{shelves and hooks and happy nooks}

Last weekend we worked on finishing some more projects I'd started {I tend to start too many at once}, two shelves.

In all reality, I hadn't started the one for the kitchen besides buying the brackets for it at Hobby Lobby. When I went to build it during the day, I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask Mechanic Man. So that day I ended up building a shelf for some hooks in our room.

I've been wanting to make some hooks for our bedroom. And after stepping on the hook of a belt buckle {ouch!} countless times, I finally decided to stop dragging my feet and just make a simple shelf out of pallet wood. 

 On Saturday we went to Lowe's and bought simple hooks and some big picture hangers for the back and screwed everything on. Finished! I really like the way they turned out...nice and rustic. I'm also enjoying not tripping over pants and stabbing my feet with belt buckles!

 The other shelf was built for my cookbooks. I really like it! It hangs above my little "baking nook" now.

 We made it out of some old fence boards, and I think the chipping white paint is just right for the kitchen {which will hopefully someday also be painted white}.

 It's a nice nook for my kitchen doo-dads too. Two cow creamers and a few little biddy hens.

 I kind of have this thing for chickens, but also especially for cows. And even though the theme of my kitchen is not roosters or chickens in any way, I don't mind the occasional one making an appearance, like this guy on the top of my powdered sugar canister.

I also forgot about one other project I started this year. It's a yearly calendar journal. I found the idea on Pinterest, and hoped to use a berry basket like this calendar but I couldn't find one down here. So I went searching at Hobby Lobby. Is there anything that Hobby Lobby doesn't have? Anyway, here's the basket I found instead.

 I like it a lot! It ended up being the perfect size, if you put the index cards in sideways. I just used pieces of scrapbook paper for the month dividers and then used a library-style date stamp. The idea is to write down the year on one line and then write the biggest thing that happened that day. Then you put it in the back of the basket til next year. It's probably the easiest journal I've ever done.

Except for those days when it doesn't seem like anything "big" happened...then I usually just write something about this character I live with.

Well, I'd better run. I have a house to put back together from mopping the floors.

Sweet life...