Doing it Yourself...(or cheaping out!)

Saving $$ - that's what it's all about! So today's post is about just that...

Exhibit One: I call this one "The Millionaire's Bird Feeder" 

  

Yup, that's a toilet paper roll! Covered with peanut butter and rolled in bird seed and stuck on a large, metal butterfly that has so far resisted several squirrel attacks! Not my idea - gleaned from The Globe and Mail newspaper. It works and it's cheep cheep cheep!

Exhibit Two: Standing Desk

It has taken awhile but I finally figured out a combination that is right for my height. I was using the kitchen counter but it was a bit too low and I found myself bent over and  leaning on my elbows trying to find a comfortable position.

What with all the hullabaloo about "too much sitting being worse than smoking ten packs of cigarettes per day" I thought I'd try and find myself an alternative to hours of sitting. So far so good. I like standing while I'm using the computer... right this minute I'm doing waist twisting and bending and listening to all of my vertebrae crack and pop while I type! Can you hear that? AND I just discovered that I can use the brace on the bottom as a foot rest - SCORE!!

Exhibit Three: Art Shelf
I used to have a tonne of shelves...until I decided to move and rid myself of most of them...sigh... However we all know about "creativity" in the face of "diversity" or "necessity being the mother of invention"...

I used a piece of barn board from my dad's barn that no longer exists. The painting is of an area near Otter Creek in the village of Norwich where I grew up and painted by my talented brother. It needs to be framed but in the meantime it has a sentimental spot to hang out.

There's our barn in the background. That's my dad washing his boat rather large car in the neighbour's driveway. It must be spring as there are no leaves on the trees yet. That's the large back yard where my painter brother and I had fun shooting arrows from his bow and arrow set straight up into the sky. Happily we didn't "take anybody's eye out"!!

Sadly when my parents passed away and our home was sold the lots got severed and now a house sits where the barn used to!! Sacrilege!! That barn had initials, including mine, carved into the boards dating back to the mid 1800's!! Attached to the left of our barn you can see the chicken coop where I would gather the eggs daily right out from under the chickens' bums!  Grope grope grope - no wonder they clucked at me! There is also a house now where the walnut trees were (you can see one to the right of my dad - there were several and earned someone a pretty penny when they were CHOPPED DOWN!!)

A couple of weeks ago I became Facebook friends with one of the boys who grew up in the white house that you can see through the trees on the right side of the photo. My house is out of view on the right side - there was a sidewalk that connected the barn to the house.

Finally - the CUTENESS photos!!  My screen addicts!! Lily watching the movie "Tracks" last night - it was full of camels and dogs and she loved every minute of it.

And Luna watching some "kitty porn" this morning - a friend's post on facebook about a cat lounging in front of a heater on a cold day! Hysterical!!

What have you made yourself lately - any great DIY projects we don't know about??