Projects I HAVE finished!

Here we have; sweaterpants/wool diaper cover, fitted diaper, paintings, curly birds, and Patrick's bird mobile (which needs to be re-hung, which is on my list). The blue panel painting and the curly birds weren't on my list, but I did them this week....hehe....but I FINISHED them, and that is the point!








el fin!

My Project List

Katie told me I should post this list on this blog (which I signed up for then promptly forgot about last September. I blame childbirth.) So here it is, my to-do list of unfinished projects, and then my list of projects I want to start....but ONLY after the first list is completed! It has given me some inspiration to finish the unfinished things just so I can work on my new, exciting projects.

Confession: When I discover an unfinished project I forgot to write on my list, I do it quickly, then add it and cross it off afterwards just so I feel like I've got a lot crossed off my list.

To Finish:

• Shoulders on Spring dress (Bought fabric 2 years ago; got pregnant 1 year ago; preggo belly got to big to try it on for proper fit; now I need to alter the pattern to have detachable shoulders for nursing.)
• Alter dress I got at Target to fit better (my "learn-how-to-tailor project")
• Fix zipper on pink flowered pleated dress
• Fix Patrick's short black diaper cover
• fix the elastic on Patrick's long black diaper cover
• Finish Patrick's quilt
• restring Patrick's bird mobile and hang it up in a different way on a new branch
• finish sewing a ton of other stuffed birds I already cut out the fabric for and put on Etsy
• finish crocheting Matt's scarf (I think this is going on 3 years)
• Finish altering a baby sling
  
• sew covers for living room pillows
• mend white sweater
  
• Mend Matt's pants
• hem brown table-runner
• hem round tablecloth

I haven't even looked at the stash of fabric for the patterns I have in a box in my craft room.

Projects to do in the Future:

• Make a green silk dress (I got some beautiful spring colors soooo cheap a few years ago! I just don't know what to make with it for sure yet. I might alter a pattern I already have....can't find a link to it, sorry.)
• Figure out how to make the skirt I have in my head for some hand-dyed silks I made
• Make artsy bedroom quilt...for fabric I bought 3 (?) years ago
• Spray-paint and create picture frame collage in living room
  

Spice it up

Inspired by this post on The Kitchn, I decided to make my own fancy magnetic spice storage system. But I didn't go buy jars - thankfully, I work with a preschool director who kindly gave me the hookup for about 30 baby food jars. That seemed like a lot, until I actually pulled out all of the tiny bags of spices stashed in my stove-side cabinet. I had to ask her for 15 more!

This project is relatively simple. I used:
Small baby food jars with lids*
Ceramic magnets (I got a package from HobLob with 40% coupon for $5).
Gorilla Glue or another strong glue

For the labels, I used:
ModPodge
A foam brush
An inkjet printer
Label paper

but you can use labels according to your taste (and budget!)

Glue the magnets to the outside of the lids and let sit until dry.

I started with five tiny baby food jars to see if the magnets would be enough to defy gravity. One per lid worked fine. But when I started collecting free ones, the tiny jars were at a premium, so I had to settle for the small ones (about 4 oz.). These required two magnets (or stronger magnets, but I had already bought these).

Attach labels to the bottoms of the jars.

I like seeing what's in my spice jars, so I didn't want a large round label. But I definitely wanted the herb names on there, and I'm in love with herbal illustrations and botanical prints. So I printed some portions of plant illustrations along with the names of the spices onto label paper (an 8.5x11 HUGE LABEL). I cut out each name and picture and stuck it on the bottom of each jar. I added two coats of ModPodge over this to keep them from peeling off. A few notes:

1. I used the label paper because it was there and I hate ModPodging tiny pieces of paper that slide everywhere.
2. I have used this label paper for years in various ways, and have become an expert at peeling off the sticky label part from the paper back with my fingernails.
3. If not for #2, I would have preferred the sliding pieces of paper. Choose wisely.

Fill jars with spices and attach to your refrigerator, or a custom-cut brushed stainless steel backsplash (Hey, I can dream, right?)

I really enjoyed this one and love my new jars. If you prefer to shake your spices, this may not be the project for you, but I always pop off the plastic rings and dump the herbs into my hands to measure, so it's great for me. And it freed up three shelves of cabinet space (small shelves, but still!)

Scratching Post-- Progress!

And you thought I had given up!  Last night I finally bit the bullet and recommitted to finishing this project, which has lingered so long in my house that I thought I would overcome me. 

Part one of this project was cutting a large number of cardboard rectangles of the same size, or in my case, roughly similar sizes.  Having finished that part in the fall, I let the stack of cardboard rectangles mature for several months. 

That done, all that remained was to drill holes through all the rectangles and insert the threaded rods. 

I did this by gathering together as many sheets as my C-clamps would hold, and clamping them tightly together.  If your sheets are as wonky as mine, and differ slightly in size, I recommend aligning two sides so that you get at least two flat edges.  Since this object was destined to live in a corner, I didn't mind having the back and one side a little uneven. 

Once clamped, drilling through the cardboard is easy, although it will require a large bit.  I used a boring bit that was a bit larger than my threaded rods.  Be warned, cardboard will dull the edge quickly. 

I added washers and nuts onto one end of each threaded rod and without removing the clamps, threaded the cardboard onto them.  After about seven or eight batches, the drilling phase was complete. 

So, instead of a loose pile of cardboard sheet, I know have a tightly-bolted-together pile of cardboard sheets, with an extra foot of threaded rod hanging off one end.  The idea is to shorten the rods, but I realized too late that I no longer own a hacksaw. 

A few thoughts:  First, and most imporantly, never make this object.  It involves way, way too much time.  If you already have a lot of precut cardboard sheets of the same size (as was the case in my inspiration project), or a table saw that you are willing to dull with cardboard, and if you don't have carpet, then maybe this is a good project.  I do not recommend doing as I did, and cutting through piles of boxes with a razor knife.  It's murder on your hands and takes forever.  It would have been so much simpler to just nail a board to a square of plywood and wrap it in twine. 

A second disappointment is that the cats are not particularly interested in scratching this.  They're big guys, and they like to scratch on things a bit taller, such as the back of my couch.  They've also expressed a distinct preference for scratching it when the grain is oriented vertically, which doesn't look as good... not that anything about this looks very good! 

So, any suggestions?  I'd like a way to salvage this, but by this point, I'm not sure there's a way out, and I definitely understand why the commercial versions of this are so costly! 

A Tisket, A Tasket

I love making something out of nothing. Making bread from flour, yeast, and water, recycling old jars into funky storage containers: transforming something simple into something functional (and sometimes kinda pretty) makes me feel like a superhero.

Of course, this desire has the tendency to make me into a packrat. I can't get rid of those odd-shaped pieces of cardboard - they may be just the thing I need to make someone a journal cover. Fabric scraps are the worst! Small pieces can be perfect for sachets, or wrapping a small present, or patching a pair of jeans. But for every one of these small, incidental uses, I add five fabric scraps to my scrap-basket.

I tried to take on quilting in high school, but I lose interest very quickly. If a project takes more than 10ish hours, even if those hours are spread out over a few weeks (or months), it's just not worth it to me. I needed something faster and easier, so when my mom suggested braided rag rugs, I toyed with the idea. But I didn't need any rugs. What I did need was a nice foraging basket.

There really wasn't too much to it:
1. Cut the rags into strips.
2. Braided the strips in coordinating colors, sewing a new rag to the strip as it reached the end.
3. Sewed them together as I would a rug, just in a bowl shape instead of a flat one.
4. Added a simple cloth handle.
This was the perfect project for a week sitting on the couch watching the Winter Olympics with a cold. It gave my hands something to do besides shovel Wheat Thins into my mouth and shake my fist at a certain conceited Russian figure skater.

Game On!

Confession: my husband and I play D&D.

Every Wednesday.

At our house.

Ok, maybe none of that is shocking to any of you. But why D&D on a project blog?
I'll give you a hint. It's strongly associated with the color red, starts with a V, and comes around every year to the dismay of single people everywhere...and the exasperation of those attached. There's nothing my hubby likes more than gadgets for his hobbies, so I focused on an aspect of the game that, in my opinion, needed a fix.
Like many of our friends, we had the standard grid map that comes with the book laminated, so we could use dry erase markers to outline whatever environment we needed. But dry erase markers don't erase well from lamination, especially if the markered dungeon has to sit for a week or two while we finish playing it out. Plus, the map curls and twists - if there are any bumps the miniatures slide all over the place, and if someone accidentally rolls their dice on the mat, the pieces fly everywhere. Something had to be done.
I bought a humongous dry erase board at the W for $20.* Upon closer inspection at home, it revealed pale gray dots in a 2-inch grid pattern. Bonus! I used a yardstick to put a dot every inch with a metallic silver sharpie, using the existing dots as a guide (those definitely shaved an hour off the total project time).

A few concerns:

1. The metallic sharpie can be scratched off if rubbed too hard. I can always touch up the dots, but it may prove to be not-worth-it. It might also be the silvery marker that's a problem - perhaps a regular sharpie would work just fine. But worst-case scenario I'm left with a huge dry-erase board to use in some other fashion.

2. My original intent was to draw a grid, like the original battle map. Given my unsteady hand and inattention to detail, I decided dots may be better than trying to draw a huge grid with a yardstick.

All told, it only took me an hour, and I did it while watching Fraggle Rock. No complaints here. It's heavy and completely flat, so even if we have to play on the floor, we have a level surface to map on. I also bought some magnetic tape, so when the surprise is revealed, I can put a tiny magnet square on the bottom of each miniature. No stray die will knock over Fable the Drunken Master Monk now!

*The daughter of a small-town grocer and a green-freak, I'm not a big fan of Wal-Mart and try to avoid shopping there. But I couldn't pass up the $20 price difference between Staples and Wal-Mart, so I bought it. As soon as I got it home I had to glue the corners back on (they had already popped off and broken) but I think $20 may be worth it.