Projects Galore

I told you I wouldn't post last week, and as you can tell, I didn't.  But, that doesn't mean I wasn't busy.  I was thinking of projects to do this week.  A friend and I are hosting a jewelry party at the house next week, so I have kicked it in high gear with getting some projects done that I have wanted to get done for a while. 

I don’t even know where to start with the projects, so here goes...

Remember the wine bottle chandelier thing I created a while ago?  Here is the initial post. Yeah, I was sick of it.  It didn't turn out the way I pictured it in my mind, so I moved on to a new idea.  This one is a lamp shade from Target that I had to cut the center ring out of so it would fit over the hanging light we already have.   All the instructions I found for this project involved putting the light together at the same time, so I had to improvise a little bit.  Right now, this thing is a little jerry-rigged, but you can't tell, can you? 

This cute thing I had my eye on at the craft show last weekend.  I didn't want to spend the money to get him, but I thought he was awfully adorable and would look great on our front porch for the winter.  Then, thanks to my wonderful parents, he appeared on our front porch last Sunday!  I was pretty excited for our early Christmas present.  If you come to our house he will be waiting to say hello and cheer on the Packers!

Don’t mind Maya's rear end there in the photo.  It was time for a season change for the urn on the front porch.  I'm still loving this urn as much as I did the day I found it on the clearance shelf at Michaels.  Speaking of Michaels, this past Sunday they emailed me a coupon for I think it was 20% of my entire purchase.  I saw in the ad that they had pretty much the whole store on sale, so I made a trip and came home $50 poorer.  But, I got a bunch of things for projects this week. 

This is also a project that came out of my Michaels run last weekend.  I saw the idea for the bulbs in the container on Pinterest.  What you can't see if the spot in the center where I am going to put some florals when they come out of storage this weekend.  I tore through the whole house trying to find said florals only to realize I put them in the same box as the Christmas tree, which in storage.  I know my parents will enjoy having the last of our stuff out of their storage space, and I will enjoy having everything at the house so I can make some sense of it all.  I did the ring around the bottom because I thought just the vase alone looked a little plain jane. 

We interrupt this program to show you.... FOOD!  That's right kiddos, it's Thanksgiving which in my family means it is time to bake.  Here we have grandma's rolls working their magic before going in the oven. 

and... more food.  I also made sugar cookies this week to distribute to some of the family.  I had to make Andrew is own goodie box with sugar cookies so he didn't feel left out.  I made a goodie container for myself so I actually get to eat some of the cookies I made.  

This was another craft show find.  Last week, I had the grand idea that I was going to make something like this for this spot next to the slider onto the deck.  But, as I was going on 15 minutes of standing in the booth at the craft show staring at this thing, I realized that I wasn't going to have the time to do it, so I bought it.  It was very reasonable, and I love the shelf on the top.  As you can see, the Christmas decorations have started to migrate out of the basement. 

I may not have had time for the project above, but I did have time for this project.  I found a post on Pinterest a while ago (what did I ever do without Pinterest) about making no sew curtains.  I have been trying to find a red valance for our kitchen windows for a while now with no luck.  Ok, I lied, I did have luck I just wasn't wiling to spend $50 a piece for them.  On Sunday while I was at Michaels with my coupon, I took my coupon for Jo Ann's a few doors down and found some fabric to make these bad boys.  The first one didn't turn out too bad, but I need to do some touchup work on it.  You make these with iron on tape essentially, and some of the tape didn't get ironed on all the way, so I need to go back through and fix that.  I like how they turned out and two yards of fabric, which will be more than enough, was less than $10. 

And for my final project of the night, we have our new stocking hanger.  When we lived in the apartment, we had a fireplace to put our stockings on, but we don’t have a fireplace at the house.  No fireplace means no mantle to hang the stockings on.  Plus, this year we have two extra stockings for Buddy and Maya.  I actually thought of this idea on my own and while I was on Pinterest realized I wasn't the first person to come up with this idea... major bummer.  For this project, I hit up the Habitat for Humanity Restore and got this cabinet door for $4.  While I was there, I bought a small can of black paint for $1.  I got the knobs in a clearance bin at Home Depot last weekend and paid $1.50 per knob.  I'm not quite finished with this project, I want to write our names above each stocking, but I wanted to share this one with you because I am pretty excited about it.

So there you have it; I haven't been sitting around twiddling my thumbs.  We are headed into peak season for Andrew at work (keep that in mind when you are ordering things on Cyber Monday, Andrew is probably dealing with your stuff), which means less time he will be home and more project time for me.  While he was off last week I didn't get a ton done.  I couldn't want to have some project time this week when he went back to work.  I love him to death, but sometimes working split shifts works quite well for us.  When I come home from work, I generally need to blow of some steam and finding a creative outlet is the best way for me to do that.  Stay tuned later this week and next week, there are more projects coming!

A Responsible Weekend

After out last couple of oh so glamorous weekends and weekends on the run, this past weekend was pretty boring.  Saturday was so stinking nice outside we had to do something outside.  Rather than the millions of fun things I could come up with, we did yard work.  It needed to get done though, so that is one more thing to check off the list.  About a month ago I bought some bulbs I wanted to plant, so I was able to get those in the ground while I still could dip up the dirt.  Now, I had tulips, hyacinth and crocus to look forward to in the spring.  I plan to add to the collection each year, but we will see how these do first. 

We were also able to get some of the plants cut back and get them ready for winter.  I hope everything survives the winter.  We finished raking up the leaves, which we started a few weeks ago.  We had a couple of piles going in the yard a couple of weeks ago, but the kids, I mean dogs, played in them and managed to spread them back across the yard.  We got those put on our winter compost pile. 

We have been meaning to check out the gutters and see how bad they were.  We don’t have a ladder tall enough to get up on the roof, so we had to resort to our only other option...

 

 

That's right, Andrew squeezed through the window and out onto the roof to investigate.  Before you even ask, yes I was worried about him falling off.  I'm really glad he got up there though because the gutters were totally clogged in the corners and needed cleaned out.  Hopefully we can eliminate some potential problems now in the spring.  While he was up there, Andrew took down several wasps nests, so maybe we can also eliminate some of our wasp problems next year.  I'll have to keep you posted on the progress in that department. 

If you don't hear from me a lot this week it is because Andrew is on vacation.  Thursday we take Maya to get spayed, so she will be wearing her lovely cone this weekend. 

One other note, with two dogs now sleeping in the bed, I really think we need a bigger bed.  I'm going to have to find a way to make this work, because I need to spread out when I sleep.  These dogs are cramping my style, literally.  So, if anyone has $25k they would like to donate to the cause of adding dormers on the house, feel free to send it our way.  In the mean time, it may be close quarters.

Sometimes I Think I Live In A Circus

Wedding season is drawing to a close, and I have to say I am breathing a sigh of relief.  It has been a crazy year, but a fun one.  We have been able to be a part of a lot of special days, and each one reminds me how happy I am to be married to my best friend and also to not have the wedding insanity any more.

Now we head in for some holiday craziness.  I do have to admit I'm looking forward to decorating and baking.  I finally tracked down a pastry frame, which changed my life forever!  If you don't know what I'm talking about, here you go:

This thing is AMAZING!  My mom has one, and I always remember her using it for sugar cookies growing up.  When I started baking on my own, I wanted one.  I haven't had one for a couple of years, and has not been good.  I bought another pastry cloth, but they are not all equal in my book.  You really need the frame to hold it tight and keep it from bunching up on you.  I made sugar cookies for Halloween, which was my first time using it, and it was awesome.  It changed my life forever!  Anyway, now you should all go out and buy one. 

Last weekend I made a bus trip to Rockford, IL for a floral conference.  I enjoyed seeing reps from all the growers and flower farms.  We learned some amazing things about flowers.  One of the farms we talked to said they cut over a million roses in one week.  Holy cow, that is a lot of flowers.  I want to go to these farms, most of which are located in Ecuador.  I just want to see all those roses, miles and miles of roses.

Also exciting is that my Packers seem to be on a roll kids!  They are rockin it out even with all the injuries.  Small shout out there.  After all, I am a shareholder so I have to show a little love for the team. 

Lately, I feel like Andrew and I should start a show called "Things Our Dogs Have Destroyed".  Man, have we gone through a lot of toys.  Even before Maya came around, Buddy was the king of destruction with toys.  Actually, Maya just destroyed her first toy last night.  Now, for a memorial of toys they have killed.  

The first toy Buddy killed was a lamb kind of like this one.  We had stuffing all over the place.

I honestly can't remember the order from here on out,

Sorry Target, but Buddy destroyed his frog in about 2 minutes

Buddy didn't seem to like this plush bone from Petco either, it at least lasted about a day

Monkey actually lasted pretty long, we bought him several months ago and had to throw him away this week

First, the string came off this and then Maya chewed it apart. 

Not pictured are the numerous tennis balls and plush balls Buddy destroyed as well as the purple bear he destroyed last week.  Along with toys, we have also lost a harness for Maya that Buddy chewed one of the snaps off of and a foam bed/pad we had in Buddy's kennel for a while.  Buddy tries to "fluff" his bed and in the process ripped through the bed we had for him, at which point he got blankets in his kennel.  

At the moment the only toys that have survived are the Petstages butterfly, a purple monkey with a rattle in it, and a Kong. 

My beef with all this is that my dogs are Beagles.  Yes, they like to chew, but their jaws aren't as big as say a German Shepherd.  I really don't think they should be able to destroy toys within minutes of getting them.  So, pet toy makers, STOP making crap toys.  And what lesson have I learned from all this, cheap toys are not to be trusted and anything with a squeezer in it better be sewn twenty times or Buddy will rip it in half.

Winter Projects

Since the summer project season is coming to a close, I thought it would be appropriate to make a list of the things I hope to accomplish this winter around the house.  When it is nice outside, I don't want to do things in the house, so now is my time to get some of those things I have been putting off completed. 

1. Organize my flower tags- I have been saving the tags from all the plants we bought for the yard and want to put them together in some kind of binder or something so I know what is planted out there. 

2. Deep clean the house- I need to do some deep cleaning that probably hasn't been done since we moved in.  A couple of weeks ago, we got to take some things to our clean up days and it was so nice to get those things out of the house.  We had the random toilet we pulled out when we put the sump pump in, the carpet that had been wet many times before in the basement, the ugly carpet in the front entry, and some random things from the yard. 

3. Finish the window in the bathroom- yeah that's right, it still isn't done.  Dont judge.  We need to decide if we are going to finish taking the pain off and finish it or if we are going to replace the wood all together. 

4. Decorating for Christmas- I am totally looking forward to this now that we have the house to decorate!  I can't wait to put up some outdoor lights and put the Christmas tree up.  I can't wait to celebrate this year with our puppies!  

5. Tax preparation-  I need to hunt down all the stuff from this year.  I think our tax lady is going to be in shock with all the fun tax things we are going to throw at her this year.  We have the house now, my new car, and the business expenses from doing flowers. 

6. Organize the basement- we have acquired some stuff in the basement and I am trying to label it and keep it together by season.  I know after Christmas this year more stuff is coming to our house from my parents, so I need to make room for that too. 

7. Make a game plan for the summer- we need to come up with our plan for next year in the yard.  Of course, a lot of that is going to depend on how generous our tax return is this year. 

And now I will leave you with an adorable picture of the puppies getting along so well!