Quite a productive weekend...

I took a few days vacation from work - had a nice long weekend - and got several projects that I've been meaning to do for a while taken care of. There are actually a few other small things finished, but I haven't had a chance to take pictures yet so that will have to wait.

We installed a pet door leading into our garage. We never really had a good place to put the cat litter boxes and we really don't park in the garage very often, so we decided to move the litter boxes out to the garage and install the kitty door. The younger cats are already in and out of it, but we're still working with 14 year old Custer. Dean was pretty fascinated with it as well...

If you haven't heard of Ana White and Knock Off Wood then you need to go check our her site NOW. I believe her inspiration was furniture from places like Pottery Barn and Land of Nod but the prices are insane. She figured she could build it herself and she did just that. She's since posted plans for many woodworking projects, using standard and easily attainable materials, and she's inspired a lot of people (like me) that were intimidated with building anything... to give it a try.

We have a long, narrow kitchen table in the long, narrow breakfast area of our kitchen. It does fit, but it can sometimes be hard to maneuver around especially when people are seated and their chairs are pushed out. Also, when we inherited the table... it only had 2 surviving chairs so we've been dealing with mismatched Craigslist chairs for a while now. We've been wanting benches for the long sides of the table for a while, but I wasn't finding anything within our budget. So, with Ana's plans for Modern Farmhouse Table Benches I made the first of two benches:

I'm pretty happy with it. It's way far from perfect, but I'm proud of it as my first (of hopefully many) furniture project and it will definitely serve it's purpose well. The kids like it and it's very handy to just slide it under the side of the table and get it out of the way.

The other major project was painting our front door. It was stained but had weathered quite a bit, so first we talked about sanding it down and just re-staining it. I'm sure that would have looked nice, but I've always wanted a red front door. Isn't is supposed to bring fortune or prosperity, too?

I'll post the rest of the weekends' projects tomorrow... I made some curtains for my step-daughter's room (she recently moved in with us) as well as painted/recovered two chairs. Oh, and maybe I'll also post some pictures of the other kids. It's not that I take more pictures of Dean, it's just that pictures of Paige and Blake usually look like this:

That's cousin Jayson with her feet. What happened to my sweet little kids?

Commitment-phobe?

Do you think making a formal proclamation of something you want to / plan to accomplish actually commits you to completing said task? I hope I'm not alone as a crafter who has many... many unfinished projects. I have 'parts' for projects I bought and then never did anything with. I have piles of supplies and materials and loads of PLANS! I need to get off my butt and get some stuff DONE!

So, here on the 'internets'... for anyone who's reading... I'm going to commit to 2 (count them, TWO) projects this weekend!!! Do you think that means I'll really get them done?

Blogland is absolutely SO inspiring. It's almost dangerous for me to make the rounds of the crafty linky parties because I start mentally making those plans... maybe even start assembling materials at home.. for that NEXT project... the one that never comes.

So I saw the TWIN SHEET TEEPEE at Obsessively Stitching and fell in love!

It's the perfect project for my little guy and it sounds really easy to make. I picked up the PVC last night on my way home... already have a twin flat sheet I can use... so that is PROJECT #1 for the weekend.

For project #2... there's a little history to tell...

Our Girl Scout Troop does "Cookie Booths" every year in February and March. We stand out in front of grocery stores and the like peddling those yummy-can-only-get-once-a-year boxes of goodness. We have several tables that we use for these booths and they are functional but plain. I really have been planning (see?) for the last few years to make some tablecloths for them. It will make them more eye-catching, I think. I've just never gotten around to it.

But now, it's almost National Lemonade Day!!! The girls have decided to run a Lemonade Stand on Sunday, May 2nd so maybe this is just the right motivation to get one tablecloth made.

I have yards and yards of khaki twill (I used it behind the glass of my memo board) that I could use - cost: FREE! I had a 'brainstorm' moment a couple of weeks ago to put our troop number on there in the same 'style' as in on their uniform:

See those numbers on the left - green rectangles with white letters? I thought that would be cute across the front of the tablecloth so I've already picked up several sheets of dark green and white felt. As another 'decoration' on it, I was thinking of putting random 'extra' badges and patches along the bottom. We sometimes get extra patches from events or duplicates so I have quite a stash.

So my goal for this weekend is to get JUST the tablecloth made. Here is my 'mock up' vision I put together this morning:

Next weekend I'd like to figure out how to rig some sort of PVC frame to the table and make a slip on banner to go above the table. I can make different banners for different events..... but that is a project for another weekend. As are tablecloths for the other 2 tables we use at Cookie Booths.... hahaha

Happy Weekend everyone! I'll check back in on Monday and update you with pictures of what I get accomplished :-)

Family 'Memo' Board

Now that Mark is home during the day, he's been doing the grocery shopping. Usually that means he calls me while I'm at work once he's already AT the grocery store and asks me what we need. I do most of the cooking and meal planning, so I generally know best what we need. However, I don't usually remember EVERYTHING we need when he calls and needs an answer ASAP. We always end up forgetting several items.

So he's been saying we need a whiteboard for a while. It would be a handy place to jot down those grocery items we need as we all become aware of them. I just didn't want a plain white 'eyesore' stuck on the fridge.

Now there are chalkboards ALL over blogland... I know. Trust me, I know. I've drooled over gorgeous chalk 'walls', jars or canisters with chalkboard 'labels', etc. But... we don't like chalkboards. We don't like the sound of chalk on the boards, we don't like the dust... it's out of the question.

I did see, though, where several bloggers have made dry-erase calendars using this same method and that's where the inspiration started. I don't need a calendar (we already have one hanging elsewhere in the kitchen we use for jotting down schedules and appointments). I DO get very tired of "What's for dinner?" as soon as I walk in the door from work, though... and Mark and I DO often miss each other (he's out the door to class as soon as I walk in from work) so I thought we could have a 'reminders' section as well.

Here's what I came up with:



I couldn't take a 'head on' picture as our window is opposite this door and there was too much glare and reflection.

I started out with a Goodwill find. It was $6.99 but I stopped by on "30% off any 1 non-clothing item" day so got it for even less. All I really cared about was the size, the glass, and a decent frame.

I didn't take a whole lot of 'in process' shots, but here's what I did.

• Take apart picture - clean glass and give frame a nice fresh coat of gloss paint
• Measure area and plan out grids
• Print text 'reverse' on computer
• Using a large ruler, draw out boxes on BACK of glass using permament marker *stray lines clean up easy - scrape with a toothpick*
• Tape reverse text on FRONT of glass and trace on the back using permanent marker so it will show through the front oriented correctly
• Draw lines to write on if desired
• Cover cardboard sized to fit (I got lucky at there was a piece of foamcore board already behind the picture) with fabric or paper of your choice
• Mount glass with permanent marker writing on the INSIDE, then covered board into frame

So this way the permanent marker text is on the inside and can not be erased (unless I ever want to redo it and then I can clean it off with glass cleaner). We can then use dry erase markers on the front to fill in everything as needed.

I don't have a lot of wall space in the kitchen, so I mounted it with Command picture hanging strips to my pantry door.

After a few hours, I realized there was NO WAY the dry erase markers were going to stay in the area of the board, so I covered a small box (leftover Conversation Hearts box from Valentine's)with coordinating fabric (ModPodge) and hot-glued it to the lower right of the board to hold the markers:

Haha - that picture is from last week... right before St. Patrick's Day. See Wednesday's dinner? Tried to be a little traditional and get the kids to try something new... we had corned beef with potatoes, carrots and cabbage, irish soda bread, and a grasshopper cake for dessert.

It's so not perfect... some of the text came out darker than other areas, the writing lines aren't all straight, but it will definitely work for now. This could easily be done using vinyl for the letters and lines, but I don't have a lovely Cricut and don't see one in my future. I had to use what I have available.

The best part? Waking up to this in the morning (I usually leave in the AM before they're awake, so Paige added this last night before she went to bed)

That was taken last night. The kids are 'on top' of updating the board and erase a dinner after we've eaten. So all we have now is tonight and the next few nights meals planned. Mark will go grocery shopping agian on Wednesday or Thursday and we'll plan out the next week then.

Thanks for looking! Hope this inspires someone to tweak an idea they've seen so it WORKS for them!

I've linked this to:

DIY Day @ A Soft Place to Land
Talented Tuesday @ My Frugal Family
Toot Your Horn Tuesday @ A Silly Little Sparrow
Get Your Craft On @ Today's Creative Blog
Feature Yourself Friday @ Fingerprints on the Fridge
I'm a Createive Cat @ Poppies at Play
Hodgepodge Friday @ It's a Hodgepodge Life
Spring has Sprung @ It's FUN to Craft
What I Made This Week @ Simply Designing
Craft Concontion @ That's So Cuegly

Craftiness Abounds!

Finally had a little bit of crafting time over the last week and hoping for even more this coming week.

Inspiration here for this little sewing-table-side ironing board. I don't guess it's big enough to iron clothes on, but who does that anyway? It's perfect for pressing open seams, etc. without having to get up from my sewing table.



I used two layers of insulbright thermal batting which I duct taped :0 to the tabletop and then cut my fabric a few inches larger than the top and sewed a casing for elastic around the edges. Super cute and in a fabric that will coordinate nicely with an upcoming, larger-scale project...

Following this tutorial, I made a "Coffee Cozy" for a coworker from the same and a coordinating fabric. I didn't have a cup with me when I made it, so I just followed the tutorial. I used one layer of the same insulbright batting for this.

Now that I can put it on a cup, though, I think I'll make the next one with two buttons and elastic loops to keep it closed a little better. I also think it could be a little longer because scooting it up much higher on the cup opens the overlap edges some. I might tweak this one, but it's really cute!

I've linked this to:

The Twice Remembered Cottage's Make Your Monday

Cottage Instincts Make it for Monday

Kickin' it old school...

Remember Shrinky Dinks? Man, I think I'd forgotten about them, but they really are pretty cool. Here's how it all started....

My daughter's Girl Scout troop are first-year Juniors. For those not 'in the know' - Junior level is 4th & 5th grade and is the first level they can earn a big award. For Juniors, the Bronze Award is the highest award they can earn. Basically, there are several 'prerequisites' they have to work through and then they complete a 'big' project - something that benefits their community somehow and takes about 15 hours to complete.

We're only in our first year as Juniors, so we won't be working on the final project until next year but we needed to go ahead and pick a 'theme' because a lot of the pre-work has to relate to our final theme. We talked about general themes where girls their age could really make a difference... whether it be the homeless, the hungry, animals, children, elderly, etc. These girls, though, are all about animals... so that's the direction we're heading.

Over the next few months, we'll start on that pre-work, but we'll also start checking out some local agencies that we might be able to help with our project. In our area, we've got an excellent SPCA, the Humane Society, Texas Wildlife Rehabilitation Coalition, CAP, Special Pals, and several rescue agencies (shout out to Lone Star Boxer Rescue, where we got our doggies). Feel that linky love? Check 'em out!

Wow - I sure know how to make a short story long, right?

Anyway, we're starting with the SPCA. We'll take a tour, of course, but they also offer a patch project for scouts. As part of that project, we discuss seveal aspects of responsible pet ownership. At our meeting on Wednesday, we discussed the different ways of pet identification - tags, tattoos, and microchips. The girls also threw out spraypaint, but they're just kooky like that.

As a fun go-along activity, we brought out the Shrinky-Dink (paper? plastic? what the heck is that stuff?) and some tag shaped templates (heart, circle, bone, etc.) The girls traced, wrote and colored and then I took them home and shrunk them. They turned out really cool, very cute, and I would LOVE to show you... but I just don't have the time to graphically edit out all of the addresses and phone numbers they included on their tags, like good pet owners. Is it odd that all 12 of our scouts' families have pets?

But just for you... so you can experience the magic... here are some before, during, and after photos of some fun Shrinky Dinks my kiddos made over the weekend. These are photo'd on a standard size sheet of paper so you can grasp the shrinkage.

Run to Hobby Lobby, grab some of this stuff... and start making things. No idea what we'll do with most of them, but it's pure fun!

Here's the before. Paige made the kitty (she cut off one leg), Blake made the chicken (????) and their friend made the ghost.

Here's the during... I pulled them out of the oven to get a picture of the funky way they curl up in process. This is about 90 seconds into the baking... they don't take long. A little longer in the oven and they really do flatten back out.

Here's the 'after' with a close up shot following. So cute!!

Baby Shower Goodies

I went to a lovely Baby Shower yesterday for the mom of one of my Girl Scouts. It was a lot of fun - it's been a while since I've been to a shower.

So, with dear hubby laid off from work, I needed to be as frugal as possible. I found some cute patterns online HERE and HERE and made some bib and bootie sets. The booties would have been cute with a coordinating embellished onesie as well, but the mom-to-be mentioned that she had lots of clothes already.

This first set is made from repurposed 'fabric' I had around the house. The backside of the bib and the outside sole of the booties are denim from old jeans. The khaki fabric was once a pair of cargo maternity pants, and the aqua stripe was a cute button-down shirt my son never wore and has outgrown.

This set was just a cute baby flannel that my momma passed on to me - so soft!

And then this one - it's cute on both sides. The doggy flannel came from my Mom and I had the red flannel from another project. This was my daughter's favorite set.

Oh, and the surprise of the shower... ever seen the relay game involving plungers, toilet paper rolls, and no hands? Way too much fun - I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time.