Getting Back Into It

Many, many apologies for not posting this past week. I know you don't want to hear my excuses - everyone's busy, get on with it, girl - so I won't bore you with them. They mostly involve month-end paperwork and my work location moving (no more commute!), getting ready for vacation (and cleaning the house in anticipation of the dogsitter being here), and a personal project that may get very interesting. I hope, I hope, I hope.

Let me show you a bit of what I have been doing, because it's not like I've been sitting around eating Cheetos the whole time (not the whole time).

1. I used my Silhouette for the first time - did I mention that Tom gave me a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas? - and added the dogs' names to their food bowls.

They were like, "You know we can't read right? And that we already know whose is whose?"

Just humour me, okay?

2. I took the Christmas wall hanging above the mantel from this:

To this:

It only took a few minutes and a couple of nails. The one on the bottom is a metal wall hanging that I bought the first week we moved into our current house. Tom wanted to buy it for me for Christmas that year but I was so excited that I rushed out and bought it myself. I love the contrast between the wood and the metal.

3. And we celebrated Sasha's birthday a little late. We had the family over for a belated Christmas dinner on her actual birthday (the 29th, also my birthday), so we didn't get to celebrate until after New Year's. I'm pretty sure she didn't mind.

As I mentioned before, it's full steam ahead on the kitchen update now, and we're taking off to Cuba again for a week. What have you been up to?

DIY Art from a Favourite T-shirt

How many of your gifts to other people were handmade? I'm guessing crafters/DIYers give more handmade gifts than other people. For me, it was probably about a 50/50 split.

One of my favourites this year was the framed t-shirt I made for Tom.

Some of his favourite shirts are from the Life is Good line. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but they make really fun, activity-oriented clothing and accessories. I have a few shirts myself, and Sasha has a "Life is Good" collar. 'Cause you know, for her, it really is.

About a year ago Tom temporarily switched deodorant brands and it made the armpits of his shirts hard and crunchy (how's that for TMI?) They didn't smell bad, it was just weird and uncomfortable to wear. Nothing would wash it out so the t-shirt had to be retired. But it was in good shape otherwise. And it was his favourite of the favourites - the first one he bought I think.

I decided to turn it into framed art so he could have it forever. I already had a frame but it didn't have a mat, so I made one from the solid mat in another frame that wasn't being used. The first thing I did was measure the width and height of the graphic so I knew how big to make the opening.

 I then added about an inch on each side and marked that on the mat. I also put it into the frame to make sure it would look balanced once it was all together. I don't know if you can see the tiny marks but they're there, one on each side.

Sasha chose that moment to walk into the room and put her face in a plate of glitter. Life is good. And sparkly. She distracted me so much that I forgot to take any more pictures until I was finished. But hopefully I can explain it well enough.

I used an X-acto knife and a ruler to join the marks and cut the matting to size. The frame is 8 x 10 so I cut the graphic out of the t-shirt in a rectangle measuring 9 x 11 - to give me extra material to wrap around behind. I took the filler board from the frame (the one between your picture and the backing board) and stretched the t-shirt tightly around it, making sure the graphic was centered, and secured each edge with packing tape.

I put the frame back together and it was finished. Oh yes, don't forget to give the glass a good cleaning on both sides if it's been handled a lot!

Cute, isn't it? Tom was so happy. And I marked on the tag that it was from the dogs so they got lots of hugs for being so clever.

Now he's not so worried that his favourite t-shirts will wear out because he knows they can live on forever on the walls.

~~~~~

I'm linking up to these parties this week!

2013 DIY Plans

I realize we've really been slacking on the home improvements this past year. I was so gungho in September to get the kitchen cupboards refinished - I did about 50% of the sanding during the first week of October - but since then? I don't think I've been in the garage in weeks, except to park my car.

Before:

Currently:

My lofty plan was to sand an hour a day, plus more on the weekend, until it was all done. I've got to get back to that. This is what my kitchen cupboards are going to look like - before Easter, damn it! 

source: KitchenCabinetsColors.com

We'll also install a new backsplash - white I think. And we'll start looking around for a stainless steel refrigerator - but we're in no hurry.

The second big item on the list is renovating the ensuite bath. Besides the shower being a dark little cave, the water leaks around the door and the drywall has started to fall off at the bottom. When we got Little Dog, she liked to spend her nights laying on the bathmat scratching at the loose spots.

Of course she just turned 3 so I can't blame it on her any more. The grout between the floor tiles is also coming loose, and Tom would like a new vanity - specifically a new sink.

We plan to tear out the shower tiles, knock down the shower wall between the shower and the toilet, and install a frameless shower door, re-tiling of course. I hope we can find a sliding shower door that fits because there is just no room for a pivoting door.

source: Dreamline

I think the frameless shower plus the sliding door will make the room seem so much bigger. We're also going to retile the floor and I think we're going to install this floating vanity from Ikea. More visible floor area should give the illusion of more space.

source:Ikea

What else? There will definitely be some painting going on. The front room, the master bedroom, and all of the beige-y trim is going to get a fresh coat. And I'd like to paint the basement as well. All three of those rooms are just kind of blah.

I want to paint the bedroom a deep, rich grey. Maybe something like this:

Benjamin Moore Stormy Sky

source: decoraat.net

Currently it is a weird yellow with some sort of plaster texture on the upper half of the wall. Can you remove that kind of thing? There is a chair rail that cuts the room in half visually. I want to paint the walls all one colour so that the ceiling looks higher. Do you see a theme here? It's all about making the house more spacious.

The front room will probably be a taupe colour to coordinate with the rest of the house, but we're going to go with a beachy theme in the basement. Not surfboards and seahorses, but shades of soft blue, sand, white. And black and white photography.

Plus a dozen other smaller projects. But we really want to focus on knocking out some of the larger ones first. What projects are you working on this year? Any major changes?