A Day All By Myself

Wow.....

I don't even know what to do with myself.

I have my notebook full of lists of ideas

of all the things I want to make

and I'm stumped.

I don't know what to do without the promptings of

Mom......Mom......Mom......Mooooooommmmmm!

My little girl started 1st grade today

and I have my first day all to myself for the first time in 6 1/2 years!

So I took a picture of Izzie the baby squirrel,

Can you see the gray fuzz that has come in this week?

She's doing great but was not happy with me trying to take her picture.

I took a picture of Gracie our yearling squirrel,

She loves fresh corn!

I got my hair cut

(sorry no pictures of that!  Is anyone every really happy

with the way the salon lady styles their hair?)

and now I think I've got the courage to start making patterns

for all the fun creations for our Fall and Christmas boutiques.

I just loved finding this this morning....

My little girl stuffed her beloved Sarafina in her back pack

this morning so she would help her not be scared and alone

on her first day of school.

I'm already watching the clock till she gets home!:)

Hooray! A Giveaway!!!

Yes, that's right!

A give away!

Head over to Tracee's Review From Here!

Tracee was kind enough to review

my EAT letters

from my Sweet Pickle Designs blog.

Thanks for the shout out Tracee!

Make sure to enter to win!

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did making them!

p.s. If you're wondering about the latest squirrel tale...this "momma" is

soooooooo tired,

and

ain't too crafty at the moment.

But, little Izzie is doing great!

I'll take some pictures and post them soon!

Thanks for all your sweet comments!

They seriously touched my heart and my funny bone!

It's Official....I'm Nuts....

Yup, I know what you guys are thinking.

She's totally nuts.

I couldn't agree more.

Look at this new bundle of joy

that has "joined our family" as my little girl puts it.

Saturday night we had a wicked awful wind storm blow in

and it did more than blow a few branches down.

My good friend who lives down the street called me frantically

at about 10:30 at night to ask me if I wanted the baby squirrel

her dog just hauled in.

Ahhhhh, the agony of deciding in a split second.

I actually said no at first thinking how am I going to do this again?

With boutique season starting????

But I have everything to help out and I caved.

My hubby calls me the "Squirrel Whisperer".

Yeaaahhhhh.

So wish me luck with this little girl,

( and the feedings every 2 hours!!)

we have figured she's about 1 week old,

umbilical cord still attached.

She was pretty hurt by the dog

who by the way my little girl has named her after

but I think she's going to be okay.

Welcome Izzie~!

Metal Snips and Signs

I made a couple of metal signs the other day for my son's room.  They were really easy! 

PB had a arrow that he liked.  I can handle this one...two colors, not a lot of detail!

I found a free clip art image of an arrow and put it into Microsoft Publisher. Have any of you used that? I have really taken a liking to it lately, you can do so many things with it. We blew up the arrow to the size of the metal and one of his favorite numbers.

The plan was to use Nicole's fancy Sure Cuts-A-Lot program and Cricut to print the design out on vinyl and have a sticky stencil for precise edges.

Well, we got the barfs in our house and I don't blame Nicole for not wanting us to come over! :)

Instead I cut the stencil out of paper with scissors. 

 Nicole picked up metal snips from Home Depot  last year and told me over and over again about their marvelous capacity.  She's right!  I even bought the (5 buck less) brand and I'm still happy with them.  Although, I can see how the longer snips would be helpful.

Next I used metal flashing in various sizes.  Be very careful with this stuff...IT IS SHARP!  Probably not for young kids.  I think I will mount the signs to wood so it won't cut any little (or big) fingers.

Next, we rounded of the corners.

  (You should probably be wearing heavy duty gloves while doing this .)

Then I took sand paper and rubbed over the edges....carefully.

Can you tell I'm worried about your fingers? :)

Spray paint is the only thing I had on hand that would stick to metal.  I gave the metal a base coat and after drying, used the spray paint with the stencil.

Here's the twelve my son wanted.  I really distressed this one. 

 My younger son keeps asking why I have to make everything look "old and crummy?" 

 "Why can't you just keep it new?'

So, I kept this one "shiny."

Dresser Makeover

One more thing done in the big boys room! I showed you a sneak peek of this dresser badly in need of some repair.  It's actually a changing table that you can flip over into a dresser.  The drawers rotate too.  It's made of pine and has a ton of dings, but otherwise a solid dresser.

The hardware didn't fit very well with our vision for the room.   

I really, really longed to have this furniture and Knock-Off Wood has the plans for it all!  The problem is that my son's room is teeny-tiny, and frankly...I don't think I could muster enough energy to build all that! So, I started thinking and wandered around all over Knock-Off Wood.  I wanted to keep the dresser for my son's clothes and give him some storage space.

I found the HUTCH plans, and I think they are brilliant! I haven't had the chance to build any of her plans yet, and I have to say....it was really fun, even in that hot garage.  It reminds me of all the Lego's I built with my son over the years, connect here and here and you end up with this creation! I had a ball! 

I picked up some pine boards to match the dresser and cut all the boards to size.  I altered the hutch to fit the dresser and the height of the room.  

I sanded, filled and primed/painted the board before I assembled.  I used a paint and primer in one by Behr.  I'm really not sure if it was any easier to do it that way?  The finished product still required a lot of repair and painting.  I made a lot of mistakes that had to be fixed! ;)

If you remember from my earlier post, I did this while my husband was out of town.  We finished the last coat of paint and I was anxious to see how it would all fit together.  I had my nine year old son help me lift this sucker up on the dresser to see how it looked.  I have to say we were really pleased.  The pictures don't show how large it really is. 

Here's it is in his room.  I had a hard time getting the pictures to show the accurate color. 

 It's much darker in person.

We filled it with all the things my son loves and he is happy as a clam!

I did add some dividers on the top to look more like the inspiration picture.  I noticed most of Knock-Off wood's hutch plans have these too.

It really adds a lot of height to the room and fits well with the room size.

There are the "ball cages" or freezer baskets that fit so well on the shelves.

The shelves are 12" boards,  so it's roomy enough to fit large items.

Now, I did not want in any way....for this thing to fall down and crush one of my kids.  So, I headed to Home Depot and asked the guy how to secure it.  He suggested using L-brackets and adhering to the top with screws and into the studs of the walls.

I also added more security and counter-sunk some holes and put long screws into the studs.  It feels safe and secure, because I KNOW my monkeys will be scaling the wall to steal their brother's stuff. 

I also ran into another problem.  The hutch was now flush with the walls, but the dresser wasn't because of the baseboards.  The dresser hung down and it took me some time to figure out how to fix this. 

Shims!

  You just push them in on the bottom and cut off when it fits.  The shims pushed the dresser up so hutch sat flush on the dresser.  No gaps!

I added new hardware.  I went with the simple, brushed nickel, industrial-looking handle.  It fits well with the silver in the room and the containers on the shelves.

Here it is before -because it so fun to compare! :)

There you go!  The headboard is next and I'll share a couple of other projects I have in mind with you this week.  There's a few important things I learned from building Knock-Off Wood's plans.  Having two sets of hands is best and BE SURE to use a square!  Thanks again Ana for sharing your plans-I have caught the building bug!

Cages for the Balls

What a week!  We were hit with stomach flu, strep and a bacterial skin infection all in one week!  I think we all need a lesson in hand washing! My fridge is full of antibiotics and we are thankfully on the mend. We missed our much anticipated trip to Yellowstone with my husband's family this weekend.  We didn't want to share our germs with everyone so we decided to stay home.  What a bummer.

  The projects for my son's room were put on hold, just as I started to build the headboard.  Inbetween the vomiting and clean-up, I did manage to pull the dresser project upstairs into his room. I think it looks great, I just need to get the right knobs.

 

I had to show you a picture of the ball cages I picked up at the thrift store, they fit perfectly on the dresser.   A couple of weeks ago, Shelley, from the House of Smiths created a fabulous pantry redo.  She put all of her bagged cereal in these metal baskets she picked up at the thrift store.  To my luck, there were a bunch at ours too and marked low.  Yay!  They are boy proof and help contain the million balls my boys have in our house.  I just may pick up some more!  Thanks Shelley for the tip!

Hopefully...I think the end is in sight for this room....... ;)

Sneak Peek

I put the boys to work in my little "sweat shop"-he, he! 

 Just kidding, this was outside- in the shade.  My garage did feel like a sweat shop for me the last few days with the hi temps.  I'm never really tempted to drink Gatorade, but  I guzzled a bottle down after I thought I was going to pass out!  I need to remind myself...do not build furniture in your garage when it's a hundred degrees out! My eldest  must surely know that his momma loves him!

 My hubby went out of town and that means project time! :)  We worked fast and furiously for three days, made a huge mess of the house and ate every meal out!

 I went with other plans for his room, seeing that it was too tiny to accommodate the large furniture in the PB inspiration picture. ( I do have to say that I found every building plan for the exact same furniture on Knock Off Wood.)  I also didn't want to lose the function of his dresser (badly in need of a makeover) just to have pretty bookcases to display stuff on. So, I took a different route with Ana's help and the paint is still drying.  Here's a sneak peek of the color he chose.

Again, he loves blue and I think he will be pleased. I just have to get it up the stairs and it will be DONE!  Nicole and I had a couple of ideas for decorations that hopefully we will get to this week.  We promised some fun projects but our brother came to town with his family and we made some delicious Korean food  instead. We will have to share the recipes and pictures of our cookout with you all...the food is definitely not for the weak! :)  A lot of GARLIC and spices!

A Happy Birthday Banner

If you're your wondering what

we Crafty Sisters

have been up to,

or maybe

why we haven't been so

quick and current with posts.....

Candace has 4 very very very busy boys

she's been trying to wrangle and entertain this summer

and I have been busy busy working.
Phewwwww!
That about sounds it up!:)

I am actually surprised at how many comments we have received

about what I do, I guess I just figure y'all know.

I like to dabble with wood. 

I specialize in cutting out custom wood letters and other crafts.

I teach classes and sell my products at a local scrap booking store

and I'm trying to get better about making a go of my Etsy store.

I feel so blessed to be able to work with something I love

but even more that I get to do it from home

and be with my little girl.

You can see some of my projects here.

My sweet little girl has been so patient and so helpful to me!

I had to share one of my favorite projects I did lately.

I was asked to make up one of my birthday banners

to match the WISH letters I sell in my Etsy store.

I was so happy with how it turned out!

So bright and fun and my little girl helped me

pick out all the buttons, ribbons and directed

all the glitter glue that went on!

When Candace and I started making

birthday banners a few years ago

we made some for her craft group ladies.

Angela at Secrets of A Supper Mommy featured them here.

It just reminded me that although I would love to sew

I completely lack the patience for it.

Plus I dislike how fabric gets wrinkled when it's stored.

So endless are the possibilities with wood and paper

and this banner folds up like an accordion for easy storage.

And hey, you know me....is there such a thing as too much glitter?

I can hardly believe the summer is coming to an end

and I've got to get my head in gear for boutique season!!!:)

Candace and I are working on some more projects for her son's

room this week that we think will be really fun!

Stay tuned!