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Author: October

  • Laundry Room Makeover (sort of)

    This project comes from the Ana-White website.  Our laundry room is a nice size with the washer, dryer and a full sized fridge.  On a typical day, it looks like this (just keeping it real):

    So I set to work in the garage and had the girls help paint. We built 2 boxes to hold 3 baskets for the laundry.

    And now the laundry room typically looks like this:

    I was able to get the stuff off of the washer and dryer and put them on shelves. Not to mention it just looks nicer than the laundry bags.  I have bigger plans for the room, but for now this has helped a TON!

  • Not quite a Pinterest project but deserves to be one

    One of the first things I did on my new job since I would be traveling was invest in a better carry-on bag.  I did not opt for Samsonite, TravelPro, Hartmann or some other several-hundred-dollar bag, but got a Swiss bag at Target.

    I have learned that I am not the only one with that bag.

    And the Swiss emblem fell off.

    So I got out the puff paints this morning and this is what I came up with.

  • Utah- The best snow on earth!

    (But I would not know with this crazy winter we are having!)

    I had a training in Salt Lake City last week and while I was there I ventured out in the evenings. I have never been to Utah, but am looking forward to planning a trip back with the whole family! It was a really neat place! I only had my cell phone with me on this trip, but really learned how to get the most out of it taking pictures.

    Flying over the Grand Canyon

    Utah did have a bad snow storm the previous weekend. But it rained the day after I got there so most of it melted while I was there.

    It really reminded me of the pretty parts of Colorado. (Because there are some really flat ugly parts of Colorado.) The mountains greet you at the airport.

    Wade decided I need to start keeping a food blog when I travel. I found a microbrewery called Red Rock that had a WONDERFUL Fried Goat Cheese and Pear Salad with Pesto sauce. Mmmmmm…it was so good!

    The training was at the University of Utah and this was their “cafeteria.” I could have sat in there all day!

    I decided to head up to Park City (home of the 2002 Winter Olympics) one evening. Little did I know the Sundance Festival was going on. I luckily found parking and got out and walked around for a while. No…didn’t see anyone famous.

    Did I mention it rained…and all the city snow melted?

    They have a rail system that is free within certain downtown city blocks, and my hotel happened to be located in that area and the station was just across the street! Score! I was able to walk 8 blocks in to Temple Square, have dinner, then took the rail back.

    I started at the Mormon Museum. I am not Mormon but I have an uncle and grandfather that are. I could never practice the religion to the extent that Mormons do, but I will say I admire their values and principles, especially when it comes to family and helping others. If we all lived like that, the world would be a better place! One of the museum curators was kind enough to take me on an 1 1/2 long personal tour of the museum. It was FABULOUS! I was so engrossed in his stories, that I realized when it was all over I did not take one picture! 🙁 Oh well…another reason to go back.

    After the museum, I headed over to the Tabernacle. No, the choir was not practicing.

    And then on to the temple. As a non-Mormon, you are not allowed into the temple because it is sacred. (Reserving my thoughts on that…) Of course the architecture of it is just amazing!

    There are 2 visitor centers where there are several people to walk you through and explain things about the religion. I know this was designed this way on purpose, but I love this statue of Jesus and how the shadow on the wall looks as if He is leaning over the rail looking down.

    There were some other buildings (some under renovation) in the square. But really a neat place to visit!

    I really want to go back and drive up there in the fall…maybe a camping trip. So cool!

  • Pinterest Project #3- Bathroom Remodel

    *Dimensions and cost break down at the end.

    If you follow me on Pinterest (and if you don’t you should!), you probably saw me pin this.  Everybody has the same ugly master bath, and now we all have the same pretty master bath…thanks to Pinterest.  (I am not the only person that did this…you check out my friend Paul who also did this to his bathroom.)  I had intended to surprise Wade but, I only got half-way through before he started seeing I was up to something.  But…in the end, he did help a little to get everything in place.

    I build the shelves first the weekend before.  It took me about 4 hours to build these and then they got 2 coats of paint.

    The shelves were a guessing game.* I messed up a few things (like the bottom seam and I could not find the regular wood filler until AFTER I had filled the holes with the dark stuff!). But they turned out pretty good for not having any plans to go by!

    Friday, I cut all of the trim pieces for the mirror, which took about 2 hours and another trip back to HD because I cut a piece wrong. Those were painted and left to dry overnight.

    With those out of the way, this weekend, I tackled the bathroom itself. I did end up asking Wade what color he wanted the bathroom painted. I already had an idea in mind, but he told me “Andes mint green.” Um….NO. We went with the color I had in mind-gray.* (To give him credit–he did pick out the lights. He is the one that LOATHED the light we had and I was not super picky about them.)

    I started by taking down one light fixture, painting, hanging the new one, then doing the same for the next one. As that was drying, I painted the rest of the room. That took the LONGEST. I started at 7am (and minus swapping out the lights which probably took an hour), I was finished painting by 4pm.

    Next we glued the trim pieces to the mirror using Gorilla Glue. Most people use Liquid Nails…either will work. Gorilla Glue dries in about 30 minutes. We did have to hold the pieces in place for several minutes before taping them to the mirror just to make sure they stayed.

    Once the mirror was trimmed out, we added a finishing piece to the top. I will mention that Wade is so tall he does have to bend down a little or it chops the top of his head off. Oh well.

    Up until this point the shelves had been sitting there, so now we actually screwed the shelves to the wall. THIS IS THE ONLY THING HOLDING THE MIRROR IN PLACE (and a caulk line at the top of the mirror). Some builders glue the mirror, we just had 3 clips in place.*

    That’s it! I am certainly pleased with how it turned out! We still have some decorating around our tub area, but that is for another weekend.

    BEFORE:

    AFTER:

    *Things I would change:

    • The gray we picked out has a lot of purple in it (esp with the new florescent energy lights). I would have liked more of a slate gray.
    • I would have made the shelves about 6-8 inches taller, or maybe even gone to the top of the angle on the ceiling.
    • With taller shelves, I could have extended the top trim piece up some and put a screw in it through the wall to hold the mirror in place AND it would have given Wade some more room to look.
    • I would had made the trim on the top of the shelves flush with the wall. (pic below)

    And if you do this, make sure you paint the back of the trim pieces because they will show up in the mirror!

    Now for the important things.

    COST TOTAL- $140
    Shelves: 2- 1x8x6- $12, 1- 1x2x8- $3, base trim- $4, crown trim- $11
    Mirror frame- 28 feet of base trim- $21
    Mirror top- 7 feet- $11
    Paint- $26
    Lights- $60

    DIMENSIONS
    Shelves- 46″H x 16″W x 10″D
    Mirror trim- 39 1/4″ (top and bottom), 36″ (sides)

  • Pinterest Project #2- Homemade Laundry Detergent

    Yes, I am slightly addicted.

    Today I decided to make homemade laundry detergent and dish washing detergent (which I did not get one thing…so that will be a later post).

    WHY did I decide to do this (was the first thing Wade asked when he walked in the door)? No, it is not about saving the environment and being all granola. Although I would enjoy that, it would be impossible in my right-winged conservative house. It was about saving money.

    I am not ashamed to admit Wade and I are Tide snobs. It makes our clothes smell SOOOOOO good. But after months of experimenting we found that the added Febreeze makes us both itchy, so we went on a laundry detergent hunt. We have been using Gain, and it is ok, but nothing like Tide. But whatever we choose, it is still pretty expensive. We pay around $17-20 a container that lasts about 40 loads. (Roughly 6-8 loads a week means we are buying it every 5 weeks.)

    In comes Pinterest with all of its crafty goodness! Here is the original link:

    Being Creative

    Yes, I followed it exactly and am hoping I can go 9 months without buying laundry detergent!

    Cost breakdown from Walmart (about $25…but that includes a $10 container):
    Container- $9.97
    1 4 lb 12 oz box Borax (2.15 kg or 76 oz)- $3.38
    1 4 lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (1.81 kg)- $2.08
    1 box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 55 oz (3 lb 7 oz)- $3.24
    3 bars of Fels-naptha soap, found in the detergent isle- $2.91
    2 small containers of store brand oxyclean (try to get about 3.5 lbs total (1.58 kg))- $3.92

    Initial thoughts…so far I have done 4 loads of laundry with it (about 2 tablespoons per load). Our clothes come out smelling…clean not overly fragranced. I can’t tell about stains yet, I have 2 girls that don’t get too messy. I am not a fan of powders, I don’t think they work as well, but so far I am pleased. I tried first putting the powder in the water then adding the clothes, I also tried mixing a small cup with water and 2T of powder and then lastly I put the powder directly on the clothes. It all seemed to work the same. I will update in a few months and let you know how much I use before I have to get new detergent!

  • Pinterest Project FAIL

    This was my very first “sorta” Pinterest project. My mom sent me a picture of a canvas she wanted me to make. Ok…cool. I can do that! It was a square canvas with a saying about peace on it. After doing some searching online for transferring, I found a “recipe” to make your own transfer paper.

    I started by painting the canvas purple.

    The directions I found said to spray a clear transparency sheet with spray gel and let it dry. Then using an inkjet printer, mirror the image and print on the dried gel. So far, so good.

    Next, lay the transfer paper down and using a spoon (I used my bone folder), scrape the image onto the surface.

    FAIL!!!

    Nothing came off of the transparency. I did it like 3 times, washing the gel off, adding more, trying a thin layer of hairspray to coat it (which by the way just makes the ink run!). Finally realizing that it was the texture in the canvas, I gave up.

    I repainted the canvas a light blue. Using a clean transparency, I ran it through my printer (just plain with nothing on it), and pressed the wet ink directly on the canvas. This worked the best and I was able to get enough off to go over it with marker.

    Sharpies…right??? WRONG! The sharpies just bled into the cracks of the canvas. I found a fine black paintpen and went over the smudged sharpie which really cleaned it up. In a last ditch effort to make it look nice, I covered it with modpodge. ANOTHER FAIL!!!! It made the sharpies under the paintpen run with each stroke of the paint brush.

    UGH!

     

    That was how I gave it to my mom. I did not even take a picture of it I was so mad. I gave up.

  • Pinterest Project #1- Crayon Art

    Here is my first Pinterest project.

    There are several floating around Pinterest, so I decided to kinda do my own thing. I had a canvas that I no longer wanted, so I painted over it with white acrylic paint (only because I did not have any Gesso).

    I used a box of 64 crayons and took all the browns and skin colors out. (I did not take out the army green and I wish I had.) I took the wrappers off by slicing each one with an exacto and slipped right off. Then I cut off the point and cut them in 1/2 so they were about 1.5″ long. *I would make them 0.5-0.75″ long if I were doing this again. They were too long! There was too much wax to melt.

    I wanted to make sure I had enough crayons (notice I used both pieces of the colors to double the amount I had) and laid them on the sketched heart.

    Next, I glued them down with hot glue. The thing to keep in mind is that as the crayons melt, the hot glue shape will be left so I did my best to make sure it looked even.

    Then came the fun part! (Make sure you do this on a drop cloth because the crayons drop off the canvas and make a mess!) I used a combination of my embossing gun and hair dryer. I started with the embossing gun heating the crayons enough so that I could tilt the canvas and the colors dripped. I made sure that I let the running colors dry before tilting the canvas another direction for the next color.

    Next came the hair dryer. It has to be on high fan, high heat in order to work. Because of the high fan, the drips are not as controlled. You can see how I manipulated the canvas to try and get the look I wanted.

    It got to the point that it became a big puddle of wax…not what I was looking for. So I spent some more time, remelting the puddles and letting them drip off the canvas. I really wanted the crayons pretty much gone.

    NOT loving this at all. 🙁 I just keep working on blowing more wax off.

    And it started working!  The key is to get the wax flowing in streams and not to mess those streams up.  Then let it cool, and move on to the next stream.  When a large portion gets hot (which happens very easily), it muddies them all together.

    Final product.  (And a shout out to Stacey for taking some GREAT pictures!  My 6yo is going to put me out of my photography business!)

  • In case you were wondering…

    If someone by accident turns the old fridge that is super cold, even colder, it will freeze the sodas and this is what they look like when they explode.

  • Cherokee Trace Drive-Thru Safari

    Wade and I decided to take a little vacation up to Rusk for a Halloween train ride.  We had some time to kill before our train ride, so we found a little drive through safari called Cherokee Trace.  We balked at the price when we got there (something like $50 for the 4 of us)…but it was SOOOOOO worth it!

    Once we talked with the lady behind the desk about the drought and the affect it had, we each got a bag of food and we were off. As soon as we entered the park, the deer ran towards the car. They knew what was up!

    I think the lady told us there were over 50 different types of animals in the park.

    The funniest thing though was this lady. She decided that rather than eat the pellets off the ground she was just going to reach into the window and eat them right out of Syd’s bag. Stacey was screaming (with laughter) Syd was just screaming and Wade and I were laughing so hard I could not even take a picture!

    I am not sure how this guy walks. Those horns look pretty heavy. And I did not like how close to the car he came!

  • Unclaimed Baggage

    Have you ever wondered what happens to all the luggage that never gets claimed at the airport?  Ok…so maybe you haven’t.  But when you travel for work A LOT, you start thinking about things like this.

    Meet the Unclamied Baggage store in Scottsboro, Alabama.

    The place is so big there is a map of the departments when you walk in.  It is kind of like a big Marshalls, except all of the stuff in here came out of someone’s luggage that got left behind at the airport, or in the overhead bins, or ripped apart getting on/off on the plane. And some of the luggage was not that of other people, but brand new stuff that was shipped over from China (or where ever the clothing sweat shop is located).

    Some of the locals were telling me that they have some great bargains, but like any place like that, you have to know when the shipments come in and you have to be willing to search.

    I am all about resale and hand-me downs, but the rows of underwear bothered me a bit.

    I was shocked at the number of digital cameras. Most were marked about $20. They had a big counter that you could take the cameras out and actually test them. (And the laptops, and ipads, and ipods, etc…)

    My favorite thing in the whole store actually had NOTHING to do with unclaimed baggage. As I mentioned in the previous posts, I am a total 80’s girl. They have a huge display of things from the movie the Labyrinth. How cool is that??? (Well…I thought it was cool!)