DIY Seasonal Barn Board Display

Nothing like having a little Pinterest Party with your girlfriend one evening and making a seasonal barn board display for outside.

Luckily I have an endless supply to barn boards over at the farm, so getting a rustic board was not a problem, we didn't need a 7 foot long board, so I had M cut one board in half.

Supplies Needed:

- barn board

- palm sander with sand paper

- black paint

- stencils (printed our own with paper)

- pencil or marker for tracing

- paint brushes

First we took the boards outside and gave them a quick sand with a palm sander, since they are real barn boards and were rather rough.

J printed out letters for us to cut out and then trace onto the boards

We just used a black acrylic craft paint and filled in the letters on the board we traced out.

We decided to freehand some Halloween art - which if I'm being honest, I blew my spider web and hate it, but it will do for now until I figure out a way to fix it.

here is my finished board:

and both of our boards finished:

In December, we decided we would do the other side of our boards for Christmas!!

This side of my board was definitely rougher, but still not to bad to work with!

We bought Santa hats from the dollar store to help dress them up a bit

I really like the way this side of the board turned out at least! It does suck that I couldn't get a picture of the board dry, as we had gotten a lot of rain, but you get the idea! I don't have a picture of J's board.

Overall the project was pretty easy, fun and didn't require a lot of time. I think we had each side done within 2 hours!

{ Weekend Rewind }

This past weekend was super busy, just as I expect every weekend coming up through December to be!! But it was fun none the less!

Friday night I went over to J's to get our Christmas boards done. I have yet to post about our Halloween boards, but now that our Christmas ones are done too (on the same board just back and front), I should probably get that post ready!! Here is a sneak peek of my board. I will hopefully get the planter ready outside and snap a pic soon as well!!

 

Saturday morning Noah stuck to the trend of waking up around 6:30 AM... not my thing... and luckily Daddy was home to deal this weekend! Although I ended up being awake the whole time, I rested in bed as long as I could until M had to go to work for a few hours to survey! So in the mean time Noah and  I got some laundry done, Noah had a quick morning nap and I showered during that time. We had to run onto town to drop off my Christmas Swap gift to my sister, so my partner (Anna) could pick it up from her place (yay for close swap partners to save on shipping)

 

When M got home just after lunch, he put Noah down for a nap and I got my Christmas baking done for the village moms cookie swap. 7.25 dozen cookies made, I only needed 5.5 for the swap, so I did make some extra, but I think I will make maybe 2 more batches of freezer dough! I ended up over buying on my supplies, not realizing that 3 batches made that many!

 

Noah had a monster nap, which honestly, he really needs! This poor kid is behind on sleep and I am not sure if its the new bedroom transition or teething causing the problem, but he is just not sleeping the same! So when he woke up from nap time we let him try his very first homemade cookie! He wasn't too sure, but was super excited and ended up devouring it! Look at his little smile:

 

Saturday night M and I had the fireman's Christmas party, so M's parents came over to babysit and took Noah out for dinner while we got ready! 

 Noah enjoyed his night with Grandma and Grandpa and even went to bed like a champ!! We enjoyed our little night out and were constantly joking about the last time I was pregnant and going to this party, we didn't make it because I fractured my ankle and ended up in the ER. Yes, I am being overly cautious now with this pregnancy and praying my bones hold up this time!

Sunday morning Noah was up at 6:40 again. I managed a real sleep in until 9 AM and felt great! Today was the day we Christmasified the house! So we brought up the tree and bins and this little guy was already getting excited!

 

We had to change the room around, so that took some time, but we managed to get the tree up before nap time and we even enjoyed a little buffet lunch, which Noah surprised us with doing so well with!

We decorated the house with the decor while Noah was napping, put up the train track system on the tree and I got the garland on the tree.

 

Noah had to measure the tree apparently!

 

I will say seeing Gracie laying by the tree made me miss Lily like crazy. I ended up in tears before I knew it remembering just how much Lily enjoyed Christmas - it was her favorite holiday!! 

 

Noah only napped for an hour and then we decided we would head into town, we had some shingles to return and a few gifts to pick up! We are soo close to being done Christmas shopping, with just a few people left on our list to buy for!

We decided to pick up pizza for dinner and invited M's parents over to help decorate the tree! Noah wasn't too interested in putting ornaments on, and really just wanted the train to keep going around! Train obsessed!!

The finished product:

 

Today I am happy to report Noah slept in until 7:45, which is soo much better for this mama!! We are just about to head off to play group and hopefully have a nice low-key day!! 

Halloween Crafting and Luke Bryan

On Thursday I finally sucked up my clean mom act and let things get a bit messy! Noah's first painting activity and it didn't disappoint! He was soo excited to give it a go!! First I did his feet so I could get this craft finally completed! I have his feet from last year that I never ended up finishing the craft.

 

He started off with brushes and it wasn't long before he was hands in!! Look at that smirk!

 

Giving the brushes another go.. backwards...

 

 

He decided he would clap his painted hands, spraying paint all over his face!

 

 

The mess was surprisingly not that bad, he went straight into the tub and enjoyed a freshly baked muffin right after.

 

After dinner it was time to carve up those pumpkins. We thought Noah was going to be hands on with this task too, but we were very wrong!

 

 

This was as hands on as he got!

 

 

He was rather disgusted with the process!!! When we asked him if he wanted to help, his hands went behind his back quickly!

 

 

Turns out the apple didn't fall far from the tree, because I hate that job too! Daddy was on his own haha!

 

His painted pumpkin wasn't dry yet.

 

 

Friday was the Luke Bryan concert in Detroit. So we left at 9:30 AM and started the 2.5 hour trek west.

 

 

While we were in the US, I managed to pick up Noah's comforter from the PO Box too! I love it!! We managed to get lost a few times, but made it right where we needed to be!! Our seats were amazing!

 

We saw Dustin Lynch, Randy Houser, Dierks Bentley and of course the main man Luke Bryan!  The pics can do the talking:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crazy to think we started this tour out with him in Hamilton and finished it with him in Detroit, as this was his last stop on the tour. Yet the show was different. Of course Drink A Beer had this emotional mama in tears.

 

We made it back to my Dad's girlfriends in Windsor to stay the night. This baby was going nuts during the concert and after!

 

 

Menu planning is just not happening this week...

Thursday Things

Ok, so clearly I've been slacking on the blog front and I am sorry. I knew December would be busy, but not this busy...Today is our first day home!  Here is what we have been up to:

Monday we had play group. Noah was super clingy all day, but we decided to try something new and sure enough Noah decided to try his hand at walking with the help of a handy toy of course! If I could figure out how to upload the video then we would have a video to watch... But I don't know how, so you can check my Instagram. I was soo nervous for him to fall and wipe out that his head is not even in the video. 

Tuesday we went to visit Daddy at work in the field to see the new machine. Noah sure was in heaven:

I will share some more pics after Christmas on this one!! 

After visiting Daddy we went to see Aunt Amy, had some lunch and while Noah snoozed, I decided to help my sister out and took on an order for her!! She has been super busy with her shop with the Christmas rush! I haven't beaded in years, like 15+ years. But it came right back to me! 

When we got home a certain little miss needed a snuggle!! 

Noah had a great day and couldn't wait to share all his stories!! 

Yesterday we had Grandma come over to babysit while I hit up a book sale with S! We made out pretty well!! I dropped S off and ran to Winners and believe it or not I left empty-handed!! Carters was up next because I realized we had very few 12 month sleepers! They had a BOGO 50% off sale, so I managed to get 6 more sleepers! In the afternoon I hit up a craft sale and made out well there too! 

Noah played with his new walking toy from Aunt Amy and in case you don't believe how much he loves it, here is the proof: 

Huge smiles around these parts!! 

I finished the necklace for my sister last night and started back up crocheting Noah's blanket. You may recall I was just about finished when I ended up having Noah early. So my goal is to have it finished for Christmas. His love for blankets is just like mine and he really likes my knit one from my Grandma, so I'm sure he will love this one! Then I can get started on my making my own!! 

Today is a crazy snow day, so we are staying home!! We have a busy weekend ahead, including family pics!!