Monday, May 21, 2012

Belle

 I went a  little picture crazy this weekend.
Belle is our beautiful Blue Heeler/Australian Shepard mix puppy.
She's almost 2 months old and so adorable,  I just couldn't stop taking picture of her.
  Here are the one's that I could get her to hold still.
  (Oh, and a HILARIOUS video of Josh and Belle playing!)






















I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves, don't you?

I don't know about you guys, but the noises she makes is about the funniest thing I've ever heard!
I laughed for hours!  It was hard to keep the camera straight from laughing!
She's such a silly girl!



Thursday, May 17, 2012

New Saddle



We got a new saddle for the boys!  We did have the vet come out and look at Athena, they said that her wounds are looking good and they should mend up okay, we still have to wait and see if she'll be able to ride.  I took some pretty neat pictures of the Farm too, thought you would like to see!  We're also trying to think of what to name the Farm.  Any ideas?  I'd like to put a nice ranch sign over the driveway on both sides.

That will be one of the DIY projects that I'll be putting up:
How to Make a Sign for your Home.
Send us some ideas on what you think would be a good name, if we choose your name, I'll make a sign for your home!



 The boys new training saddle.



 Pictures of the Farm!
http://icons.mysitemyway.com/wp-content/gallery/glossy-waxed-wood-icons-arrows/008397-glossy-waxed-wood-icon-arrows-hand-clear-pointer-down.png









Here is a video of Twist and Frankie playing in the pasture.

 

Enjoy!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Mother's Day Ideas



Mother's Day is Coming Up!

I've been trying to think of some ideas to do for Mother's Day other than the traditional flowers.

Here are some FREE ideas that I have done in the past: 

  • Breakfast in Bed - If you have some eggs and potatoes you can do scrambled eggs and home made hash browns!  Just cut the potatoes into cubes and throw a little popcorn seasoning on it! (That's a secret trick that tastes amazing!)

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Vinyl Decorating - DIY Lettering and Wall Decorations.

 I have finally gotten around to doing the little projects that I like to do. 

How to make Decorative Lettering from Vinyl.

 Here is what you will need:
  • Contact Paper (Vinyl for Kitchen drawers)
  • Scissors and/or Utility Knife
  • Tape
  • Drawing Paper
  • Pencil
  • Fine tip pen
  • Card (Id card or Drivers License)
  • Cardboard (or hard surface for cutting)
  • Time and Patience 
  • Lazy cat (Optional)

First you want to start by drawing up what you plan to put on the wall.  Be creative!  If you have it available use a drawing program on your computer and print off the letters/pictures to the size that you desire.


 I did all of it by hand, but to make it easier you can just print off each letter from your computer.


 She always sleeps on everything that I'm trying to work on.


 Here is the Contact paper that I use.  I got it for only 3$ off of Amazon!  
You can find it at almost any arts and crafts store.


Roll out the Contact paper and tape it down to the floor.  Lay your paper with the design on top and cut the end of the Contact paper where the paper with your design stops.  This will make it a little easier to work with.


 Start tracing the outline of the design with a fine tip pen. 
The pressure from the pen will show up on the vinyl. (See below)



 





 Sassy kept trying to get my attention so she sat on my project.

Next cut the letters out individually, you can leave it all together if you want, if you separate the letters it makes it easier to position on the wall and peel off the backing.


 Next put each letter on the card board and tape it down if your going to be using the utility knife.  
(I had to do this because I lost my scissors in the move, so they're packed in a box somewhere.)
Otherwise, start cutting around the edges with your scissors.
  You'll still need the utility knife if your going to be cutting out smaller pieces (for example the center of the A) it makes it easier instead of trying to squeeze your scissors in there and tearing up the vinyl.
 You don't want to press down too hard, just enough to cut the top layer.  Leaving the backing on makes it easier to pull off with smaller/thinner pieces.


Tape down the design and place in the position that you like.
Get ready for the tough part!


Here I cut too deep on the vinyl so it took the whole thing up when I was trying to separate the lettering from the backing.  That's okay though!

You'll want to start in the middle because it helps to keep it from stretching (which cause misshaping and bubbles).  You'll take your card and smooth it down don't push to hard!  You can tear it and stretch the vinyl out. Work your way from the center out too, this will help push the bubbles out.


 Keep the tape and scissor handy.  When your working with small/thin pieces they like to stick to themselves and then you get a big mess and start tearing things.  I found that this make it a little easier.

 

Just cut if you need to get the excess out of the way and pin it back with tape.  
Don't be afraid to do piecing to.  If you look above you can see part of the design it cut off, 
 I did that to make the design a little small and easier to work with. 


 Sassy got tired of waiting for me to pet her.  I had to show you this I laughed about this for awhile!


 I haven't gotten the "Together" part done yet, but here is what I do have finished.
I really liked the designs on the G and the R, what do you think?




What I love about doing the Vinyl Lettering is that it doesn't peel off the paint, it's permanent until you want to take it down, when you take it down it just peels off!  It would be great for like an apartment place that you can't paint the walls or if your like me and change your mind a lot. ;)


 Please share any designs that do and show us!  I'd love to see!  Let me know how it works out for you if you decide to try doing the Vinyl Lettering too!















Thursday, May 3, 2012

The Barn

I haven't taken any pictures of the house yet... we've been so busy we haven't finished cleaning the house.
  I did get some pictures of the barn though! 


We cleaned the other stall.  Looking good, right?



 Athena munching on some hay before she gets transferred to her new clean stall.



 Belle playing in the straw,  I tried to get a picture of her jumping around on top of the bales but she's too quick for me now!



Athena, if you look you can see the leg we had to wrap up.


She was actually putting some weight on it last night, still hurting her a little bit but she's already made a huge improvement.  We're still keeping a close eye on it and gave her a tetanus and penicillin shot last night just to make sure that it doesn't get any worse. 

I am so proud of her!  She has gotten comfortable enough to let us halter her, put a lead rope on, stand still and listen to commands.  She still has a little trouble with walking with us but it's better than not even wanting to get near us!


Side note:  The gunshot wound on her other leg is officially all closed up!  It still has a little healing to do but it's a lot better then when we brought her home.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Athena


This post is a little update to the progress of Athena.

She came home with us on Friday and we had her corralled in with the two boys for the first night.  Saturday we decided, to work with her it would be easier to separate her so she would be less prone to infection and we could keep a better eye on her behavior.  We moved her to the small coral closest to the house and had Frankie and Twist in the center coral. We had Buck in the pastures (we have two and kept them open between)

Saturday we cleaned up her wound and walked her and the boys for a little while on a lead and then decided to move Buck in with the boys to get them associated.  Buck was in the very back of the acreage so it took us a couple hours to get him walked back up to the corals. (It was lightly raining and he has a bad hip so he was in a little bit of pain.) 


Once we put Buck in with the boys we noticed him running around with them.. or so we thought.  It turns out he was trying to show that he was the "King" and was not being so nice.  We figured out too that it was because she was looking for a "boyfriend" and he thought he'd be the perfect guy.. (Okay old man! haha even though your 15 years older and have a bad hip!)  Eventually we had to move him off by himself to get him calm after he wanted to show Josh how bad he was and charge at him.

Anyway, during that whole fiasco of Buck being a booger, Athena had gotten upset when we were moving him and decided she wanted to show that she wanted to be near her boyfriend and kick the fence.  Well, we didn't know that she had kicked the fence until last night when we went out to treat her gun shot wound, which is doing splendidly! 

We noticed she was favoring her back leg, when we looked at her leg we didn't see anything was wrong and was thinking she may have sprained it.  Well... this morning Josh went out to feed and treat her and feed the boys and he noticed that there was a clean cut right above her hoof.  We're not too sure why she would be favoring it now instead of after it had happened, but we sprayed some of that AWESOME Vetericyn (yes we went to the store right after work last night to get some!) on the cut to keep it clean and from getting infected.




Besides being the sweet, shy, beautiful little lady that she is that's all the news on our rescued girl.  You'll have to say posted to find out what happens.  Will she calm down?  Will she even let a saddle on her?  Or will she just be a cute "lawn mower"? (Which is okay if that's what she needs)


**UPDATE**

 The new wound on her leg is a little worse than what we initially thought, she had kicked the fence but she had also kicked her lean-to (picture below). The Josh's got her cleaned up and bandaged.  We're going to be giving her penicillin for a while and have to keep her leg wrapped, but after it was cleaned and wrapped she didn't favor it NEAR as much.  We cleaned and prepared a stall in the barn for her to stay for a little while and turned the radio on low for her to get used to voices.  She was pretty content and pretty sleepy too when we put her in the barn. (Long day and hurting can make anybody tired!)




Here is Athena getting her new wounds cleaned.  She did SO good!
She even relaxed enough that she was grazing on the grass!




Such a pretty girl!




She kicked a pretty good hole.  Josh and I decided last night that we're just going to tear this lean-to down a rebuild a newer/safer one.




I'd like to note the Website that has some good information too. 
WikiHow's 'How to Gain the Trust of an Abused Horse'



I also want to note a very informative and useful Blog:


Lots of really good information!!