{project} Pinterest!

We needed a shelf that would hold our cable box thingy and couldn't find any deep enough.

So, off to Pinterest I went. 

I found this pin....

Source

Cool.  Let's do it.  It's been pinned for MONTHS....

So I ordered 5 unfinished wood crates from Joann's Fabric because our store here never has them in stock.  Totally scored.  They were 50% off almost AAAAAAAND I had a free shipping code.

You need a cute helper or two....

The labels were glued on (yep...glued) so a little nail polish remover and some elbow grease and they were removed.

A little bit of stain.....

I'm apparently a messy worker....

Lots of lessons learned during this project.  I've never used a water based stain and I've never stained such a big piece.  Overall it's not perfect, but I like the finished project even with my oopsies.

See, again, you need a cute helper or two....

Voila! Finished project.  

Chad used the air nailer to nail two 1x1ish boards to the back to make it a little more study and to nail the crates together.

Is it perfect? No. Is it store quality? No. Does any of that matter? Nope!

It's perfect for what we need it for AND it looks pretty decent AAAAAND it was pretty cost effective. 

A Pinteresting evening

I went out and had some me time on Saturday night!
(Chad went out Friday night with friends)

This was, for the most part, my first night out since Parker (not that I had a lot of those pre-Parker).

Megan threw a Pinterest party and invited me to come on up!

You've never heard of a Pinterest party?  
Me either!

The rules were simple:

The host provides the main dish and the craft.

The guests bring a dessert, appetizer, or drink.

All must come from Pinterest.  

Sounds fun to me!

I didn't take any pictures of the food or the process....

I was taking everything in and working on some strategies to help myself get through it.

Everything that was brought looked really yummy 

(however I only tried a few things since I was a little anxious to be there)!
I opted to bring fruit salsa and cinnamon/sugar chips.

Megan had a fun and simple craft picked out!

This is my finished product.  

Her original pin can be found here (I assume that's the pin she used anyhow).

We used liquor bottles instead of wine bottles though.

Alysha found this fun pin to add to the fun!

Everyone (minus Jen) and their finished products!

(stole this picture from Megan's Facebook)

Thanks Megan for a great "first" night out!

(PS this totally counts as one of my "something new in 2013")

{shenanigans}

I finally convinced Chad into making the coat hooks for the front door (would have done the back too but we bought Menards out of the hooks we needed). We may or may not have messed up and now it has a fancy decoration on it =)

I also finally finished the set of word blocks that I had started at the beginning of January.  I've got the most awesome head cold that started today so I didn't get to snuggle much with Parker today.  Don't want to get him sick! So I sat at the table and finished these up.

They spell a bazillion different words and I've made them for a few family members and friends but never myself.  Now I have my own set!

We also put together Parker's high chair today.  It will get brought upstairs this week and he will start joining us in this for meals!  He may or may not get to start solids soon.  Most books tell you 4-6 months so we will talk to his pediatrician at his 4 month appointment to see when to start and what to start with!  For now though, he will just hang out and play in it.  He didn't seem to mind it all that much so that's a bonus!!

We all hung out in the "man cave" last night.  Chad hooked up one of our cable boxes to the TV down there to see if it would work and voila! As long as we use the AV jacks and not the HD we have TV downstairs again!  He took the box out of our room and used that.  We need to find somewhere here that sells the boxes so that we can just have one for down there instead of using the one from our bedroom.  Loves me some Nick at Night before I go to bed!

Chad shoveled earlier this evening.  We have quite the drifts from the "blizzard" we were having.  We are expected to get another 1-3 inches tomorrow!!!

I hope your weekend has been as productive as ours has so far!

Back in March....

Back in March Chad's mom and dad came for a visit!  

Ann wanted to put together a diaper cake, so we tackled this new adventure together.  This is how they turned out (she did most of the work, I was just there to learn too). A friend of her's sister was having a baby shower later in the month.  She is having twins, a boy and a girl...as if you couldn't tell!

These were taken when we still lived in the condo.

Krafty projects!

First off, welcome to what I've been up to the last few weeks =) I've been staying strong to my new years resolutions!! Bring less work home, check. Do at least one krafty project a month, check.

I've been working on some alligator clips......

and some fun clothespin magnets  

okay these were for another project, but the project was an epic fail of chemicals mixing that apparently shouldn't have been and the reaction was not that of a pleasant one woops!.....

These beauties were found over at brown paper packages.   

These have been my favorite project yet!

I'll be linking up soon for this contest...

wish me luck!

{Go Steelers!}

Today is the Super Bowl and Chad's team is playing!  My sister and her family are up for the weekend and so we decided to make our niece a shirt to help him support his team.

I used freezer paper stenciling from over at  I am Momma Hear Me Roar!

Materials:

Freezer Paper

Silhouette (or any other cutting machine, or just print the letters off and cut them out for stencil)

Iron

Fabric Paint

Cotton shirt (pre-washed)

Directions:

Step 1- I traced the design I wanted onto the dull side of freezer paper (I should have just stuck the freezer paper into my Silhouette but I didn't think about it, so I cut out the letters in the font I wanted and then traced them onto the dull side of my freezer paper).

Step 2 - (can be skipped if you used a cutting machine but remember if your letters have a hole in them (like e) you need to KEEP that little dot in the middle of the e tummy).  You'll have to cut out your letters and make sure to keep any parts needed to make your letters look correct.

Step 3- I ironed (using the cotton setting) on a piece of freezer paper to the inside of the shirt so that if the paint soaked through it wouldn't get onto the other side of the shirt.  You must put the shiny side of the paper down (otherwise your iron will stick to the freezer paper).

Step 4- Flip the shirt back to the right side out.  Iron on (shiny side down) the pattern you want to stencil onto the shirt.  Make sure that it is stuck to the shirt before you start painting.

Step 5- I used a foam brush and Tulip Soft fabric paint.  I painted on one coat, not brushing, just using the sponge, and then went back over with a second coat after about 2 minutes.

{the paper "unstickied" from the shirt, so I thought....

it really didn't it was just the paper soaking up the paint.}

Step 6- Let it dry for about 4 hours then pull the outside stencil off carefully.  I took our stencil off after 3 hours (Chad was super excited to see if it worked) and it was just fine.

Step 7- I let the shirt lay flat to dry over night and then took the inside freezer paper off this morning, just in case.  

I love how it turned out!  This is the first Freezer Paper Stenciling I have tried and it was SO easy and the final product was awesome (in my opinion)!

GO STEELERS!

Valentines Day subway Art

I'm trying to do one craft a month  =)  Here is one of January's:  

 I found this idea on a fun crafty blog Tatertots and Jello

Valentine Subway Art:  

 Chad so graciously cut this piece of wood for me.  =)  Then I sanded it down.....

Gave it a coat of primer...should have done two, but, it's my first project with a new medium, you live and you learn =)

Put 2 coats of red paint on, then distressed the whole area using sandpaper....

Placed my letters {which I used my Silhouette to cut out} and modge podged them on!

 

Simple, cute, INEXPENSIVE decoration =)