Transfer a Photo to Wood!

For mother's day I was trying to think of something special to do for my mother-in-law and what is more special then a picture of your children?? All of her kids are all grown and married (well almost married..my sister-in-law just recently got engaged wahoo!)

What you will need:

-Piece of wood

-Paint or stain

-Picture printed on regular computer paper

-Medium Gel

-Paint

-Lacquer

I painted the piece of wood with white paint. You can also use stain if you want a darker look.

After the paint has dried place a layer of the medium gel on the piece of wood.

Place the picture down on the wood and smooth out. Let it dry overnight! 

24 hours later... take a damp rag and start to gently rub the picture off the wood. Bye, bye photo and hello transferred image!

 Once you are done you can either leave it the way it is or add to it! I wanted to add a rustic look to the piece of wood so I put brown paint on a piece of paper towel and dragged it across the piece of wood.

I then took white paint and did the same thing so it wasn't SOOO brown!

I put my other sister-in-law's wedding date on the bottom of it and sprayed it with lacquer!

Wa-La!

Happy mother's day to my mother-in-law!

It is as simple as 1-2-3!

Backyard Makeover

So as you can see we have this dull area in the back of our house...there is this patch of grass that grows along with weeds, rocks, and dirt. SO! My husband and I decided to do something about it!! We decided to give our backyard a makeover! We first cleaned up the area with him doing the weed wacking and me raking it all up!

He then laid down grass and weed killer.

We then laid this black cloth material that you can get at Home Depot. It helps prevent the weeds or grass from growing through the material. We used pins (also sold at HD) to hold the material down.

My husband is such a stud! =)

MY AWESOME neighbors gave us some of their old flagstone.  If you remember I used the Flagstone in one of my previous postings A Concrete Slab Goes From Drab to Fab. So we decided to use some for the walkway to my garden too!

We found a great long piece that fit perfectly at the front of my garden so I could stand on it while picking my veggies this summer!!

We then laid 1 1/2 inch round river rocks throughout the entire area. This not only is less maintenance then mulch but it also is cheaper!! Only $27 a yard!

This is what 5 yards of rock looks like !! We got it from Mehlon Trucking Sand & Gravel! Best price around!

It is a LOT of HEAVY lifting! 

Several loads later and I finished half of the patio!

My husband to the rescue! He came home and helped with under the deck! This part was tricky since he had to duck under the deck without hitting his head!! *ouch*

FINISHED PRODUCT!

Before:

After: 

Well it was a lot of work but it is finally done! I am so proud of us!!

It is as Simple as 1-2-3!