Thursday, March 24, 2011

Week 5 Project

I've wanted to redo the throw pillows for our bed for a while now because, well, when I made the original ones I wasn't really sure what I was doing.  I could have chosen better fabric, and made my seems straighter and made cuter pillows.  So, using a video tutorial from The Crafty Gemini I'm going to make three new pillows that will hopefully look something like these...


I want to make monogram designs in buttons on each using the two bigger pillows for letters and the one smaller pillow for an ampersand.  The plan is for blue buttons on brown pillows to coordinate with our bedroom, so now the only decisions left to make are what font to use and whether to use our first initials, R & N, or our last initials, A & W.  I think I'm leaning more towards R & N since we've used the A&W theme before.


Because this project promises to be time consuming I'm taking it in steps and this week I'm tackling the first two steps.  First - pick out fabric and cut all pieces.  Second - sew the button monogram to one of the pillow fronts.

After some further research I found a tutorial for the button monograms at Adventures of one Crazy Lady.  I can't wait to get started!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Project 3 carries into Week 4

A little bit of last week's projects will carry over into next week...

- The Media Purge from last week continues: get rid of 5 things and take the sell box to Half Price Books

- Reading: read one of the books I borrowed from Caitlin - I'm through chapter 8 now, and I'm amending this goal to reading one chapter each night until I'm done.

- Crafty Goal: Add three rows (12 squares) to my blanket to complete the first pattern - see, even I got mixed up on this one because I managed to do 12 squares before I realized that three rows would be 18 squares, so I still have six more squares left to go.  I'm just excited to get this done so I can lay out the rest of the pattern and get cracking! 


This coming week is packed full of things to do, but I probably won't be working much this week as the family I work for have relatives visiting.  This will leave plenty of time for all these things... I hope.

Thursday is Festival of Nations at Richard's school, and we just finished prepping the dough for the spiral cookies we're going to bake.  Saturday is the Midwest Gaming Classic which we're attending with some of Richard's colleagues before we all go to the best Chinese restaurant for lunch and before I head off for a night of work.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

One Project a Week: Project 3 comes in 3's

Yes, reading that book fell by the wayside last week, mainly because I was reading so much news.  Wisconsin certainly has plenty of news lately, and quite a bit of it relates directly to us.  Richard is now in his third year teaching and it seems every thing that happens puts that job further and further into jeopardy.

We went to the Capital yesterday to join in the protests, and even ran into Jeff and Jennie, so I'll post photos later.  I'll be honest - I'm having a hard time dealing with a lot of the chaos coming our way, so occasionally these projects may have to be put on the back burner.

- The Media Purge from last week continues: get rid of 5 things and take the sell box to Half Price Books
- Reading: read one of the books I borrowed from Caitlin
- Crafty Goal: Add three rows (12 squares) to my blanket to complete the first pattern

Hopefully I'll get all of these goals done early in the week so I have time to do many, many other things like go to work, scan and edit some photos, and maybe even go thrifting.  But for today?  We're cleaning the house.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Project 2: De-cluttered Media

1) Cancel daily paper and go back to Sunday only

2) Clear out 50 old magazines.  Recycle them, rip them apart, or sell them - just get them out of the house. 52 down, who knows how many more to go.
Recycled: 45
- Box to sell: 7

3) Finish reading one of my borrowed books from Caitlin. 

4) Find five books and/or cds to sell.  My book and music collection is getting ridiculous.
Box to sell: 5

I'm quite happy with the progress I made, especially being so busy and all over the place this week.  The one thing I didn't get to was reading the book, but I think three out of four isn't bad.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

One Project a Week - Project 2: De-cluttered Media

Very simply put - we have a media overload in this house.  We are constantly reading books, magazines and newspapers, listening to music, and watching movies.  So this week's project comes in multiple parts but because this is another cleaning/organizing project I have a head start from last week.

1) Cancel daily paper and go back to Sunday only - done today!

2) Clear out 50 old magazines.  Recycle them, rip them apart, or sell them - just get them out of the house.

  • Recycled: 11
  • Box to sell: 3

3) Finish reading one of my borrowed books from Caitlin.

4) Find five books and/or cds to sell.  My book and music collection is getting ridiculous.

  • Box to sell: 1
That's it for this week, and the creative projects start in week 3.

Project 1: Organize Office Complete

I've taken a tip from Theresa on how to keep myself accountable using my blog.  I'll make a post or two every Thursday about what I've completed and what project I plan for the next week.  So here are the pictures of a rather clean and organized office and I will post later tonight on what I have planned for next week's project.

Save for the one broken remnant of the bed that hasn't quite made it to the dumpster yet, and will have to wait until the parking lot is less icy, the office is done!


You can probably tell from the pictures that we're big Apple computer geeks, and have a certain affinity to outdated technology.  For those of you keeping count at home that's six computers and two typewriters in the office, and each one is perfectly functional.


There may be just two people in this house, but there are three desks in our office.  (And yes, that's one of my photo lamps just hanging off the shelf there) The dark wood one is our most recent acquisition and when we move into a house (one day) the secretary's desk will go in the living room and the large corner desk will make its own way to Goodwill, but for now we make good use of every piece of furniture in the room.


The two bookshelves were the first pieces of furniture that my parents owned when they started out together. There is a third shelf that my father recently sanded and stained that now sits in their den.

It may look a little chaotic on the shelves, but things are certainly easier to find than they used to be.  Oh, and that little pink traincase on the bottom shelf is the most recent addition to my suitcase collection, a gift from my dear friend Jennie.