11 Q&A Writing Excerise

Krishann of HisMrsHerMr tagged me (a brilliant mind-?) in her Twitter feed to join along in this "not-a-chain-letter-blog-chain" and I accepted.  I very much admire the beautifully written posts by Kris.  She really is a talented writer.  I have a long way to come in my writing ability, but maybe this exercise (and putting it out to 11 brilliant minds-some by which probably have no clue who I am) will be the catalyst I need to get practicing.  Or at least it is somewhere to start...

The rules go:

-Answer 11 questions

-Create 11 new questions
-Tag 11 brilliant minds you’d like to pick to answer them.
-Done.

1.  When you were little what did you want to be when you grew up?

I can remember wanting to be a carpenter.  I used to love watching furniture refurnishing shows with my dad.  One year for Christmas he gave me a chisel set.

2.  What is your favorite Disney Movie?

101 Dalmatians (or the "doggy movie" as I like to call it)  THE PUPPIES ARE HERE

3.  If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be?

This girl could live on cheese alone, except swiss.  If the moon is made of cheese, does that mean it is swiss?  If not, you could put me there to live out the rest of my days.

4.  What is your favorite old television show (that is no longer filming new episodes)?

I loved to watch X-Files on Sunday nights.  My dad did too, but he lived two states away.  He would call me up during the commercial breaks and we would discuss the show until it came back on.

5.  What is a movie that always makes you cry when you watch it?

What Dreams May Come.  I hardly ever cry during movies, but I cry during the entire length of that film.

6.  Neapolitan ice cream – which flavor do you eat first or do you eat them all together?

This is too funny of a question!  It's been awhile since I had the ice cream, but I think I eat chocolate first, then vanilla, and strawberry last.

7.  What do you want to be remembered for?

Always having a smile on my face.

8.  What is your dream travel destination?

I've always wanted to visit Madagascar.  As a young girl I would check out books written about the island and study all the animals who lived there.  And then a series of movies were produced and it was made known to everyone.  Now I don't want to go.

9.  When you are asked “what is your favorite” type questions do you have trouble picking just one?

It depends.  ;-)

10.  What is the best gift you have ever received?

My son was the best gift my spouse and I ever gave to each other.

11.  What is something you did today to make someone smile?

I bought my toddler (2 1/2 yrs old) his first pair of sneakers that light up in the heal when you walk.  I put them on him first thing when we got home from daycare and he went tromping around the house with his neck craned back to watch them light up.  He looked like such a big boy in those shoes!  And was thrilled to get them.

Next- My 11 Questions:

1.  Who do you think will win the MLB 2012 world series?  SF Giants or Detroit Tigers?
2.  What is one task you keep putting off doing?
3.  When is the last time you called your mother?
4.  Your first pet was...
5.  What was your favorite game to play on the playground during recess?
6.  Do you collect anything odd, and if so, what is it?
7.  Have you ever quit reading a book that you really wanted to read but just couldn't get into?
8.  Are you picky with any types of food?  And if so, have those tastes changed as you got older or had children?  (you watch them eat a certain food and give it another try)
9.  What happened to the house you grew up in?
10.  What is your favorite holiday and why?
11.  If you could pack up and move anywhere in the world to live for two months, where would you go?

Chevron Dyed + Purse Dump

I have a few items of clothing in my closet that I find I just don't wear all that often.  Or like this dark grey boatneck shirt from Old Navy, not at all.  I have the same shirt in three other colors -which I love to wear- so I guess I'm just not that much of a grey kind of girl.

So, after looking at it in my closet and not knowing what to do with it, I decided to change it into something I might want to wear.  It was either that, or donate it.

That brings us to, yes ANOTHER BLEACH DYE PROJECT -YAY!

Chevron T-Shirt Project

 What you'll need:

*An empty squirt bottle to pour the laundry bleach into

*Painters tape

*Scissors (which I used to get the sharp corners)

*Cardboard to keep the bleach from reaching the backside of the shirt

 I simply eyeballed the chev stripes out, but you could measure it out with a ruler if it fits your fancy.

 When I did a search for the bleach mixture for this project, I first went with 50-50, water to bleach.  I discovered that this was not strong enough, so I carefully dumped out the mixture in the washer and went with 100 bleach over my already saturated shirt.  Fortunately it still worked nicely.  Sit it out in the sun for a bit (watch it closely though! DON'T WALK AWAY!) and the color should lighten up quickly.

Be sure to get a washer filled with cold water ready for when you are happy with the bleach effect.  Carefully remove the cardboard and tape from the shirt and discard.  And to stop the bleach action, use any vinegar you have on hand.  I had an old bottle of white wine vinegar that I didn't care to keep around anymore so I used that.  Remember chemistry: bleach is a base, and so a strong acid like vinegar will neutralize the reaction.  Thanks Bill Nye!

I had to wait till the shirt completely dried before doing the back.  One thing I noticed when using the 100 bleach over a dry shirt (since I skipped the 50-50 mixture for the back) is that the bleach bled more on the dry shirt (gave a "wicked" look) and the front chevrons were much more sharp.  Also, the color went from dark grey to a dusty rose after all was said and done.  So don't go expecting the original color to be there anymore, which I was more than happy enough to say "goodbye" to grey.

Purse -Anthro, Wallet -Bday Gift 2 years back

My birthday just passed and to treat myself I went into Target to look for some new accessories.  I loved my purple leather purse, but it was beginning to show age (I've carried it non-stop for the past four years!) and I thought I was due for a new look.

Purse -Target, Wallet -Target

I didn't want to drop tons of money on a purse I wasn't sure would work, so I picked up one which size and style I liked, but much different from what I had grown used to using before.  This time I could really only carry my phone, wallet, and sun glasses and nothing more.

Here is what I used to carry in my big old purple purse:
*Hair clips
*Bubbles
*Hand Sanitizer
*Body Butter
*4 tubes of chapstick
*Cough drops
*Matches (I don't smoke)
*4 pens
*Coupon case
*Checkbook
*Calendar
*Small notebook
*Iphone
*Batteries (??)
*Flat pennies (I collect them-these need to go away ;-)
*Sunglasses

No more room for all of that now!

modeling my new chevron shirt and new purse

P.S. Oh!  And check out my husband's birthday gift to me, a Canon EOS T3i
I love it so much and can't believe how much better my pictures are looking!

Master Bedroom Update, Part 3

Do you get inspired by nature like I do?  More times then not, I want to be enjoying the outdoors: frolicking in the trees, laying out in the sunshine at the beach, or even working on a sweat in the garden.

But I can't be outside all the time.  It would be awfully cold to be sleeping out in my backyard in the damp coastal weather.  But maybe I can bring that feeling of being surrounded by nature inside?  Like on all four walls of my bedroom!

Homemade Stencil

I found section of a fern and had it blown up to fit on a 11x17 size of paper.  Then I cut out the shape, traced the shape on a flattened cereal box, and WAH-LA!  I had my own homemade stencil that didn't cost me a cent.  (Also what didn't cost me a cent was an old bath sponge that I was going to throw out anyway. :-)

I could vary the height of the stencil, depending on where I placed it on the wall and how far down I painted, and could also (after the paint had dried on the cardboard) flip the stencil over and work with the mirror image or rotate the stencil to make the print look different everytime.  Can you guess, by the picture above, that each fern print came from the same stencil?

I loved playing around with the shape and coming up with new configurations that would add to the "organic" look I was going for.  This layout was definetly not planned out, but thats exactly why I love this type of stencil to work with.  Not like the geometric pattern stenciling projects I've seen that look great, but so much repeated steps-that can get boring to do quite quickly.  This project took me three 2 hour-nights to do, but could have easily been done in one day (if I ever had an entire day to myself ;-).

Have you ever done any stenciling?  What did you most enjoy about it?

Master Bedroom Update, Part 2

Oh headboard, how we missed thee! It has been more than 5 years since we last had a headboard on our bed. That's longer than we've been married!

Our old bed frame came from neighbors in our apartment complex, who were moving out and sold to us an entire bedroom set of four pieces: a nightstand/dresser, armoire, mirror, and headboard with bed frame. It worked with our rental house, but we -I- was tired of it and wanted something new. So we went on the lookout for something we could do.

Source: google.com via Petra on Pinterest

Pinterest is awesome, no? I went back and found the actually site: http://hoboswarehouse.com since I had pinned this before I grew an etiquette conscience by reading CrafterMinds.  Don't worry, I just slapped my own hand.

I love the subutle curve and the gentle tufting.  I have read tutorials on diy tufting, and a headboard should be the perfect place to start, but we got antsy to get the project started, done and over with, so we skipped the tufting for now.

Piece of plywood cut out in curved shape

I'm not very good at belaboring you with the step-by-step tutorial since I'm sure you could just Goggle "how to make a padded headboard" and you would get something much better then I could ever write.  So I will just share some photos of our process:

Cut 2x4 boards to make frame to attach headboard to back wall 

The fabric we purchased from Ikea.  It's in a nice neutral color so I it could go with any color we decide to change our walls to in the future.

Super thick pad bought at Joann's fabrics

Yes, our garage work space was very tight that day.  I had to work around my husband's dirt bike and stand.  Total man cave our garage is.  Well, with plush carpeting.  ;-)

Lots of staples in the corners

We worked so well together on this headboard project, I'm looking forward to finishing the rest of the bedroom with my hubby!

Master Bedroom Update, Part 1

This post is more than a bit overdue. Like try a few months late, but I'm trying my best now to catch this here blog up on my recent -productive- activities!  I give props for all you mommy bloggers out there that have daily (even weekly!) posts. Actually, that goes to all bloggers out there- if you have any tips on how to keep on top of posting to your blog on a more scheduled basis, please share!  I think I just need to make the time to sit down and type! and I haven't been.  But my brain just jumps onto the next project on my list, instead of keeping up this baby.

On to the post:
So my husband was never very fond of the wall color in our bedroom. It was painted this way by two owners past (not the ones we bought from, the ones before that). But it just happens to be my favorite color: I call it Blurple. You know the color found in those beautiful blue-purple hydrangeas?

(Before)

Blue Hydrangeas were also the flower of my wedding, so you can see why I hestitated on changing the color in the first place.  Well I guess it is not very masculine in my husband opinion on color.  But his biggest issue was that it was too dark for his taste, and he wanted something lighter on the wall.  Wait a sec, I thought men liked darker rooms?  He and I are often switched, in our lives together, as male-female stereotypes.  ;-)

After much debate and discussion on if we wanted to go through the effort of putting up wainscoting and a chair rail, we decided to go with a light tone over a slightly darker tone in a sage green color to still give it that half tone look.

Bedroom Walls (Progress)

I think the room looks bigger now thanks to the lighter color up top.  We even went as far as to paint the ceiling with the lighter color as well.  (Which is hard to see in the picture above.)

There are still plans to put up a chair rail, to give the room more architecture, but you might have to wait a while longer to see that post. We may even put up crown molding at the ceiling to better show the light green above.  In the meantime, I'll be posting again (what?! Two posts in one day? Unheard of! ;-) on what came next to our bedroom walls...

because I can't miss adding a pic of my little helper

DIY Sandbox

This is a quick 1-day project my husband and I came up with back in December that I am just getting around to sharing with you.  It all began at nap time on a Saturday afternoon.  We were hanging out in the garage in order to not make noise in the house and wake the baby.  Yes, we are THOSE first-timers.

We had taken apart the steps up to my old turtle enclosure=claw foot bathtub.  Sadly "departed" pet turtle of mine, that I had for 10 years all through my college years and early married life.  Her name was Frankie and I had her since she was a hatchling.  I so loved that turtle :-(  She would have lived for another 25 years if "natural causes" hadn't interfered.  It was a horrific thing to watch and I won't put you through the details of her passing-ANYWAY, moving on...

Easter 2011

Sorry y'all, but we already gave the tub to a friend in the valley who was going to turn it into a planter bed.  But the wood from the steps was ready to be recycled into something new:

I forgot to take pictures of the box construction, but I think it is simple enough to figure out.  The picture above was taken after the majority of the work was completed (and "Nap-Time" had obviously run out, since there are little feet shown here) but I digress.

We bought this chalkboard oilcloth (how cool is that?) at our local hardware store.  Until this point, we had been clamping it to a cheap plastic adult size table, and would have to have the baby on our laps in order to let him draw on the table.  But putting down at his height, AND covering a useful lid for the box, was a much better solution.

Staple down all four sides- starting with opposite sides first, then turn the board 90 degrees and finish the remaining two.  The corners took a bit of origami folding action, as shown above.

We also screwed in two blocks of wood in the corners to help guide the lid to a snug fit to the box.

Next step: fill with sand and toys and begin play!

Be Mine

Happy Valentine's Day!