training, schooling and insta`tuesday

hello, hello and happy tuesday. our hectic summer is winding down and slowly transitioning into fall. here are a few updates on our lives...the boy received orders for six weeks of training with his unit {last minute as always}. luckily the station is only a couple hours away instead of across the country, so he'll be able to sneak home every now and then. for me, well student teaching has been well in gear for the past few weeks and my classes begin this week. on the beautiful bright side, by the end of this school year i will finally have, in hand, my credentials to teach moderate`severe special education as an inclusion specialist as well as several masters classes under my belt. let the studying begin.

<3  <3  <3

for those of you who were interested in my picture on wood from my last week's insta'tuesday post, i have written a tutorial for you c: find it HERE.

<3  <3  <3

here's my linkup for insta`tuesday and a glimpse into my week. 

chopping my pasta salad while getting my criminal minds fix | making my heart and nose oh so happy | my pink wine opener i was gifted on my twenty`first saw its last cork :c

{my evenings with the boy gone}

a pinterest inspiration | a morning fish bowl makeover

eating {pretend} sushi with high.ho.cherry.o buckets and glow sticks with my favorite God daughter peyton | lynnee waiting for best friend peyton to return with another brush to pet her with c:

yes and the boy had the weekend off, love having him home | the nights are cooling off and we've been spending them outside. oh and on this night i thought i taught miss peyton what a crescent moon was...turns out she now argues every night with her dad there's a crescent moon, oops.

join the link`up love over at Taingamala 

for the birdies

lately i've been all about the birds. we have big, beautiful windows in our kitchen that look onto a tree that's often the resting point for birdies. when i was younger, my parents always had bird feeders of all kinds around our property. now that i'm not apartment living, i can finally invite the birds over! but once i started looking to buy bird feeders, they seemed pretty expensive for how simple they were. i began searching the lovely site of pinterest, even giving the birds their own board , yes they're a tad spoiled c: my first bird project was for our hummingbirds. 

i LOVE browsing through pinterest to find inspiration and ideas for projects. however, most of the tutorials i find use materials that would require a little shopping, aka money spending. soooo, for this project i managed to switch up a few things with items i already had around the house. the only thing i had to buy was a feeder tube, this i did not have just hanging around the house c; i got my feeder tube from a local gardening and bird store sold to me for four dollars by a sweet lady who was a living dictionary for birds. 

{here's what i came up with}

you will need:

red plastic spoons

candle and lighter

bottle {plastic or glass}

twine, rope or a chain

feeder tube

glue gun

scissors

sorry i didn't capture every step with a picture...lucky the beautiful tutorial i based my project on took detailed pictures, find it here.

step 1. light that candle and enjoy the yumminess c: then get to work by gripping the spoon by the handle and holding the 'spoon part' about two inches over the flame. slowly rotate the spoon. it will begin to melt and warp. pull it away, wait a few seconds and CAREFULLY morph the spoon with your fingers. please be careful, it's pretty hot {go figure...it was just inches away from a flame}.

 this is what they look like after wards. each spoon will turn out a little different and random...just like flower petals.

step 2: use your scissors to snip off the handles of the spoons.

step 3: carefully hold the the tip of the spoon so that the edge you just cut is over the candle flame. this allows the rough edges to melt a little and be softened. immediately after i pulled the spoon from the flame i pushed it against the bottle {see below} so it gained a round shape and would be easier to glue on later. do this for all your spoons.

step 4: grab your hot glue gun and attach your petals one`by`one, by placing a dab of glue and pressing the end of your petal to the bottle for a couple seconds so it can secure the hold. i ended up having two layers on mine. 

step 5: hot glue twine to your bottle, or attach a chain. whichever you choose, make sure it can hang at a slant. 

step 6: save a little more money and make your own hummingbird food. easy and simple sugar water, 1 part sugar to 4 parts warm water. found this recipe here. once it cools a little, pour the sugar mix into the bottle.

step 7: plug in the feeder tube to close off the top and hang your hummingbird feeder. 

i'm so happy with how it turned out, especially with my only expense being the tube feeder. the feeder has only been up for a day or so, and i've been waiting patiently for my hummingbirds to come. which means making extra trips to the kitchen just to check in on them.