May Madness

Things are getting a little crazy in the Presley house now that summer has pretty much arrived and I was hoping to be picking up the pace with some of my bigger projects and blogging more, but my toddler is preventing that by siphoning all my energy and draining my patience.

Anyways, let me jump off my crazy mom-of-a-toddler train. I have been trying to work on some projects this month and try out some new stuff I found on Pinterest. But I only really got two things done. But I did get some new ideas for projects I want to work on (see more on that at the very bottom of this post!)

 French braid up the back with a sock bun topknot

This is actually pretty easy if you know how to french braid. I like it better than regular french braids because my arms don't get as tired when I am braiding with my head upside down. I think this may be a go-to this summer for my 2nd-day unwashed hair. The sock bun was super easy too. There are a million tutorials online for this. 

Leopard Dresser

I am in the process of transitioning baby A's room from cutesy baby room to a room more fit for the chic, diva almost-preschooler that she is. I finished this painting part, now I am just waiting on the awesome drawer pulls. I am working on a post about the room re-do, which should be up soon!

.............................................................................

I haven't done much else in the project department, but I have decided that I might change around the log side table I did a few weeks back. We had originally decided to leave it natural and plain, just coating it with a protective water proof sealant, but we don't really like the raw nature as much as we thought. I saw this stump stool idea on pinterest and I would really like to make that (or a set, I have more logs!) I also saw this idea too which would give it a colorful update, but still keep it natural without feeling like we have a tree in our room. I have also considered making both of these since we have several log pieces I could work with.

via Pinterest

via Martha Stewart

So I decided to take a poll! 

Stool or Side Table?
	Stump stool all the way!
	Stick with the side table!
	Make both of them!
pollcode.com free polls

Spring Projects

I have been terribly busy with spring softball (dear husband plays Monday thru Thursday) and bad attempts at potty training.  But I am back, and I have been doing a little bit of crafting and such.

Here are some projects/ideas I have been working on or done since I've been on hiatus.

Hot Dog!

I made Addilyn octopus hot dogs..which turned out to be an epic failure. There must be some trick that I am missing, because the octopi did not have cute little legs that stuck out, they either broke off or stuck straight down. I won't even put a picture of what mine looked like, in order to hide some of my shame at failing at a seemingly simple task.

Glitter Key
I made a sparkle key! Which turned out infinitely better than the octopus challenge, so I will show you a picture of that! It was a key that had  Pepé Le Pew, one of my favorite cartoon characters as a child and he probably sparked my Francophilia, but he was scratched and chipped so I just painted over him with purple nail polish, sprinkled some multi-glitter while the polish was wet and sprayed it with some acrylic sealant I had from another project. I love this key and I am thinking about doing all my keys like this so that my key chain looks like a giant glitter bomb.

 

Glitter Key!

Painting Spring!
I have been inspired by all the adorable spring Lilly prints I see popping up on facebook and pinterest and I decided to pull out paint brush and do some spring canvases just for fun. I did 5 mini canvases inspired by flowers and largely inspired by Lilly and then on a 16 x 20 I did a sweet chevron pattern in colors that match the nautical theme that is my master bedroom. The chevron has a big blank box in the center because I have not decided the best way to add beach sand to the monogram letters that will be painted in the center. I am going to do some test runs on some small canvases before I try and sand texture my chevron print canvas.

It's shiny because the paint is a little wet and the center white box is uneven, but it dried with a nice matte finish and I evened out the center box lines.

Log Side Table!

I have completed the log side table! Dustin wanted to keep it natural so I just softened up some the rough spots and coated it a clear, waterproof protective varnish. It looks awesome, (actually it just looks like a clean, shiny part of a tree trunk) and Dustin loves it, but I think it needs some legs, so I am gonna figure something out, and maybe add some thin, random paint stripes in the style of antler art to make it mesh a little better with our nautically natural room.

Being Adventurous!

Sunday morning, as soon as I rolled over and woke up, the first thing I said to D (who was still half asleep) was "Hey, let's go to the beach or something today." He was stunned ( If you know me, you know that I am far from spontaneous when it comes to life. My brain functions on a timeline/itinerary type interface. If something on my daily mental itinerary is altered or changed on short notice, I have to completely rewire and mentally re-plan my timeline for the day, subsequently leaving me stressed and annoyed at the person or thing that changed my plan... control issues much? ) and half way mumbled something.

Then, baby A wandered into our room and we asked her what she wanted to do. She of course said the zoo, but we went to Wild Adventures the day before so we decided not to repeat that again so soon.

Dustin had the great  idea of going on a hike at Stephen Foster Park (in Hamilton County, FL).

I am from the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina so there were always hiking places and state parks close and available. Heck, you could walk around my back yard and neighborhood and it could probably count as hiking.

Down here in the flat lands of South Georgia, hiking is not really interesting ( not interesting if you had been spoiled by the Appalachian Mountains as your backyard growing up) or as big of a tourist draw as I was used to. So we had to drive a little over an hour to get to a state park with hiking and stuff. The drive wasn't bad, but we took our adventurous streak a step further and did it sans GPS. Dustin had a general knowledge of the roads and where it was so it turned out fine, only a couple of u-turns.


We got there around 11am after a quick hiking snack food stock up stop. With our hiking gear, backpacks and puppy dog in tow, we headed out on an 8 mile loop. (ha! with a toddler and a puppy..like we would get 8 miles)

Addy was such a trooper, she hiked all by herself and never asked to be carried, she only wiped out about a 10 or 12 times, and each time, she quickly responded with a laugh or an "I'm okay", even when she fell up hill into a tree. She loved seeing all the caterpillars and lizards and hearing the birds, she wasn't even scared of the snake we saw!


 We were finally getting into the thick of the flat woods when we realized we were in the thick of woods in the thick of tick season. We were having to pull ticks off every couple minutes and with a dog and small child we knew we needed to get out there soon, we took an exit path and ended up in the craft square.


Addy got to use a loom with some guidance (which she was absolutely fascinated by...I see a crafting buddy in my near future! )  and we watched a potter at work and some other crafters.

Addy said to each crafter: "that is so neat, how you do that?"  They were all so excited to have someone so interested in what they did and they explained things on her level and they were just amazing. She never meets a stranger!

 We rounded out our trip with ice cream, a trip to the gift shop and some time on the play ground.  And even Ace buddy (our 1 year old Chocolate lab) enjoyed the slides with Addy.



We ended up hiking about 3ish miles total, and my baby A hiked the first mile and half without being carried at all! (she was only carried for time's sake, we had a snail's pace)



According to D, I didn't even complain very  much and was very "go-with-the-flow" the whole day. And it actually felt pretty nice not to have every last detail planned.



Going on a quick hike in flat land on a weekend doesn't sound too adventurous. But I hate the woods, bugs, snakes, and spontaneous changes in the course of my day or plans so this was a big adventure for our little family.