JOY..A Yard Ornament...(Part 1)

About 3 years ago I saw a yard sign that I fell in love with.

I have wanted it ever since and found out my daughter-in-law and daughter wanted one as well......so

 I went on internet and found the pattern for it and was off on a mission to make 3 sets.

Sara (daughter-in-law) was in charge of tracing the patterns off for the guys to cut.

She might have had a little too much help....Jag was helping hold the pattern down.

 After the pattern was traced it was then moved to the "cutting" department.

This was my son and husbands department and I must say they did a great job.

I'm not sure they would wanted this as much as the girls did, but they were good sports about helping us with them.

More on this project coming soon to a blog near you,

Thanks for visiting my Joyful part of the country,

Jana

Christmas Stockings

 I have always been told that I see things different than most people....good or bad.

When I saw this house falling down I first thought it looked like a great photo and then....

I saw Christmas stockings.

I got my husband to go out and get some boards from the house.

 Then I got a pattern from the internet and he cut me out some stockings.

 I had some ribbon and first made some bows out of, and tied with wire.

 Then took some greenery with pinecone (this is actually one bunch that I took apart).

 Rustic...it works with us.  A Rusty snowflake and bell.

 Tied them all together, the bow, greenery, snowflake and bell.

Then just stapled them onto the stocking.

I'm going to hang them outside for Christmas.

They are rustic and fit our house perfect for the holidays.

Thanks for visiting our part of the country,

Jana

My Pumpkin Patch

I haven't carved pumpkins in a few years, but still love my pumpkins, I just paint them instead.
Many years ago I painted this set of pumpkins, brick fences and blackbirds

Let me introduce them...well the pumpkins at least.  

 This one is a girl with her umbrella and fan.

This is the smart one of the group.

 My farmer with his pitchfork....not too happy, it must have been a bad year farmin'.

My baseball player with his bat.

 There is always one joker in the group.  Don't ya love those curls? 

 This one loves to eat....not pumpkin but popcorn.

The school boy with his backpack.

and what pumpkin patch would be complete without a cowboy and his rope,
and of course a mustache.

Happy Halloween!!

Thanks for visiting my part of the country, 

Jana

I'm a copy cat...

 I love pinterest.  I might  am be addicted to it. 

 How simple is this?  

If only I could think of this on my own....

Simple and yet I love it. 

Thanks for visiting my part of the country,

Jana

Fall decorations...

 I love to decorate for holidays....I always have.

 This is Frankie...I painted him and all his friends.
Isn't he a cutie?

 My "mummy".  I also painted him once upon a time.

 This is a scarecrow I have had for years, no I didn't make him.....

it requires sewing and I don't sew........if a glue stick won't fix it....forget it.

 My squirrels robbing the basket full of food.

 I have a lot of mums...this isn't even all of them.

 I don't normally like witches, but I like this one, 

maybe it's the green eyeshadow I gave her.

My halloween bowl, this took me forever to paint...I was so glad when I finished this.

 I painted this pumpkin that has a spider on his head....and 8 tiny tennis shoes..

but my favorite fall decorations just might be.....

 the pumpkins my kids painted.  This one was by Kayla.

Such talent, I know.

This one is by Kyler, I taught him everything he knows about painting.

A face only a Mom could love.

These get more precious with every year.

Thanks for visiting my scary part of the country,

Jana

Our Taj Mahal

 Well, we we made it thru our daughters wedding.....and even survived it.

 This was where we had our rehearsal dinner.  It may not be the Taj Mahal, but it was a really nice place to visit with family and friends......and a lot of love went into it.

 It took me about a couple of days to recuperate......I must be getting old, but we are somewhat back to normal now, well our kind of normal.

Thanks for visiting our Taj Mahal part of the world,

Jana

Getting Ready!!!

 We are getting ready for my daughters wedding and
she wants her rehearsal dinner to be in our barn.

 So to give a little bit of "atmosphere" we are hanging patio lights.

 She wants it to be casual.............no problem ................we are in a barn.

 She also wants family and friends to sit around and visit.

 Everyone in our family is helping us out.  

We have never strung lights in our barn before, so it is a little bit of trial and error.

 Yep, even the dogs are helping her out.

 We had to string wire first and then hang all the lights on the wire.

This isn't the type of place that everyone wants to have a dinner in, 

but for our family......

It's Great!!!

All the lights worked.....Yaaaaaaa
and at night it looks so much better than just our "shop" lights.

We are going to have around 85 people here for dinner,

 it is getting close, and we have more to do.

I will try and show pictures at night when we have it all decorated.

Thanks for visiting my part of the country,

Jana

Stained Walls

 The first time I saw a wall finished to look like this I knew I had to have it in my own home.  We are the rustic type and I thought it would be perfect for our house.

 This is a close up to show the texture on the wall.   The stain colors the entire wall, but stays in the textured part even more, making it show up so much more.   

 This is what the wall looks like when it is just painted.   It is amazing how much staining makes the texture show up.   The second step is to take a stain and wipe it on the wall and then with soft rags wipe off as much of the stain as you like.  

 This is the largest wall we did in our house.  It took my husband over five hours to stain this wall, and lots and lots of rubbing.  It is important not to stain too big of an area at one time, because it is hard to get it rubbed off before it dries.   Another hint, get hubby up for the high stuff.  

(Like the picture of Sheldon on the TV....love that show) 

 Here is our bedroom and I wanted it the lightest of any of our rooms.  

This just means wiping off most of the stain.

 Again a close up of the lighter stained wall.

 Believe it or not this is one of our walls that has no stain. 

 It is a very different look without the stain.  The texture is hard to see.

 This is our darkest room.  For this effect we just left on a lot more stain.  I didn't want all of the rooms to look identical, yet keep them all rustic.  

If you decide to give this a try get plenty of rags to wipe off the stain and lots and lots of time,

 well that is if your crazy enough to do your entire house as we did.

Thanks for visiting my stained up walls in my part of the country

Jana