Dear DIY friends

(hello blog how have you been all summer, abandoned, sorry)

DIY friends, do you ever find yourself overwelmed.  Maybe you took too many items on at once.  Maybe you need toilet paper rolls or corks for a cool project and you don't know where to store them or how many you will need/how long it will take you to collect your trash until it becomes treasure?

I am blessed with getting every other friday off, but I work 9 hr days to make up for it.  It is worth it, don't get me wrong, but my friday is usually spent consepulizing projects.  Here is what today holds:

Project Priority #1:

I spent the afternoon with a pregnant friend on bedrest, her shower is tomorrow.  She had planned on getting that room finished around 7 months... SURPRISE!!  I am also stumped on what to get make her for her shower. (She is not finding out the sex of the baby, this makes it difficult as the child is nameless.)  

I decided to refer to ana-white.com.  I am going to make her the changing table, but I am going to make it to the dimensions of her dresser.  Which is not at her house to get measurements.  Instead this dresser is at her mom's house, and no one will be home until 6:30.  AWESOME.  

Did I mention I want to have it mostly assembled by tomorrow, for her shower, at noon.  I am officially crazy, and might not get a lot of sleep. I am not painting/staining it.  That will be left up to the future grandpa who is also staining the dresser.

Project Priority #2:  

A toy box for my mother-in-law.  My nephew is now 2 and the toys are taking over.  I think she is ready for some order to her living room.  

Project #3:  No priority just what I want.

A wall hanging.  Similar to this:

So I have that overwhelming feeling going into lowes and stealing, borrowing, using all their paint chips.  Since I was all over town today, I stopped into 2 different Lowes and got about a 3/8" stack of paint chips at both.  Workers their probably think I'm indecisive, crazy, and I am painting all walls in my house?  Or they think I am addicted to Pinterest and I am stealing, borrowing, using all their paint chips like everyone else.

While at the home improvement store, I purchased a quart of oops bin paint which I thought was bright magenta, (perfect for the base of the wall hanging above)  NOPE, I open the container, paint brush in hand, and staring back at me is green screen green.  AWESOME.  I try my best to break out of everything being blue grey and green, and even the paint knows better.  

Background painted on the board I will use. (taken with phone camera) 

I apologize for any misspellings and terrible grammar.  I am heading to dinner and Brent has not proof read.

Jennifer

Did you hear the buzz? : Kelly Jo Drey

I believe my endless need to make something is to blame on my Grandma Mary.  She was an excellent woman who always wanted to walk every craft booth at Santa-Cali-Gon.  You could see her taking mental notes of what was up and coming in the craft world so she could take it back home to her little town of Crocker, MO.  On visits all I wanted to do as a child was stare at her tallest armoire of fabric, pick through drawers of felt, and hide behind the "large container of orange juice".  (This orange juice was probably the largest roll of batting you have ever seen, covered in an even larger orange trash bag.)  

While living in Crocker, my grandma had 9 granddaughters, no boys.  (Mikayla, I haven't forgotten about you, you just were not around then).  Every summer all of the girls tried their best to go spend a week or two at grandmas.  We would play dress up in the apartments on their property, follow grandpa into his garden, and occasionally make houses out of grass clippings.  

I now know how much grandma stressed about us all coming to her house.  She would plan group crafts all of us were able to participate in.  We made barbie furniture and clothes out of reused trash she collected over the year.  We would participate in "Christmas in July", where we would all be assigned a cousin to hand make a gift for them before we got to grandma's house.  I don't remember what I made back then, but I know Samantha had cross-stiched a Ziggy character sitting on the word HI for me.  Loved it!

Trying to keep the memory of Grandma alive.   I came up with a challenge for my cousins to be creative and let me post it on my blog.  

First up:  Kelly Jo Drey and her newly installed bee hive - The oldest of us girls, aka the officiant of our mock weddings playing dress up.

The ecologist in me is completely smitten with social insects and has been ever since I took a tropical field biology course in Mexico over ten years ago. Natural selection ensures that all creatures are- -ultimately-- concerned with passing their genes on to their offspring. Having babies. But honeybees exhibit colony-level reproduction. They work as a group, each individual bee a living thing, yet an integral part of a larger organism. The queen bee lays ALL of the eggs. And the worker bees devote their lives to taking care of their sisters-- not their own babies. (That’s right, most of the bees in a colony are female. How cool is that.) This behavior is pretty rare in nature, and utterly fascinating to me.

The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others.

~Saint John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople~

I didn’t deliberately set out to become a beekeeper, however. I was required to take an introduction to beekeeping workshop during the sustainable agriculture component of my graduate degree. Members of the local beekeepers’ association taught the course. They encouraged us to sit near our hives and marvel at the zen-like nature of our bees. This made perfect sense to me. A year later, a more intensive course was offered at the local community college, so I signed up. Then Bart gave me a whole bunch of beekeeping equipment as a Christmas gift and that sealed the deal.

The bees were ordered months in advance and the fact that I would need to pick them up (at the beekeeping supply store in North Carolina) on Mother’s Day was non-negotiable. A lot had changed in my life between Christmas and Mother’s Day. I decided the least stressful course of action-- for the bees, anyway-- would be to pick up the “package” on the appointed day, drive them to my (their) new home in West Virginia, assemble the hive, and install them there. Mind you, I was not planning to actually move in to the new place until two weeks later. Thankfully, my good friend (and new neighbor) Savanna agreed to keep an eye on the hive in the meantime. So, I loaded up the backseat of my car with beekeeping equipment, put the bees in the passenger seat next to me, and away we went!

This all happened three weeks ago. I opened up the hive again today to check on their progress and they seem to be doing everything one would expect them to be doing: building comb, storing nectar and pollen, rearing brood. The first round of baby workers should be hatching any day now and the colony will (hopefully) only grow from there.

When Jennifer asked her cousins to write a blog post about something we do that is crafty or creative, she suggested I might feature my beekeeping. Beekeeping is awesome, but it hardly makes me feel “crafty.” I just have a hard time taking all the credit here. It is the bees, after all-- my enchanting, gentle, diligent bees-- that are doing all the work.

The happiness of the bee…is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it.

~Jacques Cousteau~

Thank you Kelly!  I hope this inspires your sisters and mine to be adventurous and try something new!

Jennifer

4 day weekend, 3 projects, 2 canvases, 1 new vacuum

Yesterday i was a busy bee.  I even talked my husband into helping with my to do list:

 1.)  One of my great friends is getting married in June and has asked me to make her a prop for her photo booth.  I need to get this project started ASAP.  Here is a hint:

2.)  For this same friend I am making her a secret present SHHH no telling!

3.)  I need to buy a new vacuum cleaner.  The vacuum we occasionally pulled out before was an antique bagged upright.  Last week I tried to vacuum the basement and it smelled like something was on fire.  Goodbye Eureka, HELLO Hoover Wind Tunnel T-Series.  I never thought I would enjoy a vacuum, but when I pulled out the hose to attempt to dust the mantel, I watched the dust get sucked up. 

4.)  I have to use this vacuum all over my house.  We have been remodeling our basement bathroom and the contractors moved their stuff out on Friday.  Left behind is the debris that happens at any construction site, drywall dust on everything.  Including my husbands "second child" (see photo right).

He wanted to run some errands and look at new toys at Best Buy, so we came to a compromise.  If he gave me 45 minutes to work on to do item 1 and 2, while he ran the vacuum upstairs, then we could go look at new toys at Best Buy.  Come to find out, he ran the vacuum and dusted.  He enjoyed watching the dust being swept into the hose too!

5.)  Next on my to do list was a product of me having some extra time during my 45 minutes.  So I emptied my mind of a project that has been compiling in my head.  It is never quite clear when or how and idea comes but the main ingredient present is... MOTIVATION.

Let my share this tutorial for a really simple wall hanging.

Supplies for Project:

• 1 old mirror. Mine used to hang in our basement bathroom.
• 2 Art canvases - I like to have some blank ones lying around the house, Hobby lobby has a good sized canvas in a pack of two for 7.99.  These are my favorite.
• 1 can of oops paint found at Lowe's (color & name unknown).
• A paint brush.
• 40 brad nails (I used the ones that I had saved years ago from a book shelf we bought and didn't want to put the cardboard back on it.)
• Yarn to coordinate with the oops bin paint.
• Rubber Gloves (as to not ruin my manicure).
• Hammer.

Step 1:

Apply a layer or two of paint to the mirror and the canvases.  (I like the canvases that you can't see the staples on the sides) Let dry over night.

Step 2:

Hammer about 10 nails into each long side of the canvas frame, leaving about a quarter to a half inch of nail out of the wood.

Step 3:

With the yarn, tie a knot to a nail on the back of the canvas.  Once the end is secure, bring the yarn across the front of the canvas and hook onto any of the nails on the opposite side, and repeat back and forth until you have a desired look.

Step 5:

Secure the end of the yarn, repeat on the second canvas.

Step 6:

Hang as desired!  This wall has been blank for too long.  (It needs paint desperately, but I haven't had the motivation for that yet).

Sorry about the photo quality, but my good camera is spending the afternoon with someone else.  These iphone photos were the best I could come up with.

Did you make your long weekend productive?

Jennifer

No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true. -- Cinderella


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Scarfs

I am making two scarves simultaneously one I am knitting, one I am crocheting. It gives my fidgety fingers something to do while watching tv. There is also a noticeable difference between the two lengths...




I just started the crochet one two nights ago, the knitted one was started two weeks ago.

Do you have a preference? It seems to me the crochet goes much faster. Look wise I like both.

Jennifer.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

To do list.

1.) Learn to solve my new Rubix Cube 360
2.) Read Freakonomics


3.) Finish reading Superfreakonomics
4.) Knit something other than a scarf or washcloth.
5.) Finish my picture ledge.
6.) Plant my plants in the ground.



(they are all a bit bigger than this after 7 weeks)
7.) Get excited about aerobics every Thursday for the month of May.
8.) Post once a week through May.
9.) Load my pictures to an external hard drive and empty my 8gb card that is currently FULL
10.) Keep the laundry from piling up. This includes putting the laundry away.

Jennifer

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3 weeks on the job and...

I need a vacation.  Literally.  You would too if you've also been working at the exact same job 8 months already without a vacation.  Then have to wait another 90 days to take one.  These have been rough times.  But the end is in sight.  I realize I cannot take a vacation for the next 68 days so I am going to make the best of it, enjoy this warm weather and bring the vacations BACK to me.

The same year my husband and I go married, we also went to his sister's wedding in St. Thomas, US VI.  It was awesome.  The house we stayed at looked like this out the back door. 

That teal line, was a kayak that we could pull out into the water. (Don't go kayaking right before sunset near the equator, the sun drops much quicker there.  A nice evening kayak becomes a race against the sun)

(That small speck is my husband and I on our sunset kayak)

When I am going on a vacation I want it permanently burned in my memory and these are my tricks.

1.) I buy a nice shampoo and conditioner, one with a good scent.  One I would never buy for myself normally, and use it on that vacation, no matter how awesome it made my hair feel, I don't use it when I get back.  The smell just sticks with me.  When it is dreary, cold, or I need a pick me up,  I use the shampoo and I can smell vacation.  I trick my brain.  I am shortly transported from Mother Earth's mood swings, (the Midwest), to a calm mind.

2.)  I switch to a new face lotion.  For the length of that bottle, every morning I get a reminder.  Here was the St. Thomas/Chicago Honeymoon Face Lotion.  Nothing fancy, but it has a unique fragrance.

(Unfortunately they discontinued this line)

3.) Take funny pictures you wouldn't see everyday.  I believe this is a pirate.  He just has all limbs attached. 










4.)  Get a good book, or 3 1/2.  Something you will remember:  an end to a series, the start to a series, ok I love a good series. (reason #1 I got a kindle after this vacation, I was tired of lugging around books!) (I finished the last 2 books to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books, I thought 2 would be enough, so I bought and read the first twilight book and started the second on this vacation.  This was before there were crazy people about twilight, before the 4th book came out, heck the person in charge of the book store in St. Thomas never had heard of the books)  ( I liked them, but if I would never start them now with all this crazy)

There was a hammock on the deck off the side of our room.This is where I found myself reading through many books that week, each morning getting up early, reading on the hammock.


5.) If I learned one thing this vacation it was Vacation = Hammock.  And that is something I can take home with me.

Here is the hammock I made last year!  So comfortable, and it has everything I need in arms reach. 

I am pulling this thing out of storage ASAP!  A good book, a large glass of water, and a few hours is all I need until my vaction is here. 

I hope your vacation is soon, if not, try to relax and enjoy your time off when you get it!

Jennifer

I am not a jounalist...

By day, I am a structural engineer.  I used to work on buildings like this:

(This was one of my first assignments)

In Dec 2009, this career of pretty buildings came to a sudden halt.  

I am employed again but I work on big power plants.  The buildings I work on are not so pretty anymore, but the job is less stressful, so I love the trade.

I am also impatient.  I try to take my time, but yesterday when I posted this post I left off the bottom most part of the post.  HOW I worked with my mom to make it!  

I was interupted before I was finished, my mind started going blank, and my husband said it was time to leave  = wrap up the post.  I threw in the final picture and hit send.  

The Ugly continues...

 

As a reminder here is the ugly transformed:

Last year, my mom had Presidents Day Weekend off from work.  (This is for those lucky people who get more than 6-8.5 holidays a year).  To coincide, Hancock fabrics was also having a 50% off sale on all their clearance items.  I was browsing the fabric store, and found this corduroy upholstery fabric with a swirl pattern on it.  I liked the neutral tone, the modern swirl, and even more so the price.  At $1.50/yd.  you can recover an entire couch for less than a meal at Chili's.  Hallelujah!  With my new limited budget and over enhanced boredom.  This is just what I needed.  I took the remaining 6 yards on the roll and never looked back.  In the sewing world, this deal is one notch above robbery.

I lugged my mom's sewing machine over to my house, grabbed my laptop, and googled everything I needed to know about redecorating furniture and how to use a sewing machine.  After I bought two zippers and a small amount of 1/2 inch foam for the arm rests I spent around twenty dollars!  (Cheaper than Logan's on 2 for 14.95 night + tip to our waitress Tiffany, um we go there alot)

Since it is better to have more fabric than not have enough,  I whipped together some curtains to hang in the basement with the extra yardage.  One day I intend to embellish these, so they are not two dimensional.  

That day/idea has yet to come.

 Jennifer

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Sorry Western fans, I'm talking today about hand-me-down furniture.  Everyone has some.

The Good: Our dining room furniture was a great hand me down from my in-laws, It matches our kitchen perfectly, and the size is great for the current size of our family (2). (Booster is still up from the last time my nephew was over, so you didn't miss anything) (On the table is my "hopeful garden")

The Bad:  (Name your best offer, this stuff is available folks!)  This stuff isn't bad necessarily, just extra. 

and the UGLY!!

This ugly is unable to leave this house, WHY??, It is comfortable!  This is a perfect little rocker.  When I was still in school visiting Brent, I would sit in this chair for hours doing homework, reading etc.  It is just not that easy on the eyes. The touch isn't the best either, we'll call it old 70's velvet.  AWESOME.

Solution?

What did our hard work get us in the end? Something a bit easier on the eyes, that is for sure! 

Jennifer

What was I thinking?

While I was unemployed, I had a bunch of time on my hand.  If you don't include my crappy surgery recovery,  roughly 2-4 weeks.  I had 8 months of time on my hand.  I filled 9-12 hours of that time a week teaching my water aerobic classes, but the other 28 hours I would have otherwise been at work, I needed something to do.

 I wanted to spend my time doing something for the better.  I wanted to see people, volunteer, and get out of the house without spending too much money.  

I started volunteering at the Palmer Center (55+ crowd's community center)  helping in the computer lab and teaching the "more experienced" about facebook and email.  For some people it was great.  I helped a man compose a letter to his wife who was in a nursing home, I helped a couple find sheet music for their funny looking instrument, a cross between a harp and a guitar.  But their were some crazies.  The lady who had 17,000+ emails in her inbox, who would then "forward" them to her entire contact list is just one example.

The Palmer Center did not last too much longer after the "crazies" took over.

In the middle of February 2010, I got involved in the Boys and Girls Club Renovation.  ( This will get it's own post one day)  Helping with the Boys and Girls Club made me realize I have talents.  I can work with my hands, power tools aren't just for boys, and seeing something you have created is a better high than swiping my credit card for a similar mass produced item.

I am starting this blog to let me share these projects I have made:  It's my brag blog.  I intend on having other topics in my posts, but if I can inspire one person to look at an item at a store and say to themselves " I could make that"  then I have succeeded. 

Thank you for reading!

Jennifer

Competition Sparks Creativity

For a minute lest step back a few months.  The week before Thanksgiving, my favorite blog Lil Blue Boo was pumping up excitement for her new Lil Blue Boo / Dharma Trading Design Challenge.  Being mildly creative, I decided to look into it.  After her post of the rules, it seemed plausible, I just needed a medium.  (If you click the button to the side, you will see her posted rules)  

 To recap:  I needed to use a use a printing or dying technique with fabric.  This item could be anything I would like.  

Brain Storming:
In brief I like to take photos, I am not a photographer.  I have tons of photos hiding in my computer just waiting to bust free and be seen.

I have been wanting a good reason to print my photos on fabric using this technique I found on YouTube.  I desided to use this technique and incorporate the photos I had taken of my nephew and my cousin's daughter at the park.  

I incorporated the photos into two small picture books to give to them for Christmas.  Here is the process: 

Using the above video I prepped my fabric pages.  I used 100% cotton curtain lining from Joann Fabrics, I liked the extra weight. 

I printed 5x6 photos in the center of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of my prepped fabric paper 

 After the photo was printed and set, I ironed on a heavy interfacing to give the page some extra stiffness, and trimed the outside edges to 1/4 inch from the edge of the photo and 3/4 inch on the inside (binding side).  

I

then sewed on a fun fabric for the back side of the page using the photo edge as my stitching line on three sides leaving the binding side open creating a pocket.  

I inserted 4 7/8 x 5 7/8 - 2mm fun foam sheet into the pocket I made with the backing fabric.  and finished the edges with double folded 1/4 in bias tape.

My books each had 7 pages, a title page and 6 photo pages,  I sewed the first 4 pages together along the binding side, closing the pocket.  The last three pages got sewn together next.  

For the binding of the book I used 2 in satin binding as you would bias tape, and covered up the 3/4 in binded side on the 4 page and 3 page.  (be careful not to flip one side as I had done.  There is nothing like breaking 4 needles and ripping it out and starting all over)

To close the book I cheated and used a no sew fabric glue.  If my sewing machine broke  4 needles with 4 pages I hated to think what 7 pages would look like.  

 The final result of my nephew's book (Due to the present opening of my cousin's daughter's book being so close to the finishing of the book, I have no good pictures) :

THE END

Jennifer

A month in a name.

So as the new year came around I wanted to start my own blog. Having read numerous online I have become addicted. We will call this my new years resolution for 2011. It is now March 23, 2011. Almost a quarter of a year has gone by and I have gotten past the blogger URL. Congrats to me. 

Back in December, after Christmas, I ventured into Blogger with good intentions of setting a blog up.  Then I was stopped dead in my tracks.  I had no idea of a name...  Not wanting to settle on the first thing that came to mind and regret it months later, I shut down the computer.  Enough said, this would be too hard. 

I now have a deadline, March 31, 2011.  My favorite craft blog, lil blue boo has a contest going on.  This at the time required me to post a blog on my project ( to come shortly I hope).  This also was the inspiration for 2 of the best Christmas gifts I have ever given/made.  (Post to come before March 31, 2011).

Step one has started.  I have a blog. 

Step two, post my tutorial on how I made my awesome gift for both my nephew and my cousin's daughter. 

Step one is finished...time stamp 10:33pm March 23, 2011. 

New Years Resolution started a bit late.

Jennifer