How to make snowmen in Texas

Remember yesterday when I told you that our neighbors might possible hate us because of the ratio of leaves to trees in our and now their yards? Here's the proof:

Their yards:

Our Yard:

Finally it started to bug me enough that I wanted to rake it up. Damion wasn't home and there was no way I was getting all this done by myself so I convinced two princesses, dressed in their Sunday best (seriously), to help me. Of course I didn't just say, "let's go break our backs for three hours to rake this up and bag it."  I'm clever and the product of a work horse father, so I know how to get kids to comply with work.

I asked them if they wanted to make snowmen.... Texas snowmen....

And since snow does not happen in Houston, they were excited and probably a little baffled.

So we raked... and bagged... and then raked some more.. and bagged some more...

Then we woke this adorable, formerly blue, thing up from her nap and let her wreck our piles

And finally we had enough to make our snowmen..

Texas Snowmen...

Made with white trash bags, black jersey coal faces, leaf noses and extra love... all thanks to some Gorilla Glue.

It's so pretty that Mama Snow(woman) cried.

and Daddy Snowman had a blow out.

We won't judge though because we know.. that's just what Daddy's do.

And I think our neighbors like us more now. At least their kids like jumping in the piles of leaves that I wasn't able to bag before it got dark.

Chalk Board Fall Leaves ~ Tutorial

I've been waiting to make something with homemade chalkboard paint for a long time. I had planned on doing pumpkins originally but then ran out of time before Halloween and decided to do more of a fall leaf theme with it. 

To make these chalkboard leaves you will need:
Chalkboard paint - either bought or made
paint the color of your choice
Eucaboard or some other type of hardboard with a flat smooth surface - can be found at Home Depot
Foam Roller
Fine grit sandpaper
jigsaw
Drill and bit

To start, make your paint if you are making it yourself.

To make your own you will need two tablespoons of unsanded grout for every one cup of paint.
All I had was sanded ground and I'm too cheap to buy a bag of unsanded grout (about $10) so I put the grout into a little pouch I made of loose weave fabric and tapped it onto wax paper until I had the amount I needed. It worked great, leaving the sand inside the pouch a nice pile of fluffy sand free grout on the wax paper.

Next I mixed the grout with one cup of flat paint.

Originally I wanted the color to be a dark cocoa brown but once again I was too cheap to spend money on paint so I used flat paint that I had in the garage and mixed in craft paint until I kinda had the colors I wanted.

Now you have chalkboard paint and are ready to begin the next step.

Take the eucaboard or hardwood and prime the whole thing with whatever light colored paint you have on hand. See how cheap frugal I am?

Then when the paint is dry, freehand leaf shapes or print out leaf shapes from online and transfer them to your board.

Now take your jigsaw and cut out the shapes, no manly men required. You can do it!

Those are not all my pencil marks on that leaf. My kids got hold of the pencil and went nuts, redrawing leafs to their hearts content while I wasn't looking. All this to say, before you start this project, lock all kids in the closet. I'm joking, I never lock them in the closet. That's what the bathroom is for.

Just kidding.

Now comes the fun part. You get to paint your leaf shapes!

I tinted all the leaves a slightly different shade of orange to make them stand out a little more.

Give each leaf two coats of paint and then sand it with fine grit sandpaper when dry.  Before you can actually write on it with chalk, you need to season it by rubbing chalk over the entire surface and then wiping it off again. Now you can write whatever message you have, or write thanksgiving blessings and change it each day.

Now use your drill to drill a hole in the stem of each leaf and hang with twine or rope.

My husband didn't realize they were chalkboard and asked me why I didn't spend more time on the words. Um.. because I plan to erase it and change it tomorrow? or in five minutes?

and here's how the look from the front door.

beautiful? I think so.