Flaky Dog Home Remedy

Hello all! The cool air has really set in around here and I'm completely head over heels for it! We love and pray for the cool air, but as we all know with cooler air comes dry skin. My pitbull, Houdini, has had dry skin for a better part of a year now, he's super flaky but it doesn't seem to make him itchy at all. He was taken from us last year and kept in an Animal Shelter kennel for a week (a whole nother story). When we got him back his skin was flaky. The vets told us it was probably the stress and change/lack of diet and it would work itself out. Well it's become quite obvious that this isn't something that is just going to go away on its own; and with that cooler air coming in I wanted to try and tackle this problem before it worsened. I've tried a couple different dry skin dog shampoos, but those don't really seem to help. So I started looking for home remedies. I love home remedies, much like I love thrifty crafts. I love being able to solve a problem (or a craving) with things that I already have on hand. While looking I found a couple of different remedies, only one of which is something that I had, so I went for that one. OLIVE OIL.

 It said to add ONE TABLESPOON of olive oil to your dogs food a couple times a week for a shiny moisturized coat. And guess what?! It works! Yay! Instead of a tablespoon every other day I've just been drizzling a very small amount on his food just about everyday. (I'm not a very good schedule keeper so I do this so I won't forget my days.) I've been doing this for almost two weeks now and have noticed a huge difference in his dandruff. It is almost completely gone! AND his coat is super shinny and pretty! Houdini also has an odor that seemed to come around about the same time as his flaky skin, even though he isn't flaking anymore he still smells. So I'm still trying to figure that out and will definitely share my trials and errors with that too! I want to try some of the other dry skin remedies that called for oatmeal, tea tree oil and vitamin E. 

Have any of you ever battled with your pets dry skin or odor before?! I'd love to know your remedy!

(Be careful to not give your dog too much olive oil as it will most likely make them gain weight. If your dog is already over weight I would suggest trying out the other home remedies first. Also, I give my 80 lb pitbull one tablespoon, if you have smaller dogs DO NOT give them the same amount. I'd cut it in half at the very least. After posting this to Instagram a vet friend of mine told me that olive oil can give your dog diarrhea and vitamin E can be used the same way without the side effect)

Fall: Kay's List

Its slowly starting to feel like fall around here and I love it. If winter didn't follow fall, fall would be my favorite season.

Here are the things I love about fall:

•the crisp air

•open windows

•falling leaves

•helicopter seeds

•pumpkins

•bonfires

•Halloween

•bats

•nostalgia

•magick

•Halloween TV

•seasons priemer

•scary movies 

•the state fair

•piles of leaves

•the NEED to be outside

•scarecrows

•change

•school supplies

•hay

•blankets

•star gazing

•colors of leaves

•jack o lanterns

•hay rides

•did I say open windows?

•pumpkin pie

•hoodies

•leggings 

•scarves

•baking

•fresh mowed lawns

•hammocks

•bike rides

•Carmel apples

•candy

•haunted houses

•cob webs

•trash bag pumpkins and spiders

•Halloween stores

•walks with the hubs and my Houdini Doo

(Since its not quite fall yet I don't have any pics on my phone, all of these are off a Google image post. So they ARE NOT MINE. I hate to post a post with someone else's pics but I really wanted a fall post, maybe I'll change them out if I get a chance to be on the computer)

Never, never, never give up : My new sign

Martian Child inspired pallet wood sign

I love John Cusack, so of course I absolutely adore Martian Child. Since the first time I heard David and Dennis's exchange

"When you're here at home it's okay to be from mars but when you're out there with the rest of the earthlings,you know, you gotta play by earth rules. But what we will never do is never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give up; Winston Churchill said that, I think."

I feel in love with the saying. For some weird reason it didn't even come to mind while I was searching for a good short quote for a pallet wood sign I had been wanting to make awhile back. Since I couldn't find a good enough quote I kinda lost inspiration and set it to the back of my mind to let it work itself out. Phillip and I were watching a movie (which one i can't recall) the other day and someone had the quote "never, never, never give up" written on a block on their office desk, and it dawned on me that's the perfect quote for my sign! and my inspiration was back! Since I wanted it to be a short quote I used the original over David's "never, ever, ever..." but to keep it like the movie I added the "I think" to the end. I looked up some fonts, drew it with pencil and then painted over the pencil markings. I may go back at some point and add some flowers or design around the letters. Oooh! Or I was just looking up some coffee filter flowers; I could make some to put around the sign rather than adding to the sign itself. Either way I'll share it with you guys for sure!

I'm totally in love with it. It goes really well in that corner, which is in our living room. It's a great little reminder to keep on keepin' on when life gets tough :)

(We currently do not have the Internet, I blog from the blogspot app, which is starting to improve but hasn't added hyperlinks to its abilities yet. Therefore I can not share any websites with you here like the really cool website I found where you can type in whatever you want and preview it in their fonts, so you can see the font to imitate without having to download the font. I do however have a Pinterest account and I'm always pinning my inspiration, so for the time being you could follow me on there if you like! I love meeting fellow DIYers! I also have an Instagram account, the links to both accounts are in my profile! I hope to see some new friends soon! Thanks for stopping by!)

DIY: Hanging Mason Jar Planter!

I think it's safe to say I have a problem

I can't stop buying plants, and here lately it's been house plants. So I've had to come up with some creative ways to place them around our home. We have also been very broke, so I've had to come up with ways to do it with things I already have on hand. A get a sense of pride when I finish these thrifty projects, and I think this one is my favorite!

And this is what you will need to make it!

A small plant (of course)

A piece of wood

A drill with a bit

A mason jar

Wire wrapping supplies

Marker

First you need to decide where on your board you want your jar to hang from

Mark two dots where your going to drill your holes. I marked mine right under the lip of my jar towards the middle so that the jar will cover the holes

And then drill your holes!

Now is time to prep your jar for planting. I didn't have any potting soil and I knew I needed some filler of sorts so I picked out a buch a pretty tiny quartz stones in our yard and put them in the bottom of my jar. It looks cool and will also help with drainage!

Now stuff your plant in the jar, doing as little damage as possible to the roots

Now it's time to wire wrap!

I used 20 gauge wire to wrap around the jar twice and cross the ends in the back  (make sure you leave a few inches of wire on either side)

Grab hold the cross (as close to the jar as possible) with your index finger and thumb

And then turn your hand upside down so that your thumb is now on top, crossing the wire 

And then twist it a few more times

Now your ready to attach your jar to your board, we are going to do that by putting the wire tails you left through your drill holes and twist then together in back like an action figure is tied to it's box

Then turn your board around

And twist the wires around each other like you did before

I twisted mine all the way to the ends and then coiled up the two wires twisted together

I had 20 gauge silver wire and a flimsy 16 gauge bronze wire, I wanted the look of the bronze but doubted its ability to hold the jar, so I used the silver wire and then covered it with the bronze wire for looks. I made one loop 

And wrapped the jar pulling the last wrap around through the loop and pulled it back the opposite direction making another loop and wrapped the last few inches around the back

And now you have hanging mason jar planter!

I attached a hanger to the back and hung it up in our living room

I'd love to see what you guys do with your mason jar planter!!