Fezzie's New Outdoor House

Most people have furry friends. Dogs. Cats. Goats. What do I have? A bearded dragon. And naturally, I treat him as if he were a dog or a cat. This spring he's coming out of a long ~3 month hibernation (or brumation, as lizard-folk call it) and his testosterone is OFF the charts. Poor little guy is clawing at the sides of his tank constantly trying to get outside. I figured now would be a great time to put together a little outdoor house for him that I've been thinking of doing for a very long time. 

The Finished Project:

More About Fezz:

Fezzick is our 8 year old male bearded dragon. He came to us in November, 2011 from a kid going to college that just couldn't keep him anymore. Naturally, being a vet student, he has become my pride and joy. His favorite food is green beans and he loves a good long soak in the Jacuzzi tub. He also loves to frolic in the grass and maul clover flowers, his other favorite food. 

To the left is Fezz at Easter - can you tell we adore this little guy?? He is such a good sport with photos, too. 

Notes About Design:

I've wanted to make this pretty much since we adopted the little guy. I had looked up several pictures of other enclosures on the internet but most of them had chicken wire for sides. Being in New England, we have a lot of fireflies which are actually extremely toxic to bearded dragons. This is why I opted to go with a window screen material for the sides of his house. The screen also allows him to still get the UV rays that are so desperate to general reptile metabolism. There is no bottom to the house, which will make for easy cleaning - just lift it off, put him away, and throw the towel in the wash! The top has hinges and will swing open so I can put food in and take him in and out as I please. 

Now I know you're just DYING to figure out how I did this - so here we go!!

What we Used:

- 3/4" x 1.5" x whatever feet pine strapping

- Window screen - 36" width 

- Staple gun and 3/8" staples

- Hammer

- Drill

- Screws - but I don't remember how long...

- 2 Hinges

- Eye Hooks

- Handles!

My dad helped me build a lot of this, so I'm not sure how good i'll be at recreating the technical steps...

1. Determine the dimensions!

I wanted this house to be at least the same size as the 40 gallon tank he lives in. 3ft x 2 ft x 1.5 ft looked good!

2. Cut wood according to dimensions!

For the dimensions we chose, we needed:

6 boards 3 ft long

6 boards 2 ft long

6 boards 1.5 ft long

That totals to 39 ft of wood

3. Assemble!!!!

My dad thought it would be a good idea to make panels so that I could take the enclosure apart if I ever need to for moving purposes. He is a smart and wise man. We made 3 panels 3ft by 2ft - one each for the front and the back and one for the top door of the enclosure. Then we made 2 panels 2ft by 1.5ft for the 2 sides of the enclosure. Remember, there is no bottom of the enclosure in our design. 

When the drilling and assembly was all said and done this is what we had:

(top door not shown)

Next it would probably be ideal to put the screen on each panel before putting the whole thing together. We forgot this step. But it's okay it works out in the end!!

Then it was time to put the entire thing together. We drilled holes into the smaller panels so that we could screw those into the large panels. This means the screws with which to take the enclosure apart are on the smaller panel ends. 

Here's what we have now:

4. Adding Hardware!!

Hinge time! You have to look closely because the fittings for the heads of the screws do go a certain way. Here's what the hinges looked like after they were added to the base and the top door:

Then we added eye-hooks to the front. To "lock" the enclosure, I put green florist wire through the eye hooks later and twisted it. 

Eye-Hooks:

Finally, what kind of bearded dragon enclosure doesn't have fancy little handles?!?! Note - we did add these after we did the screen - but they fit better in the hardware section...

6. Screening!

Our window screen was 36" wide - which is great because that's the same width as the enclosure! We decided stapling it to the inside would be more aesthetically pleasing. So we loaded up the staple gun and went to work. After finishing each side, I made sure to pound down the staples so nothing sharp remained. Bearded Dragons are fairly body-unaware and could hurt themselves if something was left sticking into the enclosure. They'll also eat things they shouldn't haha. 

Here's a close up of a staple - sorry its blurry!

7. Tada!! Take lots of photos now that it's done!

8. Don't forget to get the beardie seal of approval!

Fezzie LOVED it!! He stayed out for almost 2 hrs this afternoon!

If you want to see more of Fezz - check out some of his YouTube vids!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugLTo90IwJk

Thanks!!!

LOVE Canvases

LOVE Canvases!

I'm just going to come out and say it. I'm obsessed with the Pinterest DIY/Craft boards. Last summer I tried to replicate at least four pins that I found there involving canvases. All failed miserably. Probably because I rushed them too much and wanted instant gratification with results. Well, I needed something to do with the leftover canvases from all those projects; This is what I came up with! 

I mod podged newspaper onto the old canvases, and it covered up the leftover spray paint and acrylic paint very well. Also, mod podging is far more at my level of expertise!!

Since I am incredibly cheap (or value-oriented as my mom would say) I refused to buy stencils for the canvases so I made my own with printer paper!

Here they are close up! Yes the hanging is a little crooked, but you can't tell from far away so it'll do!

 Unfortunately, I don't have a bunch of pictures to follow how I made these, but here are the supplies and steps anyway:

You will need
-  Four canvases (8x10" I think)
-  Newspaper
-  Mod Podge
-  Little Paintbrush
-  Printer Paper 
-  Acrylic paint 
-  Foam tipped stenciling brush
-  Wall hangers
-  Clear coat spray paint

Newspaper-ing

1. I used old canvases from failed Pinterest attempts. My canvases were either heavily spray painted or had leftover paint from other projects. But it doesn't matter for mod podge!!
2. Mod podge recipe - All I did was combine 1:1 water:Elmer's glue in a mason jar and shook it up - voila!!
3. Then I ripped my newspapers up into small strips and put a coat of mod podge onto each canvas.
4. One by one I mod podged strips of newspaper onto each canvas in different directions to make them look more random. I tried to have a little bit of newspaper sticking off the edges so that I could deal with the edges later.
5. Let them all dry for a night!
6. The Next day I flipped them all over and put a coat of mod podge onto all the edges and part of the back of the canvas (where the actual canvas is stapled to the wooden frame). Then I mod podged the overhangs onto the edges onto the back of the canvases. If there were any spaces left on the edges I just added in another strip of newspaper to fill them in. 
7. Let them dry for a night!
8. Finally I checked once more for any spaces I might have left behind, after fixing those I was done!!

Stenciling

1. As I said, I am WAY too cheap to buy my own stencils. Instead I wrote the word "LOVE" in a word document on size 60 font or something ridiculous and printed the letters out one on each page. I also printed out a little rose stencil that I found on Google images for two of the letters. 
2. I cut the letters and the rose out of the pages using a razor blade.
3. For the letters, I lined them up on each canvas and outlined them with a pencil to make sure they were in the places that I wanted them on each canvas. I'm sure there is a more scientific method, but I like the eye-balling method!
4. Next I painted the roses onto the L and the V. The paint I used was a pink from the Americana brand. I used the paper cutouts just like regular stencils with the foam tipped stenciling brush you can get for ~$2.00 at the craft store (seen here). The paint ran a little underneath the flimsy printer paper stencil, but I'm okay with that because I wanted a more rustic feel.
5. I let the roses dry overnight and the next day I stenciled the letters on the same way in brown (also Americana brand)

 Clear-Coat-ing

1. My boyfriend told me that the canvasses would look better if they had a sheen. He was right!
2. I used the triple-thick crystal clear glaze from Krylon (seen here - got it at Michael's) and did a quick coat over each canvas. 
3. Let this dry overnight!!

 Hanging

1. I got some simple picture hangers from Lowe's and pounded them into the back of each canvas. Again, I used the eyeball method because I couldn't find the ruler...
2. Then the boyfriend did the dirty work of hanging the canvases on the wall so that they would look nice - because I am FAR too impatient for that! We used only the nails from the little picture hanging hook things because the hooks looked ugly.

Here's a shot of the hangers I used:

Lastly, a close up of the L and V with the rose stencils. Not too shabby!

That's all!! Hope you enjoyed this post even without the pictures! I was just so excited about this project that I kept forgetting to take them!!

Christmas Tree Gift Tags

Felt Christmas Tree Homemade Gift Tags!

If there are two things I love in life, its giving gifts and procrastinating from studying. SO, what's better than combining the two?! Yes, I should surely have been studying neurobiology.. but everyone deserves a little break, right??

And yes, posting these 2 months after Christmas! Oh well!

You will need:

 - Green Felt

-  Scrapbook paper - a neutral color

-  White thread and a needle

-  Elmer's glue stick

-  Ribbon

-  Pen

-  Superglue (optional)

Step #1: Cut out a piece of felt in the shape of a semicircle:

Step #2: Practice folding the piece of felt on your piece of scrapbook paper until the little tree looks the way you like! This way you won't have to take any sewing out later to fix things:

Step #3: Start sewing the bottom of the semicircle onto the piece of scrapbook pound paper. I had already punched my scrapbook paper:

Step #4: Fold the free part of the felt semicircle to the right and start sewing on the next tier:

Step #5: Fold the next free part of the semicircle to the left and start sewing on the next tier:

Step #6: Now there are two choices… I sewed up into the tip of the tree a little bit before folding over the last tier to keep the tree more secure on the paper. You could also just fold the tier over and then add a bit of superglue under that flap to keep it secure on the rest of the tree. I’ve found that superglue does rather nicely on felt. 

 Step #7: If you’re anything like me, there will be an absolute mess on the flip side after sewing the tree on:

 Step #8: Not a worry!! Just take another piece of paper and glue it on the back! I used a white index card because I was running low on pound paper, but the same color paper would make the tag look a little more professional:

Step #9: Write on your “To:” and “From:”, add the ribbon and you’re done!!!

The whole project took me about 10-15 minutes. And the trees kept getting better looking the more I made. This was definitely a fun, easy, and cheap way to make tags for gifts!! 

Hope you liked the step-by-step!