We Made Florida Christmas Reindeers from Palm Fronds

Another paint project. When will I run out of paint?!

And before we get started I thought I'd add some of my usual nature like pictures. I haven't done that in a while.

On to the project...

Here are the palm fronds that I gathered. Some had been sitting awhile and were muddy and bug infested. So I scrubbed them and sprayed them with bug spray and laid them out to dry.

Notice that one is a little different than the others. Hm, what shall I make with that one?

Here they are all painted up.

And here is the family all laid out after I glued on the embellishments. 

Your traditional Florida Reindeer is usually made with a plain palm frond, wiggly eyes, a pom-pom nose and maybe a bright ribbon for effect.

I didn't have those things so I used what I did have. I hand painted the eyes and used various different things for noses.

Some were quite brittle so I had to be careful but it was a lot of fun trying to make each one a little different.

I shall call her Snowflake.

Break for another nature picture...

Meanwhile Mike was busy with his own project: a Tiki Guy Totem Pole Thingy.

He really did a good job with this using fronds and tying them to an old dead tree stob we had laying around.

Green Tiki Guy

Yellow Tiki Guy

Blue Tiki Guy

A few more of my creations...
The Bride

The Groom

And a Baby!

Okay here's that odd frond I told you about earlier. 

The Minion!

I also baked a cake for the upcoming holiday.
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Here's the whole family in a row with Dusty doing a photo bomb in the background.

Here's Mike's Tiki Guy Totem Pole planted along the driveway.

BANANA!

I hope you have enjoyed this!

Comments are always welcome.

We Made a Tiki Shell CheckerBoard Fountain Sitting Area

 Here we go again with another "We Made" project. This time we're re-doing an entire area and I really don't have a good name for it.

Ten years ago when we moved in there was this concrete patio set on the property that we had managed to haul all the way out to the pond. This thing weighs a ton and it like to have killed us then. It's sat there ever since.
It looks pretty good here but the years have taken it's toll. The thing is dirty and cracked and an eye sore. Time to break this apart, re-do, re-use, and re-purpose.

Firstly we hauled the bench seats to the front of the house to use as a concrete pathway. Yes, they're broken but will serve a purpose for now.

Next we re-do the bases of the benches. These are dirty and heavy but I think we have an idea. We scrubbed them down and got to work.

This was fun. Lots and lots of colorful paint.

 We were going for a Tiki guy kind of look. What do you think? (And remember we are NOT artists. We slobbed that paint on as fast as possible.)

 The table top was put aside and I'm sure we'll find a use for it later. We ended up just tilting it over to get it off the pedestal and it broke up a bit. 

This is the pedestal of the table. It's in pretty good shape so let's make it into something else.

A fountain!

Well, kind of. This is the leaf bird bath we had made earlier. Below is a metal bowl I had scavenged from the trash. 

And also scavenged from the trash are these rusted saw blades. I soaked them in white vinegar and scrubbed the hell out of them. I wonder what I can make with these 2 palm trees?

Yup, paint them up and glue them together.

These old plastic chairs have seen better days. A good hard scrub and some spray paint are what's needed.

Wow, what a transformation!

Our little area is coming together.

These are tiles that I had saved from when we tore down the old mobile years ago. They've been sitting in my shed all this time gathering dust. So, scrub, scrub, paint, add some painted shells and we have a Shell CheckerBoard!

All set up! 

View one...

View two...

Fountain view...

(Okay we are cheating here. This fountain has no water source until it rains. Mike is just out of the picture pouring a bucket of water into it so I can get the shot. LOL!)

 All done. What do you think?

Before and After