizing, and Daddy is not immune.

Ladies and Gents, this is what I call the money shot.

Sometimes girl dad's are accessorized so much and so often that they don't even realize that they've been wearing a pipe cleaner tiara for the better part of an hour.

Sorry for the blurry picture, but girl dad's are accustomed to not only sitting under a pile of girls but also all of their trappings.

A girl dad has to get in exercise when he can...even if that means he had to go in his overalls...to play basketball.

A girl dad has grace under pressure (a.k.a. he can continue to strike a pose for the camera even when there is a meltdown times three happening on his lap).

A girl dad knows that when help presents itself in the form of a pantless 3 year old...you take what you can get.

A girl dad knows better than to say no to kisses.

A girl dad quickly learns that he is the most comfy couch/mattress/seat around.

A girl dad is great at holding small hands.

A girl dad is a crack shot...because he has to be.  Watch out boys.  This dad means business!

A girl dad is the best to ride carnival rides with.

Careful guys, if your friend is a dad to a small female horde he will often allow you to also be treated as a girl dad too.

Summer walks often start out fun, but end with a girl dad making the trip home pack mule style.

A girl dad's assistant can sometimes take the form of an adorable two year old with a summertime aversion to clothes.

A girl dad will submit to having a fake mustache drawn on if it makes his ladies happy.

A girl dad usually has at least one girl with him...even when doing something manly like buying lumber.

If a girl dad is presented with the opportunity to combine two of his favorites he will.  In this case it is guns, and his awesome ladies.

No matter how busy he might be a girl dad will submit to cuddles at any time.

Even a girl dad has to participate if his ladies have decreed that it is "wear a headband" day.

A ride on Daddy's back is better than any horse ride...ever.

If a girl dad crafts it is probably going to involve guns, and how to conceal them.

A girl dad with so many awesome girls has every reason to smile big.

A girl mom has to quickly learn that there is no greater danger than trying to come between a girl and her daddy.

Little girls always want to be like their dad.  Even when that means they have big shoes to fill.

A girl dad will submit to having to wear a floppy straw hat if...

it makes a girl smile with this much happiness.

At the end of they day you know you could be girl dad if your teenage desire to be the ultimate ladies man has been realized now that you are the father of a small female horde.

Thank you Señor Hotness for being the most wonderfully awesometastically coolest daddy our ladies could ever hope to have.

linked up at: savvysouthernstyle.net, jannolson.blogspot.com, www.shakentogetherlife.com

A Fabulous Night for a New Beginning

I am lucky enough to work with the youth at church.  I love it.  It is one of the coolest things that I've ever done at church.  That being said every year we hold an event called New Beginnings where we welcome in all the lovely young ladies turning 12, and coming into the program.  Our newbies are referred to as Beehives.  So because I'm always looking for a reason to craft.  I thought this would be the best excuse ever to make something special for our new ladies.

First I started out with 2 wooden plaques that I snagged at Hobby Lobby for $2.99 each, and as always I seem incapable of getting a clear before picture.  I'm also apparently unable to get a picture that doesn't in someway showcase my foot, and/or the fact that I was wearing pajama pants far too long that day.

After lightly sanding all the sharp edges I painted the edge with some acrylic paint (the color was vanilla cream) I had on hand.  Normally I would have then antiqued it with some glaze, but I held back because I don't think of shabby chic when I think of a 12 year old.

While those dried I then started looking at colors/paper patterns.  I had bought the plaques with the intention of painting them, and then using my DIY decoupage glue for the beehive and the bees.  However, I found the blue papers in my really big awesome book of rarely used craft paper, and decided to use them to make this a full on decoupage project.  I texted this out to my peeps, aka my fabulous sisters, (What up Tracie, Melissa, and Bethany).  My sisters are crazy super awesome, and have no problem being brutally honest when asked.  Sometimes every DIYer needs a little hand holding, and a little tough love.  Anyway, I was leaning toward the color combo on the right, and the sisters agreed.  

Ah, there's the foot and pjs again.  Oh well, sometimes when inspiration hits, getting dressed for the day doesn't really seem like a pressing matter anymore.  To save on dry time I used spray adhesive on the paper to adhere it to the wooden plaque in lieu of the decoupage glue all together.  I really loved how it turned out.

Why yes those are adorable snails on my jammies, but I digress.  Then it was time to place the beehive and bees on.  I also used spray adhesive for these, and the green paper.  I found the graphics for the bees and beehive at Graphics Fairy.  

After getting this far I was at a cross roads again.  So I went back to my sisters for more of that honesty that I love so much.

I needed input on whether I should use the Young Women's Motto, or...

If I should put beehive.  The sisters were in accord.  So beehive won out.  Here is where I wish I had time to either cut out all the letters, stencil the letters (which I stink at), or had a fancy printer that cuts them out for me (hint, hint Señor Hotness).  As it was I left a bit of white peeking around all the letters.  Hopefully the girls didn't mind.

But more opinions were still needed.  There was a weird blank spot.  So the sisters provided me with my much needed input once again.

I didn't want it to be too busy, but I really liked the flowers.  My fantastic sisters assured me that you couldn't have bees without flowers.  So then I got busy, and using the spray adhesive I added the finishing touches to the pieces.

So then I thought the only thing missing was something to protect it.  So I grabbed out my trusty polycrylic, and gave it all a good solid coat.  This made the paper start to bubble.  So pulled out my blow dryer, since it was cold and muggy the day I was doing this, to help with drying.  However, using the polycrylic made the the adhesive on the blue paper come loose.  So what I didn't was wait for it to completely dry, and the areas where the paper had loosened I used additional spray adhesive to re-adhere it.

The end product ended up looking super cute, and on the back I made a printout of the history behind why we call our super duper awesome newbies Beehive.

The total overall cost of the plaques came to $5 a piece, and they were super fun to make.  The night turned out awesome, and thanks to our older girls and their moms we were able to really pull off a fantastically fun night for all of our new ladies.

I thought I would throw in a few pictures of our lovely refreshments table for our event.  Our theme for the evening was "Diamonds in the Rough" with a black and white color scheme.

We found all of these decorations at the Dollar Tree.  Included the fake diamonds, and the black rock we used as our faux coal.  So for very little $$$ we were able to have a great impact, and have a lovely party to welcome our new young ladies into the program.

The moral of the story is, if you don't have a bunch of super awesome sisters...you need some, and that you don't need a large budget to have a large impact.

Linked up at: shakentogetherlife.com, www.thededicatedhouse.com, savvysouthernstyle.net, jannolson.blogspot.com

Sweet Dreaming

When we decided to move we decided that it would be a fantastic time to get new bedroom furniture. Our old bedroom suite was a mix and match of Ikea's finest.  Okay so really our bed frame was the only piece that could have been classified as Ikea's finest as it was actual solid wood, but our dresser was particle board junk covered in vinyl.  Our night stands were one of the first things I refinished.  They are still in great shape, but I was ready for a different look.

For a brief moment I though about buying brand new.  You know with us being in the middle of a move and what not.  I even made it so far as to walk into a furniture store.  I swear I broke out in hives at the thought of paying full price for a piece of furniture.  So after convincing Señor Hotness that I could handle a project mid-move I took to craigslist to find some goodness, and I came up empty handed.  That almost never happens.  Then by chance I decided to check out a super cool shop here in Ruston called Callie's Corner.  May I just say this place is the most awesometastic treasure shop EVER.  Anyway she just happened to have a king size bed that was needing some love.  Which just happens to be right up my alley.  The only problem was we picked up a desk for Señor Hotness at the same time.  Long story short we ended up sleeping on a mattress on the floor for about two weeks.

So we started out with it looking something like this.

I don't have a true before picture.  The back had two padded pieces, and as you can tell the side rails aren't original.  When we got it home Señor Hotness started giving everything the once over.  He decided that while the rails were probably okay he would feel better if they were sturdier.

It turned out that while the head board and foot board were both solid wood the furniture manufacturer decided to cut cost by using MDF for the side rails.  Super not cool.

The hubs didn't trust it so instead of salvaging any he decided to scrap the whole thing, and start fresh.  The only thing we reused were the metal pieces.

That's right ladies, my man knows how to use a chisel.  He got over the chisel action pretty quickly, and we are now proud owners of a router tool.

Then he both glued and screwed on the support piece.  He used red oak for this.  In short our bed is probably sturdy enough now to hold a herd of elephants, or you know our girl horde.

Our last bed frame was a black, and I was wanting something lighter so I opted to paint this white.

But first I would like to introduce you to what was for a time the very bane of my existence.  This sucker took me a half hour to remove.  No joke.  I'm not sure what kind of adhesive they used, but I'm pretty sure its military grade.

Then it was time for the painting to begin.  I used DIY chalk paint on this as I am still completely in love.

One layer on wasn't looking so good.  Its always about this stage that my girls start saying things like, "wow thats super ugly mom".  Its always good to know that I inspire such faith.

I thought it was cute that he labeled to boards so that he didn't screw the metal pieces on wrong.

Here it is how it looked two coats later.  Just in case you were curious this entire thing used an entire quart of paint.  I have never used even remotely that much paint before when refinishing a piece.

As you can see it was still streaky in spots, but as I've said before I generally don't sweat this to much as I feel like it adds a depth to the over all finish.

Glaze going on.  The color I use is called barrista, and I've been using this same quart sized can for three years.  I can officially say now that I have used over half.

I always find it a little silly that after slathering it on I wipe most of it off, but sometimes that is what you need.  I personally prefer this to still have a slightly sloppy look.

I always love to see the transformation.

As you can see after the glaze went on it looked like a lovely antiqued white, just how I wanted, instead of stark white.

Here is the section all finished.

Here it is finally all assembled, and in the house.  Sorry for the trashy pillows, but at this point I still didn't know where all the pillow cases were.

Here is my pillow-less picture.  The original plan was to recover the padded back on the bed, but then my cursed laziness reared its ugly head.  Honestly in the end with my crazy awesome bright and fun quilt I thought that another pattern introduced may be too busy.  So I opted to stay with the originally padded back (that was still in great condition) as it still complimented my antique white finish.

If you will recall my craigslist freebies from a while ago.  The table was a previous project that we used in our family room.  They seemed perfect as bedside accessories. The chair is totally retro, but crazy comfortable and actually gives the room the funky feeling I love coupled with the quilt.  While the table is short for the bed it is perfect for the chair where I have a place to sit to read, study, or surf the computer.  If I ever decided to lose the chair I would totally start looking for a small antique dresser to repurpose for a bedside table.

This my friends is the honesty shot.  In truth my bedside table is sporting a myriad of things (few of which belong on my night stand). I'm often do weird things like sort socks in the floor, and I still haven't found all of those pillow cases.

However misleading this picture might be sporting my sewing table as a night stand (we tossed that idea around a bit).  This bed has been girl approved, and as you can see it does comfortably hold a horde. It has also become a favorite place for our girl horde to watch a Friday night movie, and get some mom and dad snuggles.  

At the end of the day we have a crazy sturdy pretty piece that didn't give me heart failure over the cost.

Linked up at: missmustardseed.com