An anniversary present for my husband

Today is my 8th wedding anniversary. I can't believe it has been 8 years since I wore a really big poofy dress; was surrounded by friends and family; and married the man I had fallen for at first sight. This fall I will have known him 10 years and that too boggles the mind!

Well this year posed a bit of a problem for me anniversary wise. Elliot and I have never really exchanged anniversary gifts (or at least nothing too remarkably large). We've only gone out for dinner on our anniversary 3 of the last 8 years as well. In 2009, we had a candlelit dinner of mac and cheese because I had been laid off for crying out loud. So this year, when we are in the process of doing a big "pay off all our debt" project I certainly wasn't going to go out and buy something to give Elliot, but he wanted to make me dinner, so I had to think of something else. Didn't really feel like baking either as it's extra hot here which didn't put me in the mood for a cake or pie.

So what did I do? Well, I've been bugging my spouse for a few weeks...ever since we finished the swing set (back in mid June) that we need to finish the last wall so we can plant the pampas grass to hide the compost bin from being able to be seen from the street. (If you look at the picture closely you can see the topsoil piled up in the bags in the top of the picture. The pampas grass will go in the triangle of space to the right of this picture (on the other side of the fence to cover the big black compost bin (you can see one of the legs of the compost bin in the bottom right of the picture)).

So today, while my daughter was napping, I started and finished the wall. The first thing I had to do was remove the bricks we had originally put in along the side of the garden. I needed to make a raised garden, so those didn't need to be there. Also, I needed those to contain the side of the other garden (on the left of this picture). So those came out, then I dug out and leveled the ground around the right garden and started putting in the blocks.

I used some remnants of blocks we had pulled out of the ground from when we had removed the falling down shed as the back of the garden (as they are thinner and I didn't want to take up that much space). I was also one block short, so I have to go out and get that, but I placed all the other blocks, and the back ones, and emptied all the topsoil we had into the garden. So now the driveway is clean. After that I buried the bricks half way into the ground (which is good, since you can't open the gate forward with them out all the way) as they are on the rest of the garden and dusted off the path.

PS...it's too dry and hot currently to even think about moving/planting any pampas grass there right now, so it will remain empty until the fall probably when I can divide my large stash of pampas grass in back. That will significantly hide the composter and also will contain the pampas grass enough where it shouldn't take over the neighbor's yard or anything.

Done! Happy Anniversary Studmuffin! I look forward to many more years of projects with you!

Using up old Magnets

Hope you are all having a lovely Friday the 13th! I know I should be hiding under the covers or some such item to prevent disaster, but I had to craft something today because my daughter is an art protegee (as much as a two year old can be) and I must put it on the refrigerator.

How many times have you received some promotional magnet from a bank, restaurant, radio station,  insurance company, etc? You know the ones with contact info or a baseball schedule or something.

I had an overabundance of these at my house, but I kind of hate throwing them away since magnets are kind of expensive when you want to buy them. But, they aren't the most attractive item in the world and I prefer the front of my fridge to be fairly clean. I want only the most important info up there and I still want my fridge to be cute - so the important ones went on the side of the fridge where I could find them quickly and the rest go in a box in my craft drawer.

So, today I determined I needed additional magnets to keep my daughter's drawings up like any proud mama as well as attach the latest and greatest pictures to the refrigerator of cousins and such. I certainly didn't want to buy some, and also didn't want to use these as they aren't, well, cute. You know what that means? CRAFT PROJECT!

First I pulled out a few duplicate pictures that are adorable of my daughter from her first year (cause who doesn't want pictures of  their kids on a refrigerator). And some cute fortune cookies and found objects that I thought were interesting enough to be up there. Then I got out the magnets and mod podge. Then we were ready to roll!

First, I cut the magnets to size, put a thin coat of mod podge over the advertising, put down my new "art" and put a second thin coat of mod podge over the top AND EDGES of the magnet (I don't want them to peel up or get gross as they age).

Then I let them all dry and PRESTO! NEW custom magnets! And no injuries (though using scissors could have spelled disaster on this most superstitious of days). Easy and fast project...as well as bonus- practically free (especially if you already have Mod Podge laying around like me :) )