Wine Cork Project

Ok, so i know I'm not the only one who collects wine corks, and convinces myself that someday I'll do a craft with them...

Well five years after I started collecting them, I did actually do something with them! Like any good crafter does, I went on Pinterest and found a few cute ideas. I settled on wine cork fridge magnets. Easy and quick!

I had the materials to make them for almost 7 months before I actually made these bad boys. 

Here are all my supplies:

-wine corks

-magnet strip

-tacky glue

-scissors

-knife

-cutting board

First I sliced all of the corks in half. Make sure your knife is good and sharp so it cuts better.

I then measured the magnet strip on the back of each half cork and cut it. The magnet strip had adhesive on the back, but it was not sticky enough to keep it adhered. 

So instead I used tacky glue to keep the magnet on. I think in the future if I made these again I would use a hot glue gun. The tacky glue took too long to dry, and because the curve of the magnet, some if the edges curled up. 

All of the corks with their magnets...I then placed a stack of books on top to try and keep the magnets flush to the cork. It worked on about half of them. The others I'll have to go back and hot glue.

The finished product:

I think they turned out super cute! If I were to do it again, I would definitely use a hot glue gun from the beginning, and a stronger magnet strength. I got a level 3 and I'm pretty sure it won't be holding up a whole lot. That's ok though, they're still cute!

What wine cork projects have you guys done?

Photos from my phone

I know I'm not the only one who randomly will go through all of the photos  in their camera roll on their phone and reminisce about all the good times had over the past year. 

I was scrolling through these last night and was just laughing out loud at some of them, and thought it would be fun to share them with you all. I'm sure you've probably seen most of these at some point or another on my blog, but hey if I didn't remember the pictures, surely you guys won't remember some of them too. That's my hope anyways...

Calving shed from last March...love all the icicles!

Helping my hubby load grain. That was probably the first and last day I'll go with him for the entire day...he said I asked too many questions :)

A weekend trip to Billings for an FFA state officer 10 year reunion and the PBR rodeo. In the grand scheme of things, Baby Hackley was about 3 weeks old at the time :)

My handsome boys after their annual spring haircut!

My backyard fire pit...my favorite place to spend time in the summer...

Branding...

Ohhhh and the dancing cows!! How could we forget that?! I literally crack up laughing every time I see these pictures!

Miranda Lambert concert...only my 3rd time seeing her :)

My MIL's birthday present...patriotic pallet flag that I made!

My friend Chay and I at the Wolf Point Stampede rodeo.

Good friends wedding....don't mind the giant goblet of booze my friend Emily is holding...it's a sorority tradition :)

My garden!!

Back when I had a teeny tiny baby bump, and looked more bloated than pregnant. Pretty sure that shirt would fit about halfway down my stomach right now, ha ha.

So I just realized there are way too many pictures to share with you for one blog post! This is the first half of the year, so I'll save the second half for another day!

Happy Wednesday friends! I'm working from the comfort of my living room in sweatpants :) roads were crappy and my boss didn't want me driving on them, oh darn :)

Weekend Rundown

Oh boy friends, it sure is Monday! Woke up this morning and started getting ready. Let the cats in, let the dogs out. Not 10 minutes later, discover one of my cats has peed inside on the rug. Awesome. Clean that up. Finish getting ready, go outside and see that I forgot to put the trash in the bin last night and the neighbors dogs had come over and ripped it all to shreds, and it's now all over my yard. Happy Monday morning! I'm determined to not let my morning decide the rest of my day!

Despite the crappy morning, I had a great weekend! Started it out with Farmers Market. I had a bunch of dead corn stalks in my garden and decided to do something with them and sell them. I went and bought some cute ribbon and put about 10 stalks into a bunch. I sold about 5 of the bundles, with people asking to have them again next week!

The lady who always sells next to me had a bunch of pumpkins and gourds, so we made a little display. 

The rest ofSaturday I spent just hanging out around my in laws and my MIL showing me all of the baby stuff she got while shopping on her last work trip. This kid isn't even here yet, and is spoiled already!

Sunday I enjoyed a lazy morning in bed, which hasn't happened in awhile. The rest of the day was spent cleaning house, picking more beans from my garden and just getting stuff ready for the week. 

I bought more little gourds from the lady at Farmers Market, and decided to do up my dining room table for fall. I think it turned out cute!

I also spent some time in Patricks "office" with him. 

Only about 200 more acres as of today and they'll be done, so probably sometime tomorrow. It's such a good feeling having harvest done!

Hope you all had a fabulous weekend as well!

Saw It. Pinned It. Did It.

THIS PROJECT!!! I am SO excited about it! 

Ok, first things first. I am linking up with Steph and Katie for the weekly Saw It. Pinned It. Did It. There are always so many things I see on Pinterest that I want to do, and this is a great excuse to show them off!

One of my goals this year was to decorate my home with some of my photography from around the farm. Once I saw this original pin, I knew what I wanted to do:

First, I had to find an old window...which, was actually not that hard to do when you live on a farm that's been around for years and years, with lots of old buildings. I actually found one on accident, while getting something out of the old garage at my in-laws' house. I was looking for something and happened to glance in the very back behind some old wood. I found this old window frame from their house. I have no idea how old it is, but didn't care! It was perfect!

Some of the paint was chipped off, it was dirty and covered in dead bugs and cobwebs, so I cleaned it up a little bit. But not too much, because I think it adds to the charm :)

Next, I printed a bunch of my pictures that I've taken over the past couple of years, and laid them out how I wanted them in the frame. I used a mixture of fields, sunsets and machinery.

 

This step was very important: I took a picture, so I knew what order I wanted them to go in when I flipped the thing over, since I was going to apply the pictures behind the glass.

After I made sure all of the pictures matched up where I wanted them, I started in with the Mod Podge. I want to stress to put a VERY SMALL amount on there, or else the pictures will dry with funny bubbles in the front of them. This happened on several of my pictures. I would also recommend firmly pressing down evenly on the back of the picture from top to bottom-with the grain of the mod podge-so there are no air bubbles and everything is going the same direction. This will ensure you get all of the air bubbles out. (You could probably also just mod podge around the edge of the pictures and in the blank space, but I wanted the weathered effect in front of my pictures, so I put mod podge on the whole thing and then put my pictures down).

Let it dry, and then I sprayed a clear coat of spray paint on the back to seal everything really well.

And this is my final product! (Sorry for the glare behind it-it was a sunny day!)

It looks kind of funny in the pictures, but it looks a lot better in person, I promise! And I think with things like these, I don't want perfection-I want something a little more rustic looking! Overall I'm happy with it, and can't wait to hang it in our master bedroom!

Weekend Update + A Craft Project!

This weekend was great! I didn't end up doing anything Friday night-Patrick had to go out of town to get a new swather (something that cuts the hay) for the night, so I decided to stay home with the dogs.

Saturday morning got to sleep in, went and got my oil changed, and had breakfast with the in-laws and my brother at the best little diner a small town could ask for!

After that I lounged, napped, and got ready for the 2 hour drive to go see Miranda Lambert!

As always, she put on a GREAT concert! Since it was a smaller venue for her, she didn't play as long, and she didn't rock out like she normally does at her concerts. She played her guitar a lot more, which I also enjoyed. You just can't go wrong with her!

Sunday was kind of a housework, yard work sort of day. Got a bunch of stuff done around the house, then started on a fun craft project for my MIL's birthday, which is today! Everyone wish her a Happy Birthday!

I originally saw this craft project from Suzi @ Chores and Chandeliers' blog, and LOVED it. My MIL really likes patriotic decor, and I thought this would be a great gift to give her for her birthday. The woman is hard to shop for, but I know I can make something and she'll like it just as much!

Here is the original inspiration:

I started out with just a plain wood pallet. Around the farm, we seem to have plenty of them :) I think she painted hers on, but I just decided to go with spray paint, and enamel for the lettering and stars. P.S. I'm not sure why this picture came in upside down...it was straight when I downloaded it from my computer, but kept coming in all crazy when it came onto my blog. Sorry!

If you can read upside-down, you can see that the spray paints are all different. One was flat, one was glossy and they were all different types. But they all had the same finish when they dried so it didn't matter. In a small town, we don't have a lot of options, so I just chose the colors I liked.

It only took me about 2 hours from start to finish, and here's my final product!

It was super easy and fun to do!

And on one last random note, last night as I was watching North America on the Discovery Channel, my extremely anti-social cat jumped up on the coffee table and sat front and center for a good 20 minutes watching the TV with me. I've never seen him do that before in the two years we've owned him. He really liked the birds and the grizzly bears, and kept tilting his head back and forth. Weird cat.

How was your weekend?

Saw It. Pinned It. Did It.

Linking up with Steph and Katie today for:

 This project I found on Pinterest has probably been my most favorite that I've found on there to date!

Here is the original inspiration:

So to make it a little more personalized, I went out and took pictures of things around our farm to get the letters. Then I went shopping at good ol' Hobby Lobby, and got my list of supplies:

• Rustic picture frame
• Burlap for the background
• Paper for the background
• Mod Podge for the pictures

I cut the pictures down to the size I wanted them, glued them to the paper, then cut the paper so it would fit into the frame. Then I mod podged the paper to the burlap, and set it inside the frame. And VOILA! Done! Here is my final product:

      
 It spells out our last name, Hackley, if you couldn't tell :) Overall, it isn't as "clean" looking as the original inspiration, but let's be honest...there's really nothing clean about living on a farm/ranch in the country, so I think it suits us rather well :)

The cool part was, Patrick wasn't home when I finished it, so when he saw the final product on Christmas morning, he knew EXACTLY where each of these pictures was taken! The thing I love most about this, is that it is so personalized to our family. Not just random pictures, but pictures from around our farm. Doesn't get much better than that!

Not only did I give him this for Christmas, but I made one for my parents, his parents, his grandparents, and his two sets of aunts and uncles. They all loved it and thought it was so creative!I chose to do ours in color, but all of theirs were in black and white, or sepia color. 
  
 It was a fun project, and not too expensive to do! I think each of them cost me around $25 to make.

Come link up and join the fun!

Weekend

Last weekend we spent a lot of time at home doing farm work and just hanging out. It's getting cold and gloomy, which means we generally like staying inside. Here's a glimpse into our weekend in pictures:

Bringing the cows home for the winter:

This is most of them right here, about 225 of them:

Almost there! By this time, they've walked maybe 2 miles and are pretty tired.

For being not the smartest animal, the older cows in the herd know their way home and usually do a pretty good job of leading the rest of the herd.

The cows will be in a field closer to home, and then today we're actually weaning the calves from the cows and taking the calves to the sale ring tomorrow to be sold. It's always a sad time of year, but I'll be okay again in the spring when we start having baby cows again.

After that, we had to install a new radiator on one of our combines...which turned out to be quite the project. It took Patrick, Grandpa, and me supervising about 3 hours to do it. It was a pain in the butt, so hopefully it doesn't need to be done again for a VERY long time!

While I was busy supervising, I decided on what I was going to make for some of our family members for Christmas:

I'm going to do this, except with pictures from our farm! Here are some that I found on Saturday:

I'm SOOOO excited to do this, and am glad I'm getting a jump start on it! I'm making the 2 hour trek to Hobby Lobby this weekend to get all of my supplies! WOOHOO! As soon as I get one put together, you KNOW I'll be showing you guys!

IF YOU HAVEN'T VOTED YET, GET YOUR HAPPY ASSES TO THE NEAREST POLLING PLACE AND CAST YOUR BALLOT! If you don't then don't complain when you aren't happy with how our government is doing. Ok, I'm climbing off of my soapbox...

Feeling Crafty

For some reason, I've been feeling really crafty lately. All of these cute things on Pinterest, the holidays coming up (yes I went there!), I've been feeling like I want to make something...or bake...or paint my bathroom. SOMETHING! I got all of these off of my Pinterest boards, which you can find HERE!

Here are some ideas I've been thinking about for crafts:

Don't know about you guys, but I have some of these ugly tins laying around that I could make something nice out of.

This one's not really a craft, but just a good friggin idea. I need to do this since I'll start wearing my scarves here pretty quick.

This looks cute and easy...possible Christmas gifts for friends? I'd probably add some wire to the top to hand, and maybe some raffia to spice it up a little.

Ahhh, who doesn't love a wine cork project?!?! I might have to drink a little more to get enough corks though. Ok! Done!

Easy peasy, super simple, and perfect for Fall. Why not? I actually have a bunch of cream-colored candles leftover from my wedding, and this would be a great way to use some of them.

As for baking? These things have caught my eye recently:
 
Mini pies made using a muffin tin-I think I might do this with apple pie!

Carrot cake cookies with cream cheese filling. 

Pumpkin whoopie pies! These look SO good!

Salted caramel shortbread bars

Halfway to heaven peanut butter cookies-I'll be making these this weekend!

Salted caramel shortbread bites with dark chocolate topping.

Have you guys done any fall baking or crafts lately? I'd love to see them!