Corner News Friday August 28, 2015

August 28, 2015August 27, 2015Leave a comment

Happy Friday everyone! I survived my first week back in the classroom and I think the kids did too!! Just kidding. I think this is going to be a great class. They are smart and are learning the routine very quickly. I am excited about this year.

I did manage to get a couple little projects done. Here is one. I have had this little doggy since I was in college (I will spare you how many years ago this was!), but she was in need of a little update. Spray paint to the rescue! Here she is before:

And after! Just some plain black glossy paint updated her to the new era!

We also went to watch our local baseball team, courtesy of my husband’s company. The guys have been so safe at work, they and their families were treated to a night out. The team pulled out a win in the 10th inning! They have played great all season. I think they were trying to make it last a little longer by going into extra innings!

Two weekends ago we enjoyed some time at our favorite beach. Here is just one of the bunches of pictures I took of the beautiful sunset.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! See you next week!

Blanket of Memories

August 27, 2015August 27, 20159 Comments

As we get older, we get rid of things that may have a lot of meaning to us. Maybe it’s an old tee shirt from a charity event that you helped with and it doesn’t fit anymore. Or maybe it’s a baseball that you received from a foul ball at a baseball game. Or maybe it’s a toy that you had a child that you don’t have room for anymore.

This was something Haley did. While cleaning her room, she decided that she wanted to get rid of old tee shirts. But, these tee shirts had memories and things that she had enjoyed when she was in high school. There were old track shirts, 4-H shirts, and other shirts from her favorite things like tech crew and volunteering.

So, creativity ensued, taking these memories to turn them into something beautiful.

I took all the shirts and cut them so that I could get the design that I wanted off of the shirt. I wanted them in squares so it was easier to make a blanket. But, there was one shirt that was a little bit more difficult because the picture was bigger the rest. Urgh…

First Layout

Once I had all the pieces from the shirts, I bought thin interfacing and a mature black and white fleece for the back. I didn’t pick something really thick because Haley gets hot really quickly.

I then ironed all the tee shirts to the interfacing and started to lay out the tee shirts into the design that I wanted. I wanted a slight pattern to make sure that all of black shirts weren’t on the same side. Also, I tried to have a shirt from high school, a shirt from track, a shirt from 4-H, and a random shirt on every row.

Then the sewing began!

2nd Layout

I sewed the pieces together to get the finished product. I first sewed the panels together in the rows, making four individual rows. I then sewed the four rows together to make the entire front of the quilt. I then sewed the front of the quilt to the fleece for the back. As a final step, I sewed the corners of where the panels met to the fleece. I did that as a small security so that the front and back didn’t separate all the time.

And here is the final product!

It looks so good! As you can see, I changed the layout yet again. I felt like this was the most conducive look and it turned out really good. I love how there are no colors that line up and there is a different shirt in each row. I also had to make one of the shirts in the row with the Pirates of the Caribbean shirt skinnier so they would fit.

This was an easy project that I thoroughly enjoyed working on. And the best part is that Haley absolutely loves it and uses it all the time…when she is actually cold.

Why Can’t I Find My Hammer?

August 24, 2015August 24, 201516 Comments

Why can’t I ever seem to find my hammer/screwdriver/nails when I want them? Because my cupboard where I keep them is always a mess! I have tried different organizing methods, but nothing really seemed to work. My last attempt was some fabric boxes with jars inside, but the tools never seemed to find their way back into the right spot. I would find the hammer off to the side or the screwdrivers at the bottom of the box. Here is the jumbled mess:

I also had some hanging on the door in a shoe organizer. This didn’t work well either. The small screwdrivers made holes in the bottom of the pocket and the glue leaked and pieces were stuck to the bottom.

I removed everything from the cupboard first and threw some things away and moved others to the workshop. I kept just the things I use the most inside the house. I remembered that Haley had reorganized her closet and had taken down a piece of slat-board.

I measured how tall the cupboard was and then Lauren cut the board into 3 pieces.

I placed the pieces into the cupboard, one on the side and two along the back. I then went in search of some hooks. I ~~stole~~ borrowed one with hooks for screwdrivers from my husbands workshop. The rest of the hooks I had from Haley. Now I just had to figure out the best way to organize it.

It’s not perfect, but I am hoping it is just temporary. My husbands job site is redoing some of the buildings and I put in a request for the old lockers. I am keeping my fingers crossed! They will go in my laundry room and these tools will be one of the things stored in there.

Here it is! So much better! Each tool has a hook so it has a place to go. I hung a few little boxes and bags of things too. There are still a few jars holding the little things.

I even managed to get all the pieces off the door.The glue has its own jar so nothing else will get stuck!

That’s it! Nothing fancy, but hopefully it will stay a little neater and it will be easier to find what I need when I need it. Do you have a special way to keep your tools organized? I’m always looking for ideas!

The Corner News-8/20

August 21, 2015August 21, 2015Leave a comment

What’s up everyone? Here is what has happened this week.

I had a softball game last night. I play on a slow pitch softball team and this is one of the last games of this season. I will be playing in the fall again, but I love my team. But in any case, my team won! Hooray!

Also, this is my last week of summer vacation! I don’t want to start school! Sad Face.

And finally, Kelli loved her sign. It is hanging in her office above her desk and everyone can see it.

Sorry there are no pics, but that is what I did this week! Hope you all have a great week!

Homemade Disney Subway Sign

August 21, 2015August 20, 201518 Comments

Sorry for the delay in this blog post. This project took just a tiny bit longer than I had intended. But, without further ado, here is the project.

I wanted to make something for my coworker Kelli, who is a major Disney fanatic. Without her, I wouldn’t be in the position that I am in and I wouldn’t enjoy going to work as much as I do. So because of this, I wanted to make something for her as a thank you.

Do you remember the pillow that mom bought from Disneyland? If you don’t, you can click here to see the post. Well, I like the design of it, so I decided to put it on a sign for Kelli.

The first thing that I did was I found some scrap wood that dad had left over from building some cat huts for our friends shelter. They were all about the same length, so I placed 8 pieces next to each other for the width of the sign. I then took a 9th piece and cut it to fit on the back of the sign. I then took the two pieces for the back and nailed all the pieces together.

Next came the fun part, painting! Yeah!

I knew that I wanted the sign to be white and have black writing on it. So, I painted the wood white…and of course the spray paint just soaked in. Urgh! So, I had to spray a few coats on the sign and then it was ready to be drawn on.

Once the paint had dried, I brought the sign inside and was ready to start the fun part. I found a picture of the pillow online and with some maneuvering in Microsoft word, I was able to take the picture and make it fit on my sign. I covered the back of the paper with pencil so that I could draw on the front to have my design come out on the wood.

This was harder than I thought it would be for a few reasons. 1: I had to put the pencil on really thick so that I could see it on the wood. 2: some pieces of the wood was rough and I could hardly see the pencil marks. 3: some of the pieces of wood were so rough that I had to free hand that part.

But with all of this bad, I was able to get a design that I absolutely fell in love with on the sign. I used a sharpie to draw on the sign and used a fine point sharpie to add detail. The final things to add were varnish and picture hangers. I added two on the back because I wasn’t sure how heavy it would be.

And here it is! The finished product is beautiful!

I love how it turned out and it didn’t take that long to make. I hope that Kelli loves it as much as I do. And hopefully, I can make more because they turned out amazing!