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Getting creative - week 3

A little late posting this week's craftiness, but here I go.

I started working on some Christmas gifts. This one is for my SIL who had been an exchange student in France back in the day. The charm was part of a pack of 3 pieces, the little dangle was repurposed from a pair of old earrings, and the chain was in my beading box. Total cost: $2.00 (for the charm)

I copied this idea from some post on a DIY day a few months back. I'm thinking of enclosing a few in my Samaritan boxes, and using the others as part of gift tags/wrap on Christmas gifts to my friends. The beads were from a bracelet bought at Goodwill and repurposed to my beading box. The twine was from some failed project and the fabric was from the stash. Total cost: .98 cents for the bracelet.

While I had the beading box out, I refashioned a pair of earrings I already owned (the pearl/silver dangles). I also tried my hand at wire-wrapping beads. The green earring are a bit heavy to wear. I may see if I have some smaller beads to try again. Total cost: $0.00

The paper background in the above shots is for a project I'm working on, but not quite ready to reveal.

And this is another project yet to come. While in Plattsburgh this past weekend, I stopped by the antique/flea market mall located downtown. My friend B passed this table over because she thought it was $60.00. No, the price tag was really $6.00. The veneered side pieces need some work, but the table is solid wood and has a leather inset on the top. I'm thinking priming and painting in addition to reconditioning the leather.

Getting creative - the ice cream edition!

Image courtesy of Cuisinart.com, saved to my server.

Dear friends purchased this for our 25th wedding anniversary and frankly - I have no idea how we've lived without it for so long! So easy - I can start a batch when I get home from work, and we are eating fresh ice cream in time for dessert. So far, I've made Chocolate Peanut Butter, Mocha Almond, Raspberry, Vanilla, and Banana Cinnamon ice creams, as well as Chocolate Sorbet.

I've tweaked the recipes to use light cream instead of heavy cream and cut the sugar substantially. The texture is similar to the homemade ice creams I ate growing up, which I prefer. I think B & J's may have lost our business for good (or at least for a long time).

Getting creative - week 2

Beachy DIY day!

Scroll down a few pics to see my homage to the beach!

I'm especially proud of this week's major creative project: my T shirt makeover.

I inadvertently shrunk this T shirt, so I snipped it down the middle, cut the neck band off and handstitched a knit scarf to the raw edges. I wore it to work Friday and got several compliments. My good idea was also reinforced by the cover the early fall Lands' End catalog which featured this sweater. Total cost: $19.95 for the scarf.

One of the kitchen thrifty things I learned from my mom and grandmother was to save bread bags and the plastic bags you bring home from the grocery store: the bags are great to double wrap around fragile items you want to freeze or to hold stinky stuff you are throwing away. To corral them, I store them in a paper towel tube (Mod Podged with scrapbook paper to strengthen it) in the drawer where I keep my foil, plastic wrap, etc. Then I found this post and decided to use my current tube (cut in half) for some extension cords, and to make a new tube for my bag storage. The pretty pink and green flowered material is from a thrift store blouse that I cut up into scraps for little projects just like this. Total cost: $0.00

Here are two creative bathroom projects. I re-matted my painted starfish onto a scrap of muslin - I think it looks much better than the blue scrapbook paper I had originally matted. The soap pump is an old blue-green glass jar with a tin lid found in an neglected corner of a local antique spot. I took the lid and the pump (which I kidnapped from another bottle of soap I had) to work where one of the machinists drilled a quick hole into the lid. A little Loctite around the newly drilled hole and now I don't have to clean a soap dish anymore. Total cost: $4.50 for the glass bottle.

Last weekend was not only the Festival of the Islands, but my own "Festival of the Plattsburgh Target". I purchased the bracelets on clearance, but realized when I got home they were a tad too small. Enter a black rubber-band (the ones used for little ponytails). I looped it through the existing button loop: the bracelets have just enough 'give' to close and move freely on my wrist. Total cost: $3.98 for the bracelets, $0 for the rubber bands (I bummed them off my superfantastic landlady.)

The 12 x 12 pillow is one of a pair ($2.00 for the pair!) I found in a little furniture resale store called Rumplebox between Alburgh and Swanton. The fabric reminds me of one of my favorite blog reads.

I purchased these bottles a few weeks ago, unfortunately they didn't come with the little tip caps. Enter Sculpey modeling clay. I made some chunky block-y caps as well as adhering a piece to a bottle opener, then topping it with a magnet so it will stick to our refrigerator. Total cost: $1.98 for the Sculpey (and I still have 3/4 of a block left!)

Fasting

Photo: Katherine Dutiel via Google Images saved to my server

Food fasting is one of those disciplines I rarely practice. I did not grow up in a church that celebrated the Lenten fast, so until I got to high school (and knew families who practiced Lent), the concept was foreign to me.

I love the concept of non-food fasting. I can get sucked into a vortex of wasting time and energy pursuing something that may have started out good, but is now not so good for me. Fasting - i.e. abstaining from the now not so good thing - has really helped me maintain balance. Too much time on the internet? I read a good book (or the Good Book ;-> )  A day filled with negative comments both given and received? I plug into my iPod playlists. As soon as I find myself getting ready to engage in the 'off limits' activity, I STOP and redirect.

The fasts can be a day, a week, or maybe a lifetime. I've broken some bad habits using the 'fasting' method: the keys are to find a replacement activity that is beneficial and to remain vigilant.Those vortexes can be sneaky.

The upside of muggy

Image courtesy of mydogoscar.com/birdspot,n via Google images saved to my server

Is that my morning commutes have these lovely, hazy, misty, ethereal moments.

Getting creative

I recently saw a piece of art that stated, "Do one thing a day that you love." While I understand the sentiment, I would like to think my days should consist of more than one thing I love. So I thought why not change that to "Do one creative thing a day." Many days that is a challenge for me: between home and work it is very easy to let the creative time slide. Occasionally, the creativity may be nothing more than making a delicious, balanced dinner out of what I have in the kitchen. I'm cheating a bit this week and I'm posting a few projects completed before last Sunday.

This is my Mod Podge party: I recovered my pencil cup with a scrap of blue printed paper and some leftover ribbon. The books reside in our bathroom (don't 'ewww' me, I know there are books or magazines in your bathroom too!) One of the books had a red fabric cover that rubbed color off in the humidity. I sealed the covers so they should be impervious to moisture now. The starfish hang over our bathroom sink. And yep, I changed them up already - they are now mounted on muslin.

Speaking of starfish, here are ones I don't have plans for yet. When I got the starfish, they were all stained bright colors. I tried to spray paint them, but the porousness of the skeletons just soaked the paint right up. So finally I did 2 coats of primer, then a coat of high gloss white (the same Valspar I used on the bathroom cabinets.) So far, no bleed through. The berry baskets I bought a few years ago at an antique mall in State College: I finally got around to edging the baskets using the leftover quilt binding from my bedroom wall hanging.

This little Swedish postcard is from an antique mall in Lewisburg PA. I used spray adhesive to attach a scrap of fabric to a piece of cardboard, then some glue dots to attach the postcard. The wood frame was a $1.00 find in an antique barn here in VT.

Also on that VT outing I found this vintage fabric pouch in a box of miscellany out in a little shop's shed. It was free for a donation to the Humane Society. I pulled the drawcord out, gave the whole thing a good wash, and re-threaded a piece of ribbon as the drawstring. Right now it is housing my current knitting project: a cable and lace scarf using Serenity sock yarn.

And here's a little glimpse into our hall. This part of the house is my next major renovation - I'm leaning toward wallpaper. The hall is oddly shaped and two walls used to hold doors, so I'm approaching the whole project with fear and trepidation. But this project I was happy to accomplish: turning our bookcase into a coat cubby. We attached a brace of scrap wood on the back of the bookcase before attaching the hooks to the front. The shelf under the coats is fixed and I put the other shelf in to hold the basket. In the wintertime, that shelf holds the baskets for our gloves, hats, and mittens (which are currently in storage behind the curtain). The curtain was one of my first sewing projects with my new machine and is hung on a tension rod. The flowers on top of the bookcase are (silk) poppies and veronica. Purple loosestrife and orange day lilies are the common roadside flowers here in July and I love bringing that color combination into the house.

Organizational nirvana

Image courtesy of the Dayplanner website, saved to my server

This is the DayRunner Lifetracker system. Friday night, I was culling through my 10 different lists (kept in different books, in different locations at home) and I thought, "My perfect planner would look like...", and *BAM* on Sunday at Staples the clouds parted, the doves descended, and this was delivered by a Divine hand.

The system is a series of booklets that can be inserted into a vinyl cover via heavy-duty elastic bands. You name it, there's a booklet for it: calendar, web pages, address book, ruled sheets, graph sheets, tear out sheets. I've added some lined index tabs to divide the books into categories, and now everything is consolidated into one place. So happy!

Chicks and eggs

Image from Google images, saved to my server.

I recently had some baby chicks visiting my office. They were on their way to their new home on a co-worker's farm where they are going to live long happy lives as free-range layers. But before their trip home I got to cuddle a few, even putting them to sleep. That's me, the chicken whisperer.

I'm happy to love 'em up, because they will produce one of my favorite foods - eggs! With the weather as hot as it's been the past few weeks, eggs fit the bill. Scrambled in the microwave or hardboiled with pickled eggs or asparagus, they make a quick and easy dinner.

We have free-range chickens on our farm and I really enjoy their antics. Especially our big white rooster (aka Foghorn Leghorn) who thinks he's all that and a bag of cracked corn. I fully expect he will be challenging the CatMan to a little mano e mano one day soon.

Inspiration

Image courtesy of whipup.net, saved to my server

It's been so hot, even the thought of yarn makes me sweat. But this is just too cute. The CatMan would love a SmartCar: I might even be convinced to drive it if it looked like this!

In quietness and trust

This week is one of those crazy, what-was-I-thinking weeks. When this happens, I have to keep reminding myself of my 2010 life verse -

Image courtesy of Google Images, saved to my server

Isaiah 30:15 (NIV) This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it."

Full of Fail and Win

Image courtesy of Failblog.org, saved to my server

I can very easily fall into the "Life is full of Fail" mode. I make goals, lists, and expectations for myself every day. Yet depending on the day, my hormones, interruptions, and other variables, I fall short. So over the past few weeks, I've been trying to change my mindset from "Unattainable Perfection" to "Reasonable". "Reasonable" is not slacking, procrastinating, or giving up. It is acknowledging "This is a temporary place where I can rest and be refreshed while on this earth." It is a place of nurture and safety, not a place to be enslaved by the never ending to-do list. Yep, that all sounds good on the computer screen, now the difficulty is living it.

One of the 'wins' this month is finding a chair for our bedroom area. I wanted something simple, mid-century, with arms. Enter Craigslist. Here's my score - $10.00 and a good hot soapy bleach bath later (she's currently covered in white 'pleather') This fall, she will be off to be recovered, but for right now I enjoy her retro cool in the corner.

Another win is this scarf for a coworker. I knitted one for her a few years ago, which she promptly gave to her son/lost. I'm counting this one as a win because it was knit with (3) 1.00 skeins of mixed fiber yarn from Big Lots and the knit-up yarn is cuter than the yarn in the skein led me to believe. Hmmm, maybe I should go back and stock up on a few more colors. I'm also counting this as a win since the shrug cardi I'm currently knitting is too big - the "I didn't swatch" fail strikes again!

100 things

Image courtesy of Homewallcolor.net, saved to my server.

I've been helping some people prepare for yard sales and frankly I'm stunned by the amount of crap. Especially in my own home. This past Thursday a friend called to ask me if I would like to participate in her yard sale on Saturday. Sure - I thought - I have a few items I could scrounge up. 30 minutes later, I had filled two computer paper boxes full of stuff - and I wasn't even trying. This challenge intrigues me. Not that I want to get down to 100 items, but I like the concept of purging down to what you really want to keep.

Image courtesy of LifeHacker, saved to my server.

Which one would you rather live in?

Sprucing up and movin' on

July 2010 is my 6-year anniversary in blogdom and I definitely needed to do a little housekeeping 'round these parts. Gathering Wool originally started as a knitting blog, but over the past two years I've been branching off into more DIY/home improvement. So I've decided to change things up a bit: I'll still be knitting, but it won't be the main focus of the blog. I'm freeing myself up to post random thoughts and commentaries.

So welcome to the new Gathering Wool. I hope you like it!

My new best friend

Edited to join up with Kimba's DIY day

Hi Miniwax Stain - I think I love you.

Here's one of our bedside tables before meeting my new best friend. I purchased these end tables many moons ago from Spiegel. They are solid Mexican wood and craftsmanship, complete with rustic iron hardware. But I was feeling a bit 'meh' about look.

Here is one of the tables after just one coat of Miniwax 'Red Mahogany' and some $0.97 knobs from Lowes. I know the color doesn't look much different on the blog, but trust me. It's gone from a flat yellowish brown to a deep red-brown lustre. The stain still lets the rustic imperfections of the wood show through, but gives it a more finished feel. I think I'm going to like the knobs way more than the dangling metal pieces, too.

(By the way, that's my new craft room curtain divider behind the finished nightstand.)

And I even had time to whip up a quick scarf this week. This is a very simple 4-stitch, 2-row lace pattern that looks like you have worked your fingers to the bone.

Project specs: 1 skein of NaturallyCaron.com's Country in 'Berry Frappe' on #7 needles.

And there's still knitting

Here is the Tutti-Frutti Citron 2.0. I used some gorgeous Mirasol Hacho in the Tutti Frutti colorway. And the little peak at the neckline is only there in the photo, not when I wear it.

I also knocked off a pair of Wool Ease socks, then went out and immediately more yarn in different colors to knit some more. I actually got 1 pair of socks out of 1 skein. Bonus!

Finished home projects - really!

Linky to today's DIY day!

Look! The bathroom vanity is finally finished. 2 coats of primer, some Valspar High Gloss White, 2 brushed nickel handles, and several weeks later. Not shown is the painted interior (just some white primer) and peel-and-stick tiles to cover up the dark, shaggy chipboard floor.

The finished trim - much better than the nasty, lumpy caulk! PVC outdoor trim from Lowes.

Here is a seashell collage I made with some of our souvenir shells, a Tarjay shadow box, and some scrapbook paper as a mat.

And finally, the finished quilted headboard. I joined uniform strips of scrap fabrics, used cotton quilt batting, and an old flat sheet as backing. To quilt, I sewed down the center of each strip. The quilt is edged with some premade quilt edging found at JoAnn Fabulous (tm by my friend Sam S.) I hot-glued velcro strips to the back of the quilt and to the front of a finished 48 x 24 canvas, and attached. I should be able to easily remove the quilt to wash it. (Cashew would like you to know she was not happy to have been moved several times in the process of hanging and photographing this project!)

When I was at Joann's I also found some material to recover the stool. 15 minutes to a better-wearing cover!

And then there was one

That's right, I'm down to one WIP and even that one should be done this weekend. As a linear person, this makes me happy. Work has been crazy: I'm training one person right now and another newbie comes on board in a week. So sitting back with nothing in process to evaluate my stash and a new project sounds very appealing.

I did do a stash sift last weekend and have accumulated another box of yarn/patterns/misc. stuff to send to the Knitting Ladies at Interim House. I encourage you to send any of your destashing their way. It's a great way to spring clean and it all goes to good use.

Here are two projects I finished this week. The first one was a quick knit based on the ubiquitous Clapotis. Clapotease (the scarf) was knit using 2 skeins of Cascade Cotton Rich DK in color 8176 - a rich cream color on #7 needles.

I also finished a pair of socks using Premier's Deborah Norville Collection in "Tanzanite". I guess it's the bamboo in the yarn that makes these socks so squooshy. I barely touched the second skein of yarn (only needed it for the toe of the second sock). My only complaint is the yarn was a bit splitty, but I adjusted pretty quickly.

My second Citron is down to the last ruffly edge. I love this yarn! It's Mirasol's Hacho in shade 300 (which they call Tutti Frutti). I definitely am going to pick up more of this stuff when I'm in State College a few months from now.

The Ugly and The Pretty

Edited to join up with Kimba's DIY day -

First the pretty:

I took this -

and created this with just a little Kilz primer, some leftover paint, and Loctite.

And I finally took the pinecone lights down and put up this spring rag garland - I'm thinking spring here.

Then there was the Ugly:

This would be the bathroom caulking.

And the very sad little vanity.

This would be the Catman removing said nasty caulk (our bathroom is the size of a postage stamp, hence his draping over the edge of the tub. )

We got the caulk up, the trim down, and the vanity primed.

Stay tuned for the reveal next weekend.