d*s jewelry project

do you read design*sponge? it is one of my favorites. some of the posts don't interest me, but there are usually more than five posts a day—enough to keep everyone happy! my favorite categories are the before and afters (usually posted on thursdays), the sneak peeks, and the DIY projects. i was inspired by their embroidered handkerchiefs post and used the idea to make some hankies for ben (but i used my machine instead of doing it by hand).

d*s is where i got the instructions for this little lady, which i finished last week:

d*s posted the instructions in february, and i saved the post because it totally seemed like something my sister-in-law, maggie, would like. she sells premier designs jewelry. her birthday was last week, so i made one for her. but i thought while i was at it, i would make one for myself, too!

now this project involves a jig saw. i didn't have one. BUT, one saturday after church, i found out my parents-in-law had bought a scroll saw for their kids many years ago as a Christmas gift...and it was sitting in their basement, unused, ready for a project. i pretty much squealed.

so here are the pics. i cut out the template, glued it together, traced it onto the wood (i used pine because it is soft for cutting and paints well), and went at it with the scroll saw. it took almost an hour for each form. many relief cuts and a few coats of paint later, i was done! 

it is fun to style it up with my favorite jewelry pieces. go explore design*sponge!

and happy memorial day, by the way. thank you, veterans!

saturday {5.22.2010}

another hard day's work! i bet you are getting sick of these demo photos. bear with me...we are at the turning point. things will start to look different soon.

[image from imdb.com]

why this picture? because we cut a skuttle hole into the ceiling! ha! ben just rolled his eyes at me. (and then he handed me the wii controller and asked me to beat a mario level for him, which i did. now i'm back!)

ben had to climb up into this odd ceiling space (we have a one-and-a-half story, so we have some strange attic stuff going on) to pull out all the insulation. it looked like poodle fur. i stayed down below and stuffed it into garbage bags. ben cleared the space so we can spray foam insulation, which we have in the kitchen and love! it keeps things plenty cozy.

then we tore down the ceiling in the former bath, to-be closet. ben's mask was very dirty, but the inside was clean. it's cool/gross to see what he didn't breathe in but could have.

and look what fell out of the ceiling!

weird. there seems to be a theme of easter eggs at our house.

then, ben taught me how to place electrical boxes. it wasn't hard. i just followed the incredibly "official" electrical plan we've mapped out. :)

it was a good day.

some new additions around the house

good morning! looks like we have some hot weather coming our way!

i did a little shopping on thursday. first up was odds and ends furniture gallery in st. louis park. they sent me a $50 gift card in the mail, with no minimum purchase. i thought it would be worth checking out! they had a lot of scratch and dent pieces, and they were really nice quality. a lot of things were more formal than what we need (very edina looking, ha!), but they had some fun upholstered pieces, too. should have brought my camera.

here's what i bought:

because of the coupon, it ended up being about $13. and ben likes the shade! score!

when i got up on thursday morning, i saw that i had missed a call at 6:30am from my mom. i was worried. i listened to the message—she wanted to tell me about a great table she saw at her neighbor's garage sale. :) i'm so glad it wasn't some serious bad news, but i was thankful for the insider tip!

anyways, i swung over and took a look. it needs a LOT of work, but it is a sturdy oak table with a great shape. and the price? eight dollars. i promptly loaded it into the explorer. it needs to be stripped and re-stained, but i think it's a winner. we'll just us a tablecloth for now. and eventually we'll get some real chairs that don't fold. :)

so those are my thursday deals. seriously, all the garage sale signs make my heart race. i love a good project. speaking of projects, i'm off to work on a super-secret birthday gift. it involves me operating a scroll saw in the garage. if it turns out well, i'll share pics here.

have a great weekend!

plumbing, etc.

our plumbing is almost finished! this weekend, we'll place the electrical boxes and hopefully the electrician will come next week. it looks like we'll be stretching into the beginning of july on this project.

i've kind of taken responsibility for planning/organizing the tile selection and installation and the cabinetry. i'm having so much fun! i told that to ben and he laughed, because i don't think he loves this stuff as much as i do. :) he's very patient with me, especially when i get excited about a beautiful faucet or something equally ridiculous. [although both our jaws dropped at the sight of these fixtures, which are gorgeous but would blow the budget big time.]

{images from restoration hardware}

God is teaching me the value of hard work. honestly, i am so lazy. i quit when things get hard—not only that, but i think that is what i was "known for" growing up. it's time to change that, both at work (my job) and at working around the house. God has given me a measure of hardworkfulness (that is not a word, but it is a mixture of hardworking and thankfulness) that i don't think i've had before. i think He is telling me that it is time for me to grow up and learn to be productive and creative for a purpose. when i become a mom, Lord willing, there is no room for laziness. life is work. heaven is eternal rest.

here's a little litmus test of the above paragraph: i love magazines. when i would get one in the mail, i would stop what i was doing to look through it. [i think working in publishing makes reading for pleasure a little more difficult—i read manuscripts all day at work, so sometimes, i just like to relax by looking at pretty pictures.] anyways, through promotions, i have free subscriptions to lucky and this old house. real simple was a gift, and i bought a subscription to house beautiful. i currently have brand-new issues of all four of these magazines...just sitting around, unopened. and the reason they are unopened is that every time i get a moment to start flipping through one, i have a realization that work needs to be done, like dishes, picking up the bedroom, or washing the car, and i decide to do that work instead. and you know what? that's okay! i'm not complaining, i'm not saying that i feel guilty about taking a few minutes to relax. i'm saying that God has helped me to find joy in work, to the point that i want to do it more than read a magazine! maybe this is juvenile, but like i said—it's time for me to grow up. i kid you not when i wrote that i loved cleaning the house on saturday. it was good, dirty, satisfying work. i've been wondering how to rest on the sabbath. i think sunday might become magazine day. :)

thanks for reading, and for all the kind responses and encouragement. blogging is kind of self-indulgent, so i appreciate all those who hang in there with me!

fantastic birthday weekend!

yay-hoo! i'm officially 26 years old. my birthday weekend was filled with fabulous things, including (but not limited to): robin hood, lots of laughs with my husband, red robin, cleaning the house (God granted me tremendous joy in this task), finishing humility with the small group, lunch with the family, time outside, great worship songs, witnessing my nephew's dedication, my sister's homemade café latte turtle cake, seeing how adorably pregnant my sister-in-law is, gifts of a green and white theme, and just all-around awesomeness. and could the weather have been any more lovely?

i wore this on friday (my birthday), and this pic shows how goofy and happy i was feeling. i sewed this skirt a while back, but never posted pics! if you have the april issue of real simple, flip to page 104. that page holds my inspiration for this ensemble (or did i straight up copy? where's the line there?). anyways, i followed this tutorial for the skirt, except without pockets. i added a lining, too, because the fabric was thin.

my mom said something at lunch yesterday that struck me: God made us to be productive and creative. she said it in the context of work and laziness. i just thought i'd share that. i don't have anything to add.

out!

[more than] a week in pictures: may 1–9

we tilled and seeded the side garden. it used to look like this. in doing so, we found this:

yeah that's right, a hard-boiled egg. probably from some long-forgotten easter egg hunt!

the current interior shots of the master remodel:

we tore out the insulation from the exterior walls, and our contractor fixed the rotted spots in the subfloor (and he added another layer, i think). he framed in all the doors, too. we took out the plastic dust screen. this week, hvac came, and hopefully plumbing will get started. the tile guy is coming tomorrow morning to give us an estimate. we're moving on putting things back together.

i met with the cabinet designer last thursday morning—i wanted a bid for the vanity and linen closet. i also sketched out another project for a bid, but i'm not going to say what it is in case it doesn't work out. i've been having so much fun playing interior designer.

got some great early birthday gifts—lime salt from wes and maggie and pirate stationery from beth. i love that my friends and family know the quirky things i'd like.

scored some cute pillows at pier one for a great price. i saw them and loved them last year but didn't want to pay full price. patience can pay off! green equals best color ever. plus, i got a good reaction from ben! he likes them because they look tropical.

some baking happened. another chance to use the cake decorating tools ben gave me for christmas.

 until the future!

thankful: the marys!

"plans are established by counsel;
by wise guidance wage war."
proverbs 20:18.

i am blessed to have an amazing mother and an amazing mother-in-law. curiously, they are both named mary! i just got off the phone with my mom, and boy, does she ever give me the "wise guidance" mentioned in proverbs 20:18. we ate lunch with my mother-in-law today, and she is such an example of humility and hospitality. praise be to God for wise mothers who model compassion and domesticity. ben and i have been so blessed by their influences and selflessness.

i love that our wedding photographer caught these moments when our parents hugged (right after ben and i walked together down the aisle as husband and wife). ben and i didn't see this happen, so it was especially sweet to see the photos. seeing the looks on their faces almost brings me to tears. what joy God has given us. i am so grateful.

happy mother's day!

how does your garden grow?

let me show you what's growing around here!

first up: kitchen windowsill. last week i planted some basil, chives, and parsley. look at those little green buds!

that blows my mind. God devised a system in which sunlight and water cause seeds to grow into plants, some hundreds of feet tall. what a beautiful God.

next up: a lovely ranunculus plant on the front stoop [courtesy of my lovely mom].

i can't stop cutting these flowers and bringing them in the house. they look great in a bud vase and they are so layered that they keep unfolding for like a week before they turn brown. gorgeous.

and last: the side of the house. what is this?

no, seriously—what the heck is this? an iris? and is it possible that it is sticking its tongue out at me and telling me that it grew without my help? because it did. i came around the corner there it was. what a happy surprise. thank you, previous homeowners!

tile attempt #2

i just can't say enough about God's faithfulness. saturday was a really sweet day, and God certainly blessed me in more ways that i can even know.

i get in so much trouble for assuming. we all know what assuming does...and if you don't, you can ask me and i'll finish the joke for you. :)

ben and i went and looked at tile on saturday morning, and i had been praying about it throughout the week. ben and i have really, really different taste, and i was concerned that we would end up frustrated, unable to find something we would like. a lot of times, we can find common ground, but i worry that i'm steering things a little too much. this is something i wrestle with in general—i vowed to submit to my husband. my heart's desire is to honor him. yet, the "home" is my responsibility. ben called me the CFO, the "chief food officer"—and that is just one example. i'm in charge of cleaning, meal planning, grocery shopping, and in general, decorating. [side note: please don't misunderstand. ben is not oppressive. we both believe in biblical gender roles and embrace them, with the Spirit's help. so he has his areas of focus (the marketplace, as mark driscoll calls it), and i have mine, and we work together—but the household is my "specialty."]

okay. so back to tile. the bottom line is that ben and i are going to use this master bathroom every day, and i want him to love it. i want him to feel comfortable, relaxed, able to prepare for his day. so i felt an especially heavy burden over this choice. [side note: when we were at the tile store, i was thinking about how small and unimportant this is in the entire scope of things. people live in mud huts, you know? anyways. the decision needs to be made.]

ben woke up saturday morning after having a bad dream about tile—we found something we liked, but the store wouldn't sell it to us for some reason. so that was kind of a funny start to the day! we went to the tile shop first, partly because they have tons of installations to help visualize the big picture. ben pointed out two bathrooms that were okay to him, and both had plain white porcelain hex tiles on the floor. that was fine with me, so we had a good start. [let it be known that i am not the only one in our house who likes white!] he surprised me by veering toward a marble pillowed subway tile shower. i loved it, so we were on our way. we picked out a pretty greige glass accent to run as a thin line through the shower. there were a few tense moments, but we got some pricing and i think we left feeling pretty good.

but ben never takes a first offer [wise man!], so we headed back to kate-lo. i had to return the samples i had pulled last week and assumed ben would like (but he did not! trouble for assuming!). after looking for a bit, ben absolutely blew my mind by suggesting a carrera marble basketweave tile for the shower floor and a similar accent to run through the shower wall. again, trouble for assuming. i never in a thousand years would have thought he would like those tiles. and what a happy surprise, because i liked them, too! i was so happy that he had selected it on his own, not by me pushing it at him.

anyways, enough talk. here are a few snaps of the samples we pulled from kate-lo. i threw a few paint chips on top for some color, but nothing is final. if we go with the kate-lo options below, we'll do a plain white subway tile on the shower walls.

then we went to taco john's for lunch. [yum! i'm slowly being won over from taco bell.] we spent the afternoon working hard in the yard. it was a really sweet day. i crashed early, exhausted. God commands us to work, and it is for our good! He knows what we need, and His commandments truly are for our benefit. kaylee, thanks for reminding me about the sweetness of psalm 119!

"your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them. the unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple." verses 129–130

roman shade: finished!

do you ever feel paralyzed when it comes to decorating decisions? i do. sometimes i just can't bring myself to spend the money it would take to decorate a space. sometimes i don't have the time, so a bathroom window goes without covering for months. :)

but progress has been made! here's the final result of that bathroom window decision:

a combination of menards cut-to-fit white blinds and a homemade roman shade! i love it. i used darby's tutorial to make the shade. [her blog is amazing. she loves Jesus, her husband, her kids, sewing, baking, and photography. she's an inspiration.] my shade is not perfect. if you look closely (or maybe not even that closely!) you'll see flaws. but i'm still learning, and i'm happy with it.

the fabric is from calico corners. they have beautiful, quality fabric and great prices. i ordered it back in february, sewed the shade right away, and then it sat for a month while i pondered how the make the folds. then, i brought my sewing machine and the shade over to my mom, the pro, and she helped me figure out the folds and the last few steps. then, it sat for another month before i got the itch to mount it one night! man, i'm slow. beth and i painted this bathroom last june! [having the blog helps me keep track of these things—i can know exactly how long it has been. eek.]

like darby, i mounted the shade higher than the window. it is purely decorative (it doesn't go up or down), so i hung it high to make it seem like the window was bigger than it actually is. this requires blackout lining on the back, but i think it really does make the room seem bigger!

i have art to hang in there and a shelf to install, and then this bathroom will be complete. wahoo!