Midnight Warriors

I am sure that you all have heard the term Weekend Warriors (que Home Depot commercial), well Lan and I are midnight warriors. It seems like we always start our projects at midnight, at some random moment of inspiration and wanting to be productive. Our first one was when we re-did our grout. This time it involved painting.

On my spring break, I decided that I wanted to paint both our living/dining room, and the hallways. I got all of the stuff and planned on starting Monday morning while Lan was at work (I had spring break), but at midnight the night before, we decided to just test the paint and see how it looked. Well that test turned into doing almost all of the edging. The first few brush strokes were very scary. Lan and I had the same reaction that we did when we painted the den… oh no, what have we done? Once we had the first coat up, we started to feel better, then after the second coat dried, we loved it.

We used this sure line edger. It doesn’t work quite as well as the edge lock painters tape, but it is much faster.

I even took the time to write some prayers and verses on our walls.

I love how it turned out

In between coats I used some plastic wrap on the brushes and roller trays. That way I didn’t have to wash everything. They are good that way overnight, but not much longer.

Sprouting take two

So.... remember this post where I was sprouting some seeds? Well it turns out I am a terrible plant mommie. I went too far between waterings and my only two seeds that ended up sprouting, died. So.. take two. Since I love in southern California, growing seasons don't really matter too much. My loving husband got me one of these plastic green house things so that my seeds would stay nice and moist. yay! I guess we will just have to wait and see how it goes.

the next step will be clearing out the weeds so that I have a place to plant these guys once they are ready.

Just to give you some perspective, that table in the back is chest high. We are thoroughly infecting our entire neighborhood with weeds with all of the dandelions blowing away. Plan of action... that weed whacker we borrowed from my parents and some round up. I hate using chemicals... but at this point, I don't think we have a choice. There is no way we could pull all of those weeds.

Hanging with out a hook thing

Have something (in our case some framed mirrors) that don't have the hook things so that you can hang them? Yes.. you could go out and by them, but who likes to spend money when you don't have to? My husband saw this idea online where you take the tab off of a soda and use it as the hanging thing. Yay free solutions.

We then hung them using the same paper method as the photo wall.

We are still trying to decide whither to keep them dark brown or pant them white to match the trim.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!!!

Today was a full day... with a late start :) Lan and I woke up 20 minutes before church this morning...oops.... We quickly got dressed and since we live so close, we actually made it on time. I really didn't want to miss the Easter service, and I am so glad that we went. After the service, we took a nap before heading out to visit my family. We had yummy appatizers, a large dinner, and sweet desert. Yum. My mom even made extra food for us to take home for left overs. Thanks mom! The best part though was spendin time with family and getting some quality time snuggling my 6 week old nephew.

We stopped by my parents house on our way home and picked up our leftovers, a weedwacker (so we don't have to trim our grass with scissors any more.. yes... true story), and these .....




Yes, even though we are all adults, some of us are married, and my brother has a son... we all still get easter baskets... and like everything that my mom does, they are huge. My favorite part?.... the quilting for dummies book. I have made several quilts, but I just make it up as I go along. I am excited to see the way I am actually supposed to do it :)

Spring Wreath

I have been wanting to make a wreath for the spring for a while. (well I had wanted to make one for winter... but that didn't really happen... so spring it is... even through it is almost summer :) I am not a huge Easter decoration type of girl. Don't get me wrong.. I love Easter, it is the day we celebrate our Savior's resurrection. I am just not into the pastels. So, while out one day with my mom I got an idea for making a fun spring wreath that wasn't too Easter-ish.

I bought this wooden "P" and with my handy dandy glue gun, I started gluing decorative moss to it.

I thought that the bright green said spring without being cheesy.

I then tied the "P" into the middle of a twig wreath.







Linking to:
http://tearosehome.blogspot.com/

Photo Wall

Lan and I have been wanting to create a photo wall for a while. Since we moved in, we have planned on hanging a ton of photos of family and friends... and we finally got around to it. The first step in our photo collage was to hand this rod iron sign that said memories. The sign didn't have any nail holes to hang it, so we found these rod iron staple looking things and gave them a shot.

They worked perfect. Unless you were right up next to it, you couldn't even see them :)

After the sign was hung, I cut papers the sizes of the frames that I had, and placed them where I thought they would look nice. I have seen a lot of people use newspaper or adds to do this.. but I found it distracting. I felt like I got a better idea of what the photos would look like when I used plane white paper.

I then took each paper down and marked on it where the hanger thing was and where I wanted to put my hole. That way I would get my nail in the exact right spot for each frame

I nailed it in and then ripped off the paper. Since we live where earthquakes are common, we used ook hooks which are a little bit more earthquake friendly than a simple nail, and it can hold more weight

Now all that is left is to change out our pictures :)

Sock Monkey

Oh Sock Monkeys. How I love thee. I found the tiny military sock monkey (my Godson’s dad is in the Air force) in Solvang, and decided to try and make a large one to go with it. I had gotten this sock monkey kit at a garage sale… but these kids are available online, or you can just buy the socks and look up directions online. They are everywhere including here or here.

I am a visual person… I I mainly went off of the pictures shown below and winged it. You cut along the dotted lines and sew along the solid lines double stitching where you see the dots.

Sometimes when I sew… it turnes out like this… all knotted (look close at all fo that white thread in the big mess below). I think it is funny when people are amazed that I sew. Oh if they only knew… well now I guess they do

Well I sewed the arms and legs… and they should look like they do below (arms left, legs right)

Then I stuffed the legs, body, and arms.In order to stuff the arms, I kept them inside out, then slowly turned them right side out as I stuffed it. That way it got stuffed evenly and easily.

When you sew the ears, you end up closing them. Take a pair of siccors and cut along the fold. Turn inside out and stuff.

You sew the arms, mouth, and ears on using a whip stitch. (sorry, no picture)

Then you add eyes, and perhaps some personality accessories

I am now super excited to make some sock monkeys with some fun and crazy socks.

Easiest Baby Blanket

So… like six months ago my mom asked me to make a baby blanket out of this material so it would match this pillow that she bought for my nephew.  This was long before Noah was born…. now months later, I finally got around to it.

I bought one yard of the fabric fleece.  First, I used a bowl as a template to round the corners off.

Then I simply sewed the front and back pieces together.

In lieu of an actual baby to demonstrate, I used the sock monkey that I made as a Christmas present for my Godson.   A tutorial on the sock monkey will be coming :)

Crochet Coffee Sleeve

I have been really into crocheting lately.  My most recent project was making coffee sleeves, or as I call them… coffee cozys.  A good friend of mine had a birthday and I wanted to make her something fun.  She drinks a lot of Starbucks, so I decided to make her a few of these.  She can drink her Starbucks in style, and hey… its that much greener not taking the cardboard ones and throwing them away.  I chained 37, and then did a half double crochet until I thought it was long enough.  I tied it off and then crocheted the loose ends in.  She loved them :)

dizzy tired

*I was finally able to fix the picture problem.

If you are wondering why I haven't blogged in a while... this is why:

Yesterday was open house. It was the longest day ever I left the house at 7am, and didn’t get back until after 11pm. (I live too far away to make it worth while to go home in between school and open house, and then after a bunch of teachers got pie) Today was spent recovering. I seriously slept most of the day, and still feel tired enough to sleep tonight. Below I posted some pictures of what I have been up to. Above you can see some of the whole class shots. There was a lot going on. On their desks they had folders with tons of work in them. Their journals were propped up on their desks, and on their chairs were their Charlotte's Web shirts that they designed. You can also see the solar system hanging across my ceiling.

I set up a voting booth where they could vote on their next read aloud book, we had up a class quilt, and their foot projects since our theme this year is following in Jesus' steps, and each student drew pictures of their parents and at open house, the parents had to guess who they were.

On our writing board, I out their latest essays up (some of which were finished that day) and I put up math posters that the students made on the whiteboard where I do group tutoring.

The science board was packed. I had a few of their moon phases up, a few of their constellations up (they dropped stars onto a paper, glued them, and then had to see what picture they saw in the stars), and all of their planet projects up. It was an accumulation of the unit that we just finished. You can kind of see above their ecosystems projects, and below the board their Live Out Loud projects (they had to do community service four times).

After studying psalms, I also had the kids write their own psalms.

There was actually a tone more stuff. The night went really well. Families stayed in my room a really long time looking at everything. They were all impressed with the room, loved my dress, and were having a good time. Success!!