The Flergers!

Hey Ya'll,

I have a separate blog that I just started adding to (I set it up some time ago but hadn't finished.) Its mostly about crafts and projects but here ya go if you are into that kind of thing:

The Teacup and Saucer

http://theteacupandsaucer.blogspot.com/

Wow, I just realized I haven't blogged in like a month and a half. Been a tad busy, don't-cha know? In my spare time (when I have any) I like to sew. My new obsession (gee I wonder why) is making baby items! Here are a few things I've been doing...


A "taggie" blanket for Lucas

Here's what it looks like when it is
not in his mouth...

A bib and 2 burp cloths
for my friend Sarah's shower...

A tutu and personalized onesie
for my niece, Evy

A "hooter hider" for my friend
Darcy (it matched a burp cloth
that I forgot to take a pic of.)

I'm trying to get some stuff done so that I can get my Etsy shop opened. :)

                                       Lily checking out the first piece I applied
                                           Jesse helping with the installation
Me applying Liquid Nail to the beadboard
Jesse adding the chair rail...
    A nearly finished wall! The window was tricky...

Wish I would have hit my finger with this, not the hammer!
Ugh...is it naptime yet?
Nearly finished!
Dude, I LOVE power tools! P.S. I am so hot...is it the kneepads or the goggles?
Owee...

So, okay. I admit I like to do projects. There is something fun and satisfying about finishing a piece of work, especially when it was something challenging and difficult. But WOW, next time I decide to take on installing laminate flooring, I'm NOT going to do it when I'm 7.5 months pregnant!

Its not really that difficult to do, even for a novice like myself, but it sure helps to have a buddy help you out. A few tips--make sure you have enough spacers, that your jigsaw blades are sharp (or that you have some backups) and use a rubber mallet (otherwise you'll end up chipping a few pieces...) Oh, and don't hit your finger with the hammer...gives you a blood blister. Whoops.

Having said that though, I think that Christina and I did a FABULOUS job! The room is really starting to look nice and the flooring really had a lot to do with it. I really couldn't have had a better day though--a good friend, power tools and a completed project in less than 7 hours--rock on!

The only thing I'm lacking at this point is the t-strip that will go across the bedroom doorway that connects to the hallway and the one that connects the bedroom to the closet entrance.

I'm tired, a bit sore, and my finger hurts, but the satisfaction that comes with completing the flooring makes ALL of it worth it. And knowing that this room is going to be wonderful for my sweet new baby makes it just that much more special...

As far as convention goes, I guess I'm not traditional when it comes to Valentine's Day. I mean, people asked me what we were doing this weekend to celebrate the holiday, and I smiled and said "Oh, painting--love my weekend projects!"

I am very fortunate to have a best friend who would give up a relaxing Saturday to come over and help--Christina, if you are reading this--you are the best! She showed up with Starbucks this morning on top of everything else--how cool is that?

Well, if you've been keeping up with my projects then you already know that I like to blog about how the nursery project is progressing. For a while it seemed like we were at a standstill but now we're back on a roll! Today was painting day! The paint I chose was called Behr Desert Cactus in Satin finish--a very pretty, calming green and a great color for our project. The entire wall did not need painted as I'm going to put bead board (wainscoting) around the bottom 3rd of the wall--which was a treat for our backs since we didn't have to roll all the way up and down the wall. Ironically, the green we chose matched perfectly with the awesome onesie my mom bought the baby at Christmas that says "Mom's Diner--Open 24 hours." (See the pics in the slideshow.)

The painting actually only took about 45 minutes with Christina and I working together. I managed to get all the high parts like the ceilings and edges, tops of the closet and door while she worked on the major chunks of the wall. The bedroom door had to be re-painted, as did the closet doors which had previously been primed to cover flaws and mistakes made by the previous owners.

In addition to the paint job, we removed the bedroom carpet, padding, and tacking today to get the subfloor ready for the addition of laminate (which will most likely occur next weekend, so watch for a new post then!) The carpet was dreadful--the horrid berber that is in the majority of our house at the moment, but hey, one project at a time. We used to keep the litter box in there, so the carpet smelled of cats and needed to be pulled out. I'm really excited about installing the laminate and moving in the furniture!!

There were too many pictures for today, so I made a small slideshow on Smilebox--hope you enjoy it!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

The "Before" picture
Letting the paint dry...
Bus driver, move that bus!
Those who know me probably already know that I LOVE Extreme Home Makeover. Problem is that when I watch it, I start to get ideas...

Our friend Jen gave us a dresser for our baby room because we didn't have one and we were ever-so-grateful for her donation to our nursery, but there were a few problems with the dresser. A) It was the wrong color. B) One of the handles was missing. C) Through normal wear and tear it had become scratched and generally old-looking.

Since I'm currently at a standstill on the nursery (at least until I get the flooring done) I decided that I needed to do a project this weekend. Last night I took a trip to Home Depot and came home with a quart of paint, a canvas and 6 snazzy new pieces of brushed silver/nickel hardware for the dresser. I got up this morning and sanded, cleaned and prepped the dresser and in 2.5 hours had created a fabulous new piece of flair for the nursery!

The top dresser drawer originally had 3 handles across the top--the middle one was solely for decoration because the drawer is not divided inside, but the handles on the top drawer were 3/4 of an inch smaller than the ones on the lower two drawers. I couldn't find any that I liked in two different sizes so I opted to fill in the holes from the old handles and drilled new holes for the new ones. I am really pleased with my handiwork! Our nursery colors are sage green, white and black, and this addition will fit perfectly with the room.

Those of you who know me will not be surprised by this, but when I get a project or an idea in my head I'm like a dog with a bone...

Most people would chalk this phase up to "nesting instinct" or whatever label you want to apply to a pregnant woman's insane desire to make everything ready and happy and shiny for the new baby. Truth be told, I think I was born a "Nester." This phase is not anything new for me as I've always enjoyed organizing, rearranging and decorating in general. (Something I'm sure my mom passed to me through my umbilical cord when I was in the womb.)

I began looking for nursery ideas about a month ago, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with our "gender neutral" nursery. All week I've been obsessing over paint colors, room design, primers, brushes, rollers, etc. I even dream about it! I'm at a stage in my pregnancy where I'm feeling relatively more energetic so I try to take advantage of it when I can. The weekend we got back from NM I started clearing out the room and then last night I decided to take a step in the right direction and I went out to buy all the necessary accoutrement's for painting our former guestroom--now the baby's room.

The room is not large, a 10x10 but has served its purpose thus far and will continue to be a great place to bring our new baby home to. When we bought the house it was painted in this dreadful peachy-pink color and I knew eventually that color was going to have to go. When I started to remove the outlet covers I discovered that the walls had formerly been painted a lavender color, which tells me odds are this was a child's room previously. The former owners did a half-arsed job at painting the last time, failing to tape the baseboards or windows which left paint drips and specks all over the place, so needless to say I have my work cut out. I opted not to tape the baseboards while I was primering the room as I'm going to have to cover the gawd-awful peachy color on them and repaint the baseboards as well, so I only taped the windows, light switch and electrical outlets.

This morning's priming expedition took about 2.5 hours from start to finish--not a bad project to start a Saturday morning with. To make my job easier I had to take the door off. The cats and Lily were my audience most of the time but I didn't want them to come in the room so I blocked off the door and put the fireplace grate in front of the door.

The nursery colors I've chosen for the baby's room are a sort of sage/mossy green, white and black. I'm enjoying this project so far and feel quite energized and productive this morning!



After priming...

The hideous peachy-pink color

I even primed the closet doors!

You can see why in this pic...

No mocking please...prego painting woman!

There are probably500 reasons why being tall is cool, and I'm probably aware of most of them. But I am also aware of some of the downsides, let's say "challenges" that being tall can present (not excluding shorties here, as I'm sure you have a plethora of problems of your own) and it has never been more obvious to me than now. I always wondered how much of a problem finding maternity clothes for talls would present before I got pregnant. I mean, finding pants with my minimum 36" inseam in itself was hard pre-pregnancy. As it turns out, my worries have been confirmed as my waistline expands, and I've found myself in a pickle over finding maternity jeans long enough for these glamourous gams.



For the traditional tall gal, one with legs proportionate to torso, the maternity pants at most locations that carry "talls" will do. But not for me. I am all leg, no body, and 100% hard to fit most of the time. Now let me say this--and any future or current clothing designers, listen up! A 32" inseam IS NOT A TALL GIRL SIZE! Let's be realistic--with proper genetics and nutrition, kids are taller these days, particularly women. If I had any talent at all as a clothing designer, I'd create some tall clothes that actually fit TALL women (those from 6'0 and up.) Don't get me wrong, pre-maternity tall clothes are out there, but boy have I struggled lately.



Heaven bless my mom--she found me these "yoga pants" at Sams Club, that surprise, surprise--are actually long! They fit beautifully, and are oh-so-comfy. But I like to partake in Friday Jean Day at school, and for the last 2.5 months I have not been able to so much as even squeeze my ever-growing butt into a pair of jeans without pinching every bit of my lower extremities! Jeans have become my obsession (mostly because they are widely unavailable to someone of my tall stature in my bumpy state) but as of late I'd nearly given up finding any that were long enough. Even my FAVORITE TALL GIRL SHOP http://www.tallwomensclothes.com/ was out--they don't make maternity jeans. :( The only way (apparently) that I can get maternity jeans that fit are to order designer jeans that cost $260. ) Um. No. I only have 4 months left--that's crazy!

And then...I found CRAFSTER! A fabulous website for people like me who like to sew and create. One day, while trying to find a way to convert my current jeans into preggable jeans, I found this! http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=28377.msg237021#msg237021
and on Saturday, I made it happen! I was so pleased with myself that I decided to blog about it and show off my new (old) jeans!

My 6th graders and I have been trying to come up with better uses for those plastic grocery bags that we all seem to have a mountain of. (We've been doing a cross-curricular lesson with Science and Geography which is how this all got started.) But you know me--I tend to take things one step further. Partially out of boredom (or maybe I just needed to think about non-school stuff) I ended up deciding that I needed to melt the plastic bags together and create something new out of them. (I know, sounds crazy, but it worked!) What I ended up with were slightly larger sheets of melted plastic (8 layers thick) that I cut into quilt squares. I then proceeded to sew the squares together to form a handy-dandy shopping bag (environmentally friendly!) Those ones at the stores are cute, but I like mine better. It is lightweight, easy to clean, and there is no one else on the planet with one exactly like it. I hauled 3 half-gallons of organic milk home in it the other day and it worked beautifully! Hope you like it!

My friend Alesia's birthday was in January, so I made her this purse from my expired calendar pages (I love those page-a-day types.) Mary Engelbreit is just the cutest, and Shaw is an artist (so I KNEW she'd love it!) I was really proud of my creation, and it has since sparked a new interest for me--recycling old stuff into new stuff!