Excelsior!

As you know, I recently made a sewing table out of video tapes. However, as the table top was unfinished, the victory of this achievement has been, thus far, unearned. Until today.

While I was at the salon having my hair treated after an unfortunate chemical experience I had a few months back, my amazing husband had an epiphany of sorts. He was driving around to thrift stores looking for a cheap television for my craft room when, like a cheap moth to the flame of a liquidation sale, he was lured into a soon to be closed Blockbuster Video.

Upon entering this last bastion of pop culture censorship, he saw a large rack of 'backing cards'. What are backing cards you say? They are the plasticy, cardboardy, fake movie box fronts that sit on the shelf and laugh at you after the store is out of every copy of the movie that you were looking for. They are the bitchy tease of the video store world. The tramp who says "oh, you wanted to rent 200 Cigarettes? I'm sorry, but someone else is currently enjoying it, you're going to have to go home empty handed." And they were one sale, 20 for $1. So after picking me up, we went back and now I am the proud owner of 220 backing cards.

Let the crafting begin!

First thing's first, I had to finish my sewing table top.

What I will do with the rest is really anyone's guess. I'm definitely excited to get started on whatever it is though, now that part of my craft room is organized...

Yay!!

Hooray for Productivity!

Now that Eric and I live in a place with more than two rooms, I swear I have a new lease on life. I'm still working on my videotape sewing table, but I've hit a bit of a wall with the structural issues so I decided to turn my attention to the DVD shelf that I started a few weeks ago for Eric's Nerdery.

I have to say that I'm pretty proud of myself with this one, it definitely has flaws, but overall a solid first effort. And now Eric has one more shelf for his hoarder-like collecting...

Now, I'm turning my attention back to the sewing table. Wish me luck!

A New Sewing Table!

When I met my husband he was the proud owner of at least 2,000 VHS tapes. And although he has been steadily replacing them with DVDs, we still have at least 1,500 video tapes. Useless, valueless, VHS tapes.

Now that we have moved out of our one bedroom apartment and into an actual house the video tapes are out of our storage unit and ready for practical use.

Behold, my new sewing table project!

The raw materials:

6 and a half boxes of VHS tapes, Gorilla Glue, Tape and a whole lot of Heart

Which movies to choose! So many fantastic titles...

The first few layers...

(yes, that is my copy of Private Benjamin -- I will now admit that a large number of these videos are mine)

The inspectors take a look at my finished product...

The next step is for it to dry overnight....

And then, DECOUPAGE!!! I'll keep you posted.

Husband Less

I am less one husband for the next 48 hours. He's off in Los Angeles for work being very important and I am home with the dog and cats eating Totino's Party Pizzas and making button bouquets.

For the 4 of you who read this blog, you know that I made button bouquets at my wedding and encouraged you to take them home as favors. Well! Our good friend Adazoe owns Pop Up Shoppe on NW 23rd and wants to start selling my bouquets! So I've been hard at work filling her first order of 6 bouquets. When I bring them in we're going to talk price point. I have no idea what that means, but it makes me tingly in all the right places. How exciting!

I've been so inspired by this vote of confidence from Adazoe, that I've opened my own Etsy shop! There is nothing for sale in it yet, but I'll let you know once there is. I plan on selling the bouquets (obvs.) and also bookmarks, magnets, eyeglass sheaths, embroidered what nots and whatever the hell else I can make. I love being crafty but have pretty much run out of room for stuff in my house, so why not sell my craftiness to the masses?! Huh? Huh? I know, right? Genius.

Shauna's face in this picture says it all.

It's way too early to tell you what my Etsy shop name is and give you the URL, but trust me when I say that the name of my shop/business is super clever and Brad came up with it. He's a smarty.

Yay for stuff!

winter blues in arizona?!?

i know. it seems unbelievable to me too. but, alas, i do feel a little off lately. i can only attribute it to the time of year. lately i haven't felt like doing anything productive and i'm totally unmotivated. i need to snap out of it. i haven't done anything crafty in ages, and i love being crafty!

BUT, about a month ago i did make my sister's baby (he's due on December 10th) a crafty wall thing...

it's a tradition in our family, started by one of my aunts when i was a kid, to make these for the kids bedroom walls. a mom can only pull off having this in her kid's room when they're little...

the wall hangings are traditionally much simpler than this and only consist of the puffy felt name and a little boy or girl doll head. but, i went for the gold on this one and made it to go with the bedroom decor.

my mission now is to get out of my weird funk...

Adventuring into Wifedom

Well, today marks my one month wedding anniversary to my bear of man husband, Rob. So far in our one month of marriage I've gone from a working woman with a bedtime curfew of 8:30 to an unemployed housewife, who at this very moment is sitting in bed re-watching the first season of Friends while eating pita chips and garlic hummus, and drinking a tiny 100 calorie can of Coca Cola (yes, they make those). Oh, and there's a Hershey bar too. And it's after 10. This might sound depressing to some, but to me it is an excellent night in.

I'm beginning a new chapter of my life and I'm a little scared. I quit my job without having anything lined up. Everyone keeps asking me if I feel like I've made the right decision "in this economy". The answer is yes. I do feel like I've made the right decision. I just need time to clear my head and figure out what my next step is.

Right now I'm enjoying living as a "housewife". My daily agenda so far consists of getting up at 8 and going to 9:30 Jazzercise, then cleaning whatever needs to be cleaned, because now I have the time and energy to do so. I have big plans for being crafty. After all I'm sharing this blog with Joy, who is my secret arch nemesis in the crafty department. I wish I was as talented with a glue stick and a sewing machine as she is. I plan on making my halloween costume this year, Joan Holloway of Mad Men. I'll just be sewing an early 60's style wiggle dress. I think I've found the pattern, but we'll see if this actually happens.

I'll keep you updated, but for now, it's Friends time.

The Fruits of My Labor

Boom.

Thursday night I put together my cork board jewelry holder and I think it turned out pretty damn well. I got the fabric from the table cloths I made for the wedding.

Then I had quite a productive Sunday. While watching The Powder and the Glory and True Romance I painted the cats portraits.

Tonight I'm cleaning the bathrooms (including the litter boxes) and doing laundry. You know what? I'm even going to put my laundry away once I've cleaned it, because that's what adults do and I'm an adult.

Take that single Joy! Married Joy is such a together lady she can barely stand it.

She's Crafty, etc.

I went to Michael’s (My second favorite store after the ubiquitous Target) today and totally scored. Michael's is having a big sale right now so I intended to go there to purchase some storage bins on the cheap, but they were 1. overpriced (even at 50% off) and 2. wicker. Why is wicker so expensive? More to the point, why is wicker so ugly? The world may never know. So I'm thinking I'll have to go to The Container Store or some reasonable facsimile, so that I can find some stylish bins for my craft organization extravaganza.

So what did I score at Michael’s?

Cork Board to make one of these.
Canvas Panel 2 pack for painting portraits of my cats (I already have one canvas at home).
Fatty bottles of acrylic paints in white, black, brown, blue, red and yellow – see above.
Buzzy Grow Kits for sweet basil, poppy, curly parsley, black eyed susans and lavender.

Total: $37.33

Not bad at all.

I can’t wait to get my cork board project underway. I have seen this so many times on craft web sites and it never stops amazing me. I love to display my jewelry, but there was never a great way to do it. I have a few jewelry boxes, but I never use them because I like to have my jewelry out so that I’ll remember what I have.

I want to paint portraits of the cats because I love love love doodling pictures of them when I’m bored.

Example:
I feel like with the proper tools I could turn these doodles in to something that we could use to decorate our home and to celebrate our little furry babies.

The plants are for the home we have an offer in on. It’s got this awesomely humongous window sill in front of the kitchen window. It would be perfect for a little indoor garden. I’m trying not to go to nutso buying stuff for the house that we don’t have yet, but it’s getting harder the longer we wait to hear back from Freddie Mac (they own the house). The plants were 50% off and ended up being like $2 each. I believe that to be a sound investment. I’m going to wait to start them until we get in the house because right now our apartment is already too crammed with stuff.

To organization!

Quantifying Wifehood

Well I did it! I cleaned the bedroom. I even vacuumed and washed the comforter. My husband was so very happy. He said he barely recognized the bedroom without crap all over the floor. It’s the little things that keep our marriage strong and happy.

Today is our one month anniversary of being Mr. and Mrs. Bush. That’s right; exactly 4 weeks ago today we got hitched! Time has flown by, as it tends to do, and nothing really feels different. I don’t know that it ever will. I’m not sure what I was expecting – like all of a sudden I would feel like a wife. I’m pretty sure that I’ve been feeling like a wife ever since Brad and I moved in together 3 years ago. He is my partner and we are in the shit together.

Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far as a Mrs.:
• Together with my better half, put an offer in on a beautiful home in SE Portland.
• Decoupaged the front of the media cabinet.
• Cleaned the bedroom.

Here’s what I hope to accomplish in the near future:
• Strip and re-paint the movie shelf.
• Close on the beautiful home in SE Portland. (Once this has been accomplished it
will create a whole new list of crap to do.)
• Organize my crafting supplies – right now they’re piled behind my sewing machine.
• Work my way through my mending pile.
• Clean the bathrooms. (Like I said – it’s the little things.)

I don’t know why any of the above tasks = wifehood. I suppose it’s just that these are things that I want to do and I happen to be married. Being married is still a novelty to me so it’s my way of quantifying my wifehood.

Silly, I know.