The Day We Rescued a Duckling

Yesterday morning I was out and about for my normal Saturday errands and my husband, Z, had to work for a few hours. When I was on my way home I texted him to see when he would be home and about 10 minutes later he calls me. He said that he was on his way home and he saw a family of ducks crossing the road so he stopped to let them cross (there wasn't many people on the road so it was COMPLETELY safe for him to stop) and when he noticed the car in the other lane wasn't slowing at all he hopped out and tried to wave him down. Unfortunately they didn't - the guy was a total asshole was not a nice person and flipped off Z and kept driving, hitting the family, and NOT evening stopping after. Some people are so cruel. :(

SO anyways, the parent duck and three babies did not survive, one ran into the bushes and could not be found and the last one Z was able to grab. So Z drove the whole way home like this:

When he got home we put the little guy in  a box and tried to keep him warm and calm. I searched wild life rescue and called the Sacramento Wildlife Care Association and they gave me the number of the volunteer who rehabilitated ducks back into the wild.  After speaking with her she informed us to give him a shallow water dish and some cracker/bread crumbs and just keep him warm. That we did!

The volunteer told us that we could either take him to the center and she could pick him up this evening or we could wait and drop him off with her later in the day. I told her that I would rather wait until we could just take him directly to her. We kept checking on the little guy through out the day and keeping him partly covered to try and keep him calm. Once the time came I seat belted him in the car and we were off.

When I got to the ladies house she had a big bin with probably a dozen little guys all sleeping under the heat lamp. She said that they were from a few different families and that it is just that time of year. I put him in with the other ducklings:

He is the larger one on the top right of the picture. Within thirty seconds he was welcomed into the pack and it was one big ball of fluff sleeping again. *tear*

Even though it was such a sad and horrible thing that happened I am glad Z was able to save one of them and felt huge relief and happiness when he was in the huddle of other ducklings just like him. So this little guy will have a happy ending after all.

If you live in California here is the website with all of the wildlife rescue associations depending on what county you are in. If you live in another state I'm sure that they have their own lists as well. We are huge animal lovers and would really do anything to help the little guys in any way we can, I have NO respect for people who hurt animals and think they should be all just struck by lightening. 

<3

New Button!

Good Morning! I just created a new button! Please feel free to grab it on the side bar and add to your blog! <3

I first created the button on PicMonkey because it was free and they have fun icons to use. The button could also make it in Photoshop or edit an existing image in Preview if you are using a Macbook - I made it 125 x125 (which is the sandard in blog buttons) and then uploaded it to Picassa because it is connected to my google account that I use for blogging. That will give it its own URL - photo bucket does the same thing. 

SO this next step took me a minute [several minutes to be honest] to figure out how in the heck to add it to the side bar! I read probably about a half dozen different sites and tutorials on how to do it yourself, which they were very descriptive and sort of helpful. But I couldn't either get the text box for people to grab it correct or the image itself wouldn't load. I tried combination after combination and it wasn't quite right. THEN I found this site: http://www.mycoolrealm.com/sandbox/gbgen/

The A-HA moment: IT WRITES THE CODE FOR YOU!!!! And all you have to do is copy and paste it into the html widget on your blog's side bar. 

What you will need for the code writer:

1. Your blogs web address 

2. The address for your picture [which can be found by right clicking on the uploaded photo and selecting "Copy Image Address"]

And voila! Its all done - all YOU do is copy and paste!

Hope this helps! 

<3

Sew & Stitch

Happy Saturday!

Today I wanted to show you my OTHER site! I've spent the past week giving it a face lift [well I didn't personally I had a fabulous web-guy doing most of it]. Z had the site built for me about a year and a half ago because I was sewing ALOT and he felt it was something I needed... He is such a sweetie <3

This site is Sew & Stitch and it features my sewing projects - from dog sweat shirts to quilts!

You should definitely check it out.. I was even featured on News 10 - a local news station- about it!

It still needs a little bit of fine tuning with graphics here and there but I am excited the two are finally linked together!

<3

Outdoor Decor

It seems that I may be obsessed with giving furniture a new look, I just love the idea of turning something worn into something new and shiny!

We received these out door chairs, which I thought would look great on our back patio, for FREE!  They have a great shape and are solid wood, but they are obviously very faded and the wood was a little rough, especially on the arms. It was nothing that a little sandpaper and some stain couldn't fix.

I started by cleaning them up and dusting off all of the webs and tree particles then I lightly sanded them with a 320 Grit sandpaper. I did the sanding by hand because they didn't need varnish or paint removed, I simply wanted to smooth out the wood. 

After wiping the dust with a damp rag I was ready to begin my staining process. For the first chair I used a MinWax Stain in Dark Walnut. I applied the stain with a foam brush and the wood soaked it right up - there was no need for wiping it.

I was surprised at how fast the process went but noticed that it was really difficult to get into the creases and in-between the slats. I cleaned up, with still one chair and a bench togo, and ventured out looking for Spray Stain [I had seen it before from Krylon but had never tried it]. I thought it would make the hard to reach places easy to finish! First I went to Lowes, then Home depot, and FINALLY found MinWax's version of Spray Stain at Emigh's Hardware in Dark Walnut.

This is my new favorite product -  it is AH-MAZING! Im not sure how it would work on other projects but for the chairs it made staining a breeze. I laid down brown paper to product the ground underneath and proceeded just like I would with spray paint - even steady strokes in the same direction. I stained the remaining chair, bench, and filled in the light spots on the previously stained chair in no time.

The stain covered evenly with minimal dripping and the best part is you can't even tell which chair was sprayed and which chair was stained with traditional stain. Three cans of stain and a couple of hours later the out door furniture was done! I let it dry a full 24 hours before I applied an out door spray Polyurethane   in a semi gloss to help protect them from the sun, water, and tree droppings. I highly recommend the spray stain for projects like this or ones that have lots of hard to reach places, and trust me anyone can do it! 

I am in LOVE with the finished product! Now just a new little table and some cushions and we are set! Cant wait to sit out side and enjoy the summer nights with Z. <3