The rest of the weekend projects... and lizard girl

There were a few more projects from last weekend that I hadn't taken pictures of yet.

When Erika first moved in with us (earlier this year) I really wanted to try to make her room nice and know that we respected her personal space and needs. Of course, I was on a budget, though. Furniture was all Craigslist or from family and I bought THIS bedding set from Wally World.

The sheets that come with the Bed-in-a-Bag sets are not generally the best quality, so we didn't use those on her bed. I can't let good fabric go to waste though. I knew I wanted to use some blackout lining (bought with a coupon) as she gets a lot of sun in her room. My first attempt turned out pretty stiff because of the lining and didn't really hang nice. That was scrapped. Blog-surfing, I saw this tutorial and loved the design - feminine but not overly flowy - and knew that would work perfect.

The sheets had a wavy gray line on white, so I oriented the sections so the lines were horizontal on top and vertical for the bottom. I think they really turned out very nice. I'm sure the turquoise paint is not her first choice, but it's staying unless she wants to do the repainting.


Yes, the wavy lines on the fabric emphasize that my sewing skills are not perfect, but we tend to not look that close :-) The top section is shirred and is just slightly wider than the window and the bottom section (same width as the top BEFORE shirring) just slightly gathers. This was a LOT of sewing (all those shirring lines basted, then gathered, then sewn to the blackout liner) but I'm really happy with them and think they turned out great.

The curtains were in part for her birthday coming up even though I'd been planning them since she moved in. She's starting a college art program in the fall so I'd been watching Craigslist again to get her a nice drafting table for her birthday. Scored a really nice one for $30 but then she needed a chair too. Making the bench freed up a few of our mismatched dining chairs, so one of them got a makeover with spray paint and the cushion recovered. In my book - another successful project.

And then last but not least... Blake's been wanting some kind of chair or stool for his desk in his room. We got bunkbeds a few years ago when I was pregnant with Dean (knew they'd come in handy with 2 boys) and there's a built in desk at one end. Again, super tight budget... so one day driving to work there was a little stool sitting at the curb in the neighborhood. Yes, it was trash day but I'm sure a piece of furniture as fine as this would not be considered trash. I had to rescue it!!!

I took it apart, recovered the top and added lots of extra padding (it was really flat) and used this beautiful fleece that my Momma sent me - Thanks Mom! Red is one of Blake's favorite colors, so I painted the base deep red and the lovely fabric tied in both the red base and his blue walls. Excuse the mess under the desk... he's a boy.

He loved it! Yay! Another success.

And just for laughs.... here's Paige with a lizard she caught... and I guess she's doing a lizard impression?? Love love love those freckles :-)

All of these projects have been great! I find I actually have more energy when I'm trying to keep myself busy and motivated instead of just being a couch potato. I need to figure out the next project... and the next one after that. There's a second bench waiting to be built and then I'd really like to start on a low-cost Master Bedroom makeover. We've done so little with it since we moved in... it's the most neglected room in the house.

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?

Weekend Progress

I've been super busy at work all week so have not yet had a chance to post on my weekend progress.


Task ONE - Twin Sheet TeePee tent for Dean: Check!



I'd still like to make some cute flags for the tops of the poles. I also missed the note on the pattern to make sure that the sheet is the same on both sides. You can see above that the left side of the flap opening is the backside of the sheet and it is lighter, but I'm guess Dean doesn't care too much.



He got right in it when he saw it (right after waking up - hence he still has his paci... and he does prop the 'handle' of it up under his nose like that... always) and it's big enough for all 3 kids to squeeze in if the want to... although Paige can't stand up in it.

The kitties play with it too... to the point of skewing all the poles as they try to attack each other - one inside and one outside the tent...





Just hanging out in the teepee...





So... Task TWO - Girl Scout Tablecloth - did not get done. It's in progress and I'll finish it up this weekend. What I did spend several hours on Saturday doing, though, was building something Paige has been wanting to work on since October.


We got two new kittens last October and Paige really wants one of those cat tree climber/scratching posts. If you've ever priced them at Petco or Petsmart, though, the nice sized ones are upwards of $100... much more for multi-level ones. I told her I thought we could build one.


So we found some particle board left out on the curb for trash day at a neighbor's house. It was intact sheets, they were just moving and didn't want to take it I guess. So we started with a box:





We cut a hole in one side and then carpeted the inside before nailing on the top. We got involved and didn't really get too many in-process shots, but here's one:

It's not finished either - we ran out of carpeting and still want to add one more upwards level. But for now, it's got three posts and a hidey box. Total cost was $0 because we already had nails and staples on hand, 2x4's (posts) were leftover from another project, and the carpet scrap was also a curbside find.

The cats have already been on it constantly and play in and around it. Often, there's one on top batting at the one inside the box.

Here's Kitty in the box playing with Opie down below...

I must say, I think Kitty approves. She's saying "Thank You" - see it?

And lastly... a quick ModPodge project. We discovered two landscape canvases in the back of Yvonne's closet when we were cleaning out her room. Paige really needed some art for her room, so we just painted over them in brown paint (same used for the dresser furniture redo several months ago) and then printed letters in cute fonts, cut them from scrapbook paper, and ModPodged them on.

Up close, a few brushstrokes are visible from the previous landscapes, but they're cute and fun and take up some nice space on her wall.

While I didn't accomplish everything I planned, I did have a productive weekend and am pleased with everything we did.

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 :-)