Labor Day Weekend

Who doesn't love a three day weekend? I know this girl sure does! With David occupied in North Carolina at the beach for a wedding, I headed home for the weekend. My sweet friend, Becki's baby shower was this weekend. I enjoyed getting to celebrate her and her upcoming arrival.

{Mindy, Becki, and I}

Big thanks to my friend Johanna for taking this picture. I was horrible and didn't take the first one. Go figure!

The rest of the weekend was pretty laid back. But so perfect just being home. After the shower I took the boys down to the creek to go swim. Thanks to the super rainy season this year, they haven't gotten to go swimming all year. They were absolutely in heaven! They truly love to swim down at the creek.

Give Brutus a ball and he will swim all day. He's a weird bird but I wouldn't have him any other way.

Speaking of birds, I got to experience a phenomenon this weekend that I have never noticed. I asked my dad, and he has never noticed either. But it's one of those things that would be easy to miss. There were so many hummingbirds flying around daddy's cotton field this weekend. They were everywhere! I had no idea that they fed off of the cotton blooms. It was very awesome. I watched them fight with each other, fly across the field dipping and chirping. They are really fascinating creatures.

I got excited earlier this week when I finally spotted a male at my feeder. I have only been seeing the female and I have been patiently waiting to see if the male would show up. Guess he was trying to be all sneaky!

If I had known I was about to hit the hummingbird jackpot, I might not have gotten so excited.

Spot the hummingbird!

I also spotted old peg leg on one of my drives.

Looks like this poor fellow has had a rough life. I named him Capt. Jack Sparrow. Get it? hardy, har, har

Saturday night, we watched some football. I missed the Florida game :-( but we did catch the Clemson vs Georgia game. That was a good one!

Barrett came home with me and the next morning I helped him catch crayfish and explore outside. Poor Brutus came on one walk with us. Needless to say, he was ready to get back to safety!

I took the boys on several rides around the cotton field. JJ was the only one that didn't fall off/jump off of the 4-wheeler. Guess the other two just didn't have it together!

We rode around and checked on the bees. I didn't know they were there until I drove up on them. Thank goodness I didn't disturb them. That could have gotten ugly!

The area around the Chipola and Apalachicola Rivers produces the best honey- Tupelo Honey. The movie Ulee's Gold starring Mrs. Timberlake (Jessica Biel), was filmed in Wewa, St. Joe, and Apalachicola and has a story line that involves tupelo honey production. Just a little FYI. Since it's not the right time of the year to make tupelo, the bees feed off of various other blooms for their pollen.

Anyways, it was good to be back in Calhoun County and to see my family. Hope you all had a great Labor Day as well!

DIY Collegiate Wreath

It's the best time of year! Football season, that is. To get ready for this weekend and the kickoff of the season, I decided to make a wreath for my front door.

I have noticed that when I am bored, my go-to project seems to be door hangings. Weird, I know.

This was a quick and easy project. Here are the supplies that I gathered to make this wreath:

• Foam wreath form
• Floral Pins
• 3 Burlap Ribbon Spools - I believe this is a 3-4" wide x 15 ft spool that I got from Hobby Lobby
• Burlap Ribbon or whatever you would like to make the bow
• Coordinating fabric
• Tacky Glue
• Wood Letters
• Craft Paint

Of course, use whatever your team colors are. Since I'm a Gator girl, my wreath is orange and blue, of course! 

First, wrap your wreath with the burlap ribbon. I used 1 15 ft. ribbon to cover the base. Just secure every once and a while with floral pins. 

Then it's time to start adding the "fluff" part to the wreath. This is however is easiest for you and what looks good to your eye. 

I basically just worked from one side of the wreath across to the other side. The ribbon will tell you where to go. Just secure each loop with a floral pin as you go. I think I used about 1 1/2 of the remaining spools of ribbon to finish this part. 

Now it's time to start adding your fabric flowers. I will go ahead and apologize for this part. I got so consumed making the flowers, that I didn't stop to take any pictures. But I promise, they are so simple to make. 

First, cut out a length of fabric approximately 22 in. x 4 in.

Next, glue the long sides together with the tacky/fabric glue. So now you are left with a 22x2 in. length of fabric.

Now, you will go and start cutting slits in the folded part of the fabric (Not the side you glued together).

This is where the pictures end. But the rest is super simple. Take a small piece of coordinating fabric that you want to be the center of each flower. Place that on one end of the cut fabric and begin to wrap the length of fabric around to form a flower. Use the tacky glue every so often to keep the fabric in place. Once that is finished, glue a floral pin to the back so that you can stick that in your wreath. 

For the letters, I just painted them with craft paint and then glued some floral pins in the back. Those got added to the wreath as well. 

Then just add a ribbon or bow to the top and hang it!

The beauty of this wreath is that you can add anything that you like on it. Now, go show your team spirit and make one of these today.

GO GATORS!