Tag Archives: projects

we built a boardwalk

Earlier this year I wrote about how much work we were doing on our two acres of land to turn it into a native wildlife habitat.

Unfortunately I haven’t been much help lately, largely due to the infamous back injury, but also due to the fact that I cannot comprehend how Mom and Riley have been working through the hottest, buggiest, most humid days of the year.

I got burnt out doing a lot of deep, grueling poison ivy work early in the year, and I found that I much prefer doing jobs like building stonewalls and building dead hedges.

new magical spot unlocked 🔓✨

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i built a stonewall

I’m the kind of person who has the audacity to simply do what I want.

Have I ever built a stonewall before?

No.

Was I confident that I could do so?

Yes.

_{(and yes, this project happened before the infamous back injury)}

we love our little stonewall, and we also love the baby shagbark hickory tree (Carya ovata) that’s growing just behind it 🌳

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DIY front door makeover

We finally did it: we gave our front door a makeover.

Years ago we painted it green, which was a big improvement all on its own. Our house is quite a bland and boring color (#beigemoms would love it), so painting the doors a bright color makes all the difference. But for some reason we never actually did it until a handful of years ago.

We enjoyed our green era, but the color was never quite right, so this spring we sat down and went through some paint chips and decided on what era we’d be entering into next.

of course I stuck with my classic floral design, which I’ve painted on so many other projects (like skulls, portraits, and mirrors) 🌸

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collecting skulls (and respecting the dead)

I recently realized that although I’ve shared my skull art with the deer skull, the coyote skull, the beaver skull, and the gray squirrel skull, I’ve never shared my full painted collection on my blog.

So I thought it’d be a good time to share some photos and the stories behind the more personal pieces of my collection ✨

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painting a squirrel skull

I’ve had this little gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) skull laying around since last summer; it came from a squirrel who met an unfortunate end on the road in front of my friend’s house.

And now that it’s been almost a whole entire year since I got it, I figured it was finally time to paint it.

If you’ve never seen my painted skulls before, you can see the coyote, the deer, and the beaver skulls in these posts!

A squirrel skull sits on a white surface surrounded by plants, seeds, and other organic materials.

you can watch a YouTube short of this project here

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DIY recycled denim patches

I’ve discovered a new project, a way to use all of the scraps of denim that I’ve been saving! If you remember these cute denim bags that I made, you may remember that I made my own patches to sew onto their flaps. This made me think…couldn’t I create my own patches for (and of) anything with this same method??

The answer, of course, is yes.

And after seeing a few inspirational photos on Pinterest, I had a ✨vision✨

BUGS.

(because I’m clearly still firmly in my bug era)

I thought it was kind of a nice synchronicity that I made these right around the time that Noah Kahn came out with his new album The Great Divide: The Last Of The Bugs. I really think some Noah fans should find and appreciate my work

These came out exactly how I imagined, but better.

If you don’t know how to sew, you can now buy these in my Etsy shop!

If you do know how to sew, and you’re interested in making some of your own, here’s how I did it.

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upcycled denim book bags

One of my YouTube subscribers (and repeat customer) threw out the idea for me to design a bag that he could toss a few books into; something simple to throw over his shoulder, made from upcycled denim, with a touch of birds (yes, this subscriber found me through Riley Mae’s beloved bird channel).

At this suggestion, my brain instantly went 💡

A handmade denim bag sitting on a dresser

these bags look small and compact, but are big enough to comfortable fit an 11″x9″ notebook into, as well as a few books!

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5 diy valentine’s day projects

I hope that you all had a cozy Valentine’s Day; I certainly did, which means that I spent the day at home celebrating the completion of my Valentine’s to-do list (and starting on my next projects!).

Now I shall dump an excessive amount of red-pink-and-white photos into this post, please enjoy my 5 DIY Valentine’s Day Projects 😌🎀

just look how cute this is; the perfect backdrop for all my videos!

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january

I can’t believe that January is already over. I know it drags on endlessly for a lot of people (and I’m often one of those people), but it really seems like it was here and gone this year.

And not only did I succeed in making all twelve monthly wraps last year (you can find the whole playlist of them here), I started all over again for 2026. It’s too much fun to watch the changing year through them all!

I’m happy to report that winter has been very wintery here in New England. Multiple winter storms have arrived, and the last storm we got (Storm Fern) dropped a good 16″ inches on top of us. We now have snow-blown paths winding through the yard leading to all of our important destinations (the barn, the wood shed, the compost, the birdfeeders…).

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shadowboxes

One of my newest creative projects has been shadowbox making.

I knew I wanted to make some as Christmas gifts, and I had already had this idea (and had pinned a whole bunch of inspiration onto a secret Pinterest board!) before we went on vacation.

I also knew that vacation would be a perfect time to collect some items; down by the coast there’s plenty of lovely pieces of nature, and of course the cherry on top is that much of it came from some of our favorite places.