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

2015 Mother/Son Photoff Results

Last year I had upgraded my camera to a newer better slicker model and I gave my son Chris the old one. He took to taking nature pics just like me and I was very happy to see the results. He took these 2 pics on a recent trip to Chicago and, wow, was I impressed. He's already out-doing me!
So in the vein of pure fun and friendly familiar competition, we decided to create the Mother/Son Photoff.

We agreed on several different categories and a few basic rules. The only editing tools we could use were your basic auto correct and, of course, the all important crop.

On my recent trip to KC we broke out our cameras and Chris and I went to Loose Park and also the Lakeside Nature Center. One is a beautiful landscaped park with rose gardens and the other is a beaten muddy path down in a small wooded valley area.

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The Results

After I got back home I edited out my shots and sent them to Chris who paired them up into categories. We then posted them to the Facebook so our friends could vote on their favorites from each category, not knowing whose was whose.

 Debbie - 20              Chris - 10

Birds - One of my specialties but Chris has obviously had experience here, too. (See first pic above.)

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           Chris - 12             Debbie - 17    

                       I think Chris should won this one. He got points taken away because folks refused to vote for spiders. lol

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                        Chris - 21                   Debbie - 8                    

An odd category set up because we had two interesting pictures with nowhere to go. Chris has an excellent pic of a frog and mine was an opportunistic lucky shot as a train raced by.

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 Debbie - 16                 Chris - 13

As Chris followed the railroad tracks I came upon this pipe that was 20 some feet up in the air. I walked the whole thing to the end and then climbed back down into the valley.

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           Chris -  12                   Debbie - 17 

                    I think Chris should have won this one also. His is very striking close up.     

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                                  Chris - 15                Debbie - 12

We had the most fun with these 2 critters. 

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Debbie - 18                Chris - 6

And this is the one picture of Chris' that I was positive would blow me out of the water. I saw this one straight from the camera and was amazed. Unfortunately, I believe the impact was lessened when he cropped it too tight. Rookie mistake. 

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Here's Chris on the railroad tracks attempting a close shot of a bug. I said the kid was talented, I never said he was bright.

Thanks to everyone who voted!

Kansas City 2015

 I finally made plans to go to Kansas City again to see Chris and Steph. I hadn't seen them in over a year. I made the trip a little shorter than I wanted but the price was right.

First day there we went to the Renaissance Faire. I'd never been to one before. We got to see the knights jousting and all kinds of stage acts like magicians and jugglers and we were yelled at by various people dressed up in old time outfits with bad accents. Chris and Steph did knife throwing and we all did the archery. An interesting experience. 

It was hotter than hell and on top of the never ending hot flashes, I like to have died. I've been having heel pain from weak arches and I was really worried how long I would last. Thank goodness I had found some really good inserts. What a difference!

Next evening we had reservations to do the Escape Room thing. We went to one called BreakOutKC with some of their friends (meeting new people is fun) and did the casino room.

We FAILED MISERABLY! (lol)

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Last year I had given Chris my old camera and he has shown serious interest in photography. He does wildlife just like me so we decided to have the First Annual Mother/Son Photoff! We agreed on some basic rules, grabbed our cameras and headed off to Loose Park.

Beautiful rose gardens... here's Chris getting some shots in.

Next we went to the Lakeside Nature Center for more photo opportunities. They have a huge cage with some pretty neat birds being re-habbed on display. Look, it's an actual kite on the ground. I've always wanted to see one at rest.

Bald Eagle = Money shot.

Chris and I will soon be posting all the pictures we took for the contest and we are going to have all of our friends vote on their favorites. (I've already seen his pics... I'm screwed!) So there will be more later on that.

Here's the link to the Photoff

Lastly one of the main reasons for my trip is to watch some Knights baseball. Chris had taken a batted ball to the chest just a few weeks before and hadn't played since. We went out the day before and threw some balls so he could tell whether he was ready to get back on the mound or not.

Low and behold he pitched all 7 innings! Go Knights!

(They lost, not the point...)

The trip was really a day too short but I'm still glad to be back home.