#SeptemberScopers

September 3, 2015September 2, 2015Leave a comment

It is officially September, which means that leaves are falling, weather is changing, Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back at Starbucks (for any of you into that), and new challenges for blogging.

Working Mom Magic has started the #SeptemberScopers Challenge. This is using the app Periscope where someone can livestream from their phone. This livestream can be 5 minutes or it can be an hour, whichever you prefer. This app is connected with Twitter, so you can tell your Twitter followers when you went live on Periscope. It is awesome!

So Working Mom Magic has set up certain things that you can talk about on your scope, but it isn’t limited to just that! You can talk about whatever you want! Hooray!

And, mom and I have taken the challenge. Well…more me than mom, but it is still both of us. I have posted a livestream the past two days and will try (biggest and most important word) to post a livestream everyday on from that. The times will be a little skewed because of work and school schedules, but I will post on Twitter when I go live!

Finally, please check us out on Periscope. Our username is @homeonthecorner, so please follow us and give our livestreams hearts. I also have a personal Periscope, @yoyorocks99. Follow both of these account to see more of what mom and I go through for the blog!

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.

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!

Recycled Pallet Table

August 10, 2015August 9, 201533 Comments

Today we are back with our regularly scheduled program! Back to the DIY and recycled projects! Today is a pretty simple one…and it’s made from pallet wood! We have a whole pile of it and finally came up with a project.

It started out with the base of the desk my daughter took apart for her bench project.

Desk before

We still had the metal base left over. I wanted to use it for something, so I finally decided to try a table, even though it’s a little tall. I tried a piece of chalkboard first, thinking I would paint it black and then could write different things on it for get-togethers. But I didn’t really care for it, so I laid a couple of pallet boards across just to see how it would look. The vote was unanimous! We all went for the pallet wood!

My husband added a couple pieces of wood underneath, just to give some support, and that was about it. All the pieces were screwed together and I have a ‘new’ table! I love it!

Ezzy is making sure it all looks perfect and maybe enjoy a tiny bite of the peach cheesecake!

Thanks for all you wonderful comments about our nomination for the Liebster Award! It’s been fun getting to know some other new bloggers out there! Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Living Room Corner and Down the Hallway

July 16, 201520 Comments

My time off this summer is going by way too fast! I feel like I still have too much to get done! Remember the scrapbooking I was going to work on. Not happening! But I did manage to work on a couple of places in my house.

Back in February, I participated in a Finish-It-Up Challenge. One of the projects I worked on was to paint the trim in my hallway. I painted all the trim, plus 6 doors! Whew! That was a big job! I had hoped to get the walls done soon after, but it just didn’t happen. I finally found some light grey paint on the clearance spot at Walmart. I figured I would make it work. It still took a couple more months before I got the painting done, but it is finished!

I also got a new rug! I had been thinking about a sisal rug, but then decided I wanted more color since it is pretty dark in the hallway. My mom and I went shopping and found this one. I knew right away this was the one I wanted! Thanks Mom!

There was a part of the wall that was peeling off. Well, it was scraped and sanded and then sprayed with texture. Then I was finally able to paint over it. It is not anywhere near perfect, but it sure is better!!

I really like how this space looks!

While I was busy painting the hallway, I was chatting with Haley and asked what she thought of taking the dresser we just took out of her room and using it as a tv stand. She said, definately, yes! So in the middle of painting, I took a break and we moved furniture!

Here is the piece we took out! Haley started moving stuff before I could even stop painting and get the camara out! Yeah, this was from back in the day of very big tv’s!

After getting everything disconnected and moved out of the way, we took the old piece out. Boy, was it heavy! We could barely get it out the door! We managed to just get it out of the way and I said, good enough! Leave it there! It was much easier to move the dresser in!

We got this piece from our neighbors (thanks P & G) quite a few years ago. It has lived in both of the girls’ bedrooms and been painted several times too. We had just moved it out of Haley’s room about a month ago, but I really like it in here! We put movies and Wii games in the drawers. I added a bit of my beach decor too!

My last piece is this wonderful metal doggy I bought from Hobby Lobby! I have to have my little dog touches in each room!

I hope you enjoyed this little update and tour! Next week we will venture a little bit further down the hallway to my bedroom. I think it’s finally done (for now!)!