A creative spastic kind of day

You know the type of days where you just can't focus on one project, you need a bunch of different ones to work on at one time just to make yourself happy? I call those type of days my "creative spastic" days. Yeah..today was one of those days. I threw a load of laundry in the washer (yeah I've been doing that all day too), sat down to play with my new fantasy film to make some faery wings, and found myself needing to sew at the same time. Normally, these "creative spastic" days don't usually result in finished projects. They usually just add to my never shrinking projects in progress shelf in my cabinet.

I haven't finished my wings yet, but I did finish 2 sewing projects that I've had in my head to do (one of these days I really should write down all those projects that are floating about in there). 

We have 2 dogs. 2 very cute, but messy dogs. And they are far from dainty eaters, they are hounds. Boy do they like to make a mess when they eat. We are constantly mopping up water that they splash out of their water dish. And if the water doesn't get mopped up, it makes the floor under the dog dishes yuck! I've toyed with the idea of getting one of those mats you put under the dishes. Problem is, they can be expensive and trying to find one that matches the kitchen without sticking out like a sore thumb is next to impossible. 

So with a bit of fabric left over from the tote bag I whipped up the other day, a bit of sweatshirt material, and some non slip shelf liner from the dollar store, I whipped up a mat for under their dog dishes. And while I was at it, I sewed one for under the cat food bowl that sits on our dryer in the bathroom downstairs. 

Food bowl mats

The mat under the dog dishes in action

Orion trying out the new mat

So I'm feeling pretty accomplished for actually finishing something I started for around the house. I am hoping this evening I can work more on my wings for my little faery. I'm really excited to see how they turn out.

It's been a crazy month so far. If you saw my calender that's on my computer, you would understand why I haven't posted anything lately lol. It's just one thing after another and my month keeps filling up. But it makes the month fly by so that's a good thing right?

Well, what have I been up to? A little bit of everything really. I've been primarily working on swap items and putting the finishing touches on a tutorial that I'm working on. And of course there's the deck. Do you remember what it looked like before the railing and the ramp? (click here for a refresher) 

The really great news is that it's finished! 

Dad is loving the ramp! He can drive his scooter right on up to it and has enough space to turn around. We've sat out on it quite a few nights already since it's been finished. All that is left is the finishing touches, like plant hangers on the posts and maybe some solar lights at the end of the ramp. But those are things for the spring (along with my new fire pit)

I even had enough wood left over to build a table to use next to the grill. I love the table. It's built out of all the scraps that were left over. The only thing we purchased were wheels to make the table easier to move. And trust me, it needed wheels! That table is a very solid one.

Well, it's time to get back to crafting. I'll post what I've been up to in the next few days as soon as people start receiving their swap packages. 

Happy Crafting!

~K.Michele

What have I been up to?

Beware a Witch with power tools!

What have I been up to? Building a deck! We started it about 2 weeks ago and are just about finished with it.

The new addition measures 16 feet by 20 1/2 feet. It is a great addition to our current 10 feet by 10 feet upper deck. With 6 people and 2 dogs using the deck at one time, 10 by 10 just didn't seem large enough.

 

We tore out the old hot tub that no longer worked (hadn't for years) and the walls that surrounded it. We kept the roof which adds shade in the afternoon, and built the new deck around it. 

There's still a bit of work left to do before it can be all finished, but it's getting there. We still need to install the railing which will mirror the upper deck. A ramp needs to be added for my dad to make it easier for him to get up on the deck. The roof needs to be addressed as well before you can sit under it in a rain storm (you get a wee bit wet at the moment where the deck roof meets the garage). Being that the lumber is pressure treated, the task of staining both decks will be completed in the spring.

All in all I'm pretty proud of this thing. I've done most of the labor, my sister and hubby helping occasionally. I can't wait for it to be all finished and a patio set enough for all 6 of us (would be an upgrade from our current that seats 4).

I'm hoping to get it to the point that it just needs roof work and staining this weekend. I have tons of crafting that is calling my name :)

Happy Crafting!

~K.Michele

My linen shelves!

Well, it's not very crafty but I'm still proud of it! My linen area in the bathroom has finally been finished (well for the most part). There is some finishing touches to be made, like the curtain and some touch ups on the shelves, but I am tickled pink!

Tomorrow I get to put all the towels and sheets in their new homes. The best part, I did it all myself. Yup, that's right all by myself. I even used the table saw on my own too! Now I have all kinds of ideas for new projects. This spring I'll be breaking out my scroll saw and doing some more fun stuff I'm sure.

Until then, my linen shelves!

I never thought I'd be this excited over something so simple and that many take for granted. But I am buzzing with more ideas and excitement. I don't think I've ever been this excited to do laundry. I can't wait until this weekend when we head out and see if I can find some material I like for the curtain.

The most aggravation I had was trying to find the studs in the walls since they were already primed. And our stud finder had come up missing, so it was the tried and true method of knocking on the wall until you found it. Took a bit of time, but it worked.

Now if I can just get the flooring put in, I'd be all set.

Update : Bathroom remodel (Picture Heavy!)

I know it's been a while since I've updated. Heck, the last time I updated it hadn't been snowing lol (the snow right now has all been melted). But in my defense I've been a busy little crafty fae. The latest project, along with a few craft swaps mixed in, has been a labor of love as well as a complete pain. Have I mentioned how much I don't like drywall dust?

Anyway, the bathroom. The original dreaded place that just was not all that functional and was basically a catch all for the rest of the house. There used to be an extra piece of counter top from the old kitchen counter in there for crying out loud. The laundry area wasn't much better. It didn't function well at all. Hopefully now that both have been redone, it will function beautifully with 6 people using the space. It's not completely done yet, the flooring and baseboards need to be put in, but for the most part, it's the finishing touches that's left. And boy I can't wait to get cracking!!

On to the pictures!!

The dreaded before pictures: Because of the layout and where the bathroom was, I wasn't been able to get a decent shot of the whole thing all at once. So the before pictures will be a bit confusing, but I'll try and clear them up as best as I can. Our house is a raised ranch. When you walk into the front door you have stairs that lead to the upstairs living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms. The stairs going down led to the basement, bathroom, bedrooms and living space.

When you came down the stairs, this is the wall that you saw before turning left to go into the living space (our bedroom is on the right).

This was the corner that formed part of the wall to the hot water tank (that was behind it) and part of the laundry area.

This gives you a better look at the corner. To the left of the tv was the doorway that led to the laundry area, bathroom and TJ's bedroom. On the right, behind the suit bag, was the doorway that led to the stairs and our bedroom. Behind that wall was the old hot water tank.


This is how the laundry area looked when you walked in the door. The washer and dryer were on your left, there was a wall on your right. You took a couple steps and the hot water tank was on your right. In order to continue down the hall, you had to turn yourself to navigate the narrow hall. The bathroom was on your left and then down the hall was TJ's bedroom. If it wasn't for the fact that our bedroom originally had a doorway that opened up to the bathroom, there would have been no way possible to fit any furniture into TJ's room.

To give you an idea of what the hallway looked like, this is a picture I took from TJ's bedroom. The door on your right was the bathroom. Behind the white bookshelf was the hot water tank and around the laundry area was on the other side of the bathroom.

My family moved into this house back in 1993. When we moved in, the toilet was on a set of stairs and the bathtub was elevated as well. A LOT! In fact, if you were going to get into the tub, you had to go to stand on the top step next to the toilet in order to get into the tub. It was not a safe thing at all. The bathtub was quickly removed. The following pictures were taken after we had pulled down the back wall to see if there was any insulation at all. Nope none!

This is a picture of the steps that the toilet sat on.

This is a picture of the corner where the tub used to be. If you look, the faucet for the tub is near the 7 in the timestamp on the photo. And just below, where the 2 is, was the drain for the tub.

This was the old, cracked, gross sink that had been there since we moved in.

So those are some of the pictures I had taken of how it all looked before we took walls down, moved walls, shifted things here and there and totally changed the layout. And it functions so much better now! We keep asking ourselves why we hadn't changed it before lol.

Mid Work Pictures:

This was quite the undertaking. We did a lot of the work ourselves, but when it came to the gas lines and plumbing, we got the help of some friends who knew what they were doing lol. We completely gutted the whole space, put up new insulation (like the rest of the downstairs, there was no sort of insulation), ran new pipes and water lines, a new gas line for the new gas dryer and water heater, and changed the layout of the space. The new laundry space was where the old bathroom was and the new bathroom was where the old laundry area was. But both shared the new space.

This is a picture of the area that is going to be the new bathroom. We tore down the wall that separated the laundry area and the bathroom.


This is the floor joists going in. We put the whole bathroom on a raised floor (about 8 inches) to allow for proper pipe drainage and to save money from having to cut into the concrete flooring.

There's the new sub flooring and part of the new wall.

The new hallway without the crazy walk way it used to have. This picture was taken after we took out the old hot water tank. You can see the new door we installed to TJ's bedroom. That's the first time that room has seen an actual door in a really long time.


This is a picture of how taking out the funny corner where the tv used to be and the hot water tank just opened up the stairs and space.

Here's another picture taken from the hallway.

The After Pictures!!

There is still some work to be done like installing the flooring and baseboards, as well as some of the final details like outlet covers and switch plates. But I'm happy that there is color on the walls!

First up, the color! The paint is a semi-gloss paint called Shortbread by Olympic. I love this paint because it doesn't have any odor at all and being a latex paint, it is very easy to clean up. Being that I was painting downstairs and would be doing most of it in the winter time, it was very important to not have an odor. I would recommend this paint brand to anyone! The color is so vibrant. The pictures do not do it any justice at all.

The new sink, mirror and vanity lights, new gas dryer, tankless hot water heater, and toilet. Everything is energy star rated.

The new washer and dryer. One thing I plan on doing with this space after everything is done, is making a cover for the dryer vent. At least try and make it blend in more instead of sticking out like a sore thumb lol.

The shower curtain that inspired! We picked up the shower curtain on clearance shortly after we were able to actually use the tub (before the bathroom was finished). The little yellow poppies are what inspired the wall color and the eventual theme of a wild meadow.

I love the new tub as well. It's an acrylic tub and cleans so easy, especially since we have a steam cleaner lol.

Kitchen Remodel: Before and After

I've been slacking quite a bit when it comes to posting pictures of the renovation. I swear it's every time I get 2 min to myself to do something, I have to run to the lumber yard or the hardware store for something. And quite a few times, it's multiple trips lol. To bad our hardware store doesn't have those frequent shopper cards, I'd be raking in the points like crazy lol. It's bad enough they are starting to recognize me there.

These are the before pictures of the kitchen. We took down the wall between the dining room and the kitchen to open it up a bit. We've added counter and cabinet space, as well as an island, which my dad absolutely loves. Oh and don't pay attention to the time stamp on the pictures. I had put new batteries in it and never set the date lol.

View into the kitchen from the dining room.

The corner in the kitchen that was removed.

The next few pictures are pictures of the old kitchen cabinets and counter top. You can also see part of the kitchen floor that we took out and replaced as well. Very dark cabinets made an already small kitchen that much smaller.

Someone my dad knows was also remodeling his kitchen. We bought his old kitchen cabinets for $500.00 which is a huge bargain compared to what it would have cost us to buy all new cabinets. The annoying part, the cabinets were all dark colored once again. So I've spent most of the spring and all summer stripping them down, sanding them, staining, painting and sealing them back up.

A picture taken from the dining room after the wall had been removed as well as the lower cabinets.

And this is a picture of the cabinets we had bought before they were all refinished. It was a lot of sanding. I've burned through 2 power sanders and dad had to break down and get me an industrial one that was going to last longer than 4 cabinets.



And this is the kitchen after everything was refinished, installed, and new appliances. This is a view of it from the dining room. There is still work to be done, like installing a few drawers, trim and shelving, but we're happy with how it's turning out. We even saved a bit of money by reusing the original hardware and pull knobs. The sanding and staining of the doors was my dad's idea. But I have to take credit for the recessed portion of the door being painted. It was going to be very frustrating for me to try and sand that portion of the door and be happy with it. The paint color was drawn out of the set of trivets my sister had bought my mom for xmas last year from Bed Bath & Beyond.

The island that replaced the wall that was torn out.

The additional cabinets and counter space in the dining room.

There are a few things left to do like the kick plates on the bottom of the cabinets. But for the most part, the kitchen is done.
I know for sure, I don't want to be an interior decorator after this project lol.

Happy Crafting!
~K. Michele

And then there was paint..

I'm happy to report that my bedroom finally has paint. And what a long 10 hours it was between sanding, priming and 2 coats of paint. But I love the color, it's very serene. And the best part, the hubby loves the color too! 16 feet of walls is just a lot of wall. My hands hurt all day yesterday and have only now started to feel normal again lol.


It is Olympic brand paint in Blue Thistle. All that is left is the baseboards, crown molding, a fresh coat of paint on the ceiling and put in the new ceiling fan. I'm just happy I can start to get my things out of storage. Next project is painting the bathroom once the last wall goes up.

Bedroom Floor is a Go!

Woo!! We finally have flooring in our bedroom. No more concrete for us haha. Here are a few before pictures and as you can see, there are my need to be finished walls.


This is the view from our bedroom door after everything that was cluttering it up was packed up and moved out.


Another shot of the floor. 30 minutes later and some glue, we had flooring. Made a huge difference already in the appearance of the room. This is the view of the bedroom from the doorway and a close up of it.




This is the same flooring we used in our son's bedroom and again we are happy with it. It's vinyl flooring from Armstrong called Oak River Natural Oak that we had purchased at Lowe's (I swear we need a frequent shopper card there because we are always at Lowe's). We wanted a flooring that would be similar to the flooring upstairs, but would be easily removed in case the basement ever flooded again. The nice thing is that it comes in 1 piece and we don't have to worry about seams. Especially in our bedroom since it's 16 feet long from wall to door. The flooring has a no glue option, you just lay it down and the baseboards will hold it in place. Well, being that it was on concrete, we decided to glue it down. And yay for someone who knows how to lay vinyl flooring who helped us out haha.

Today's project, get some primer and paint on those green spotted walls. I can not wait till there is some color in here. This is my favorite part =)

AAH! Ok, I'm good now...

Ugh..right now I am taking a break from packing up the chaos that was called my bedroom so that I can finally get the walls sanded, painted and the flooring put down. It's been one daunting task after another and right about now I just want to throw my hands up and say "enough". In all honesty, I have no problem with home improvement projects. In fact I actually enjoy them. It's when I am the only one working on them, that I start to get frustrated.

Here's the situation I have to deal with. I'm not sure if I touched a bit on this or not. Chances are I haven't lol. We had been talking with my parents about moving back in with them after our lease at our then apartment was up. Us moving back in would help them out a lot, mom needing a knee replaced and dad not getting around as easily as he used to, with the upkeep of the house and yard. We would also help them pay down the mortgage and eventually the deed to the house would be turned over to myself and my husband.

Anyway, when the hubby lost his job in November '08, we started to make plans to move back into my parent's home early. Unemployment wasn't going to be enough to pay for the things we needed and rent. We spent December getting the room our son was going to be in, ready for him. That meant pulling down old, moldy drywall, insulating (there was NO insulation in any part of the basement which was to become our living space), and putting up new drywall. We moved in the beginning of January and had been slowly adjusting to living with my parents and my sister. There are 6 of us, 4 cats and 2 dogs living in this house. And at times, even the basement seems too close for comfort.

Well, the house needed to be updated to make it a bit more livable for all of us. Our house has been under constant renovation since December '08. Right now, the kitchen is just about done, the bathroom downstairs has been totally gutted and redone, my son's room has been painted and has new flooring, our room is waiting to be painted and have flooring, the downstairs living area is half new insulation and drywall while the other half waits till the bathroom is done to be insulated and drywalled.


My son, helping me paint his room

I have refinished all the new kitchen cabinets. I have sanded, primed and painted my son's room. I'm in the process of getting our room to the sand, prime and paint stage, on top of helping our plumber friend with all the bathroom plumbing and running to the hardware store for supplies (which half the time feels like 20 times in 10 minutes).

It's no wonder, half the time I feel like I am the only one working on any of this. Hubby pitches in when he can, with work keeping him at all hours and him being exhausted when he gets home. Not once has my sister helped with anything downstairs. When we took out the old carpet and put in hardwood floors, she helped. In fact it was mainly my sister and myself who put it in. But since most of the remodel has moved downstairs, there has been no help from her. Frustrating? Very. But I knew it was going to be like that because that's just the way she is.

I can not wait till this whole thing is done. I am tired of living out of boxes and having to run to storage when I need something. I'm tired of all the chaos. I have been trying to meditate more, not just to relax a bit, but for balance. Everything is just soo crazy. I like crazy but this is spastic crazy and it has me very irritable.

I can't wait till I get our stuff out of storage and I have my candles and herbs and incense. That's the one thing I miss the most right now. Not to mention my craft supplies and my art canvas.

Vacation over, back to crafting

Well, vacation was a real nice break from everything. The weather was perfect as well. Would have been nice if it hadn't been so windy a few other days so that the kiddo could have went swimming more. But for the most part, I couldn't have asked for anything better.

So with vacation done, it's back to the grind of every day. The bathroom downstairs has been totally gutted and we picked up the wood needed for the floor joists, walls, and flooring today. Friday we are picking up the bathroom sink and vinyl flooring for it. So hopefully in a week or 2 we will have a bathroom once more downstairs. 6 people and 1 bathroom makes for a bit of chaos, more so than usual.

Tonight I am going to finish cleaning the bedroom so that I can start painting it tomorrow. And then it's clearing off the kitchen table and island so I can possibly craft a bit. I have an idea for 2 new poppets that I want to get working on. One of which will need a bit of work because I will be drafting a new part of the pattern for it.

I will also be making and drying some new charms. The last few batches didn't turn out like I had hoped they would. It's been so rainy here that I think the humidity has been playing havoc with the drying of them. The joys of living in the basement of the house..sigh.

Oh well. Off for a bit of work and then crafts.

Finito!

I have officially finished the kitchen cabinets, the doors and the drawers. And what a welcomed feeling it is. Now I can officially relax this next week when we are camping because it won't be on my mind and I won't have to finish them when we come home. I can turn my attention to another project, like priming and painting our bedroom walls and laying the flooring. Or clearing out the rest of the downstairs so that we can finish pulling down the old drywall, insulating and putting up the new drywall. Or figuring out how I want the new bathroom to look.

I can honestly say that I will be welcoming the day we call this whole renovation project finished. On a plus side as well, I have been given the green light to craft during this whole thing. Just can't join in another craft swap till after this whole mess is finished. Understandable no sense of having added stress on top of my current stress lol.

Stopped into Jo-Anne Fabrics today to pick up a cross stitch that I can work on during the next week while we are at camp. It's a fairy and will go well in my craft space which I have decided will be a fairy garden theme. But a me garden theme, nothing too frilly or girly. Because, let's face it, I am far from girly!

Anyway, Jo-Annes' has their fall fabrics in and I picked up 2 yards of suede cloth for one of my next poppets. It's much softer feeling than the Alova suede cloth. I can't wait to use it. I will be starting on the 2 poppets that I have floating around in my head when we get back. I can't wait!! I will have a small collection growing by the time all these renovations are done. I'm excited!

Alas..Not enough hours in the day...

And the weather doesn't help much. Yesterday was cloudy and every so often it sprinkled which meant me dropping everything I was working on and move the drying cabinet doors and drawers into the garage so they wouldn't get wet. Of course, as soon as they were all inside, it stops sprinkling.

If it wasn't for the humidity rising last night, my drawers would have had a final coat of varnish and would have been called done. So the kid and the dogs are being kicked outside so that I can finally get the cabinets finished. Or at least the ones I have on hand. There are still 2 cabinets, 2 drawers and a door MIA and should be here tomorrow, I hope.

I really need to sit down and get all the pictures of the renovations organized. They are sitting in folders all over the place just as much in a mess as the rest of the house. Maybe I'll get to that before leaving for our camping trip on Sunday.

ARG and Stuff...

That's it!! My 1 foot by 1 foot clear crafting space on the downstairs bar just ain't working for me anymore. I tried to work on my poppet tonight that I've been trying to work on for the last week and screwed up the dress. I need to spread out a bit especially when I have to adjust a dress pattern, redraw my pattern on some freezer paper, cut out new material for it (thank goodness I have a lot of scrap material left over from another project), iron it and resew it because my original was too short and wouldn't fasten in the back no matter how much a stretched and pulled it. So tomorrow I am over taking the dining room table and kitchen island so that I can work on my poppet and possibly get her to the point where everything else that needs to be done can be hand sewn, like snaps and trim on the dress.

In other news, the kiddo's room has been painted. Not sure if I need to do a second coat on it or not. I might have to in the spots that he decided he was going to help paint. That was a trip and a half trying to keep tabs on him and make sure he didn't have too much paint on his little roller, make sure he wasn't putting paint where it didn't belong, and pay attention to what I was doing.

Hubby and I finally made a decision on a paint color for our room. Surprisingly enough it was his choice and it wasn't a purple! Go figure. But I like the color anyway and with the white trim it should be awesome. I can't wait to finally get into our room and paint. There is 2 more coats of mud to go on the closet and I think one more around the windows and then that's it. This coming week we should be getting the flooring for at least both bedrooms and possibly the rest of the downstairs.

There are more walls coming down as well and the downstairs bathroom is in the process of being redesigned. Who in their right minds puts a toliet on the top of steps?! Oh wait..I forgot. The same people who decided that there didn't need to be any insulation between the concrete exterior wall and the interior walls. AND the same people who decide that 1"x3" strips of wood are really, really great wall studs and nail them to the concrete.

We will be looking at tankless water heaters in the next coming week and hopefully we can get a new gas line put in (apparently the old one is too small for everything in the house that runs off of it ie: 2 gas heaters, water heater, dryer) this coming week or two and get everything shifted around so that walls can get finished.

The next few days I am going to track down the first batch of renovation pictures I had taken and get some posted. I am also going to post a few of them because I am sure there are those who would like to see exactly what the heck I am talking about lol. I will be very, very happy when all the remodeling is done and I can finally just relax. The camping trip at the end of July will be a very much needed break from all the demolishion.

Quick update on a rainy day..

The last couple days has been filled with work on the cabinet doors for the kitchen and very little work on my poppet. I am, however, to the point of just having to sew the clothing and a few finishing touches then it's going to be packing it up and shipping it out.

I am kind of sad that I don't get as much time as I would like to work on my own projects instead of everyone elses. These days, everyone elses projects seem to control my days. Granted the majority of the projects going on need to be done so that everyone in the house can settle down and get back to normal because everything right now is very chaotic.

It would just be nice to be considered once in a while during this whole thing.

Poppet has hair, Doors have primer

The hair is just about all sewn on my poppet, just 2 more wefts to sew on. I almost ended up having to sew each strand of yarn on one at a time because my sewing machine bound up from the first weft I tried sewing. Turns out, it was too small of a stitch. Hit the button to turn up the stitch length and it worked fine. I also found out, through some good advice, that copy paper makes a really, really good base for sewing hair wefts on. It just peels right off. Beats trying to peel tissue paper off the yarn lol.

Anyways, the poppet is coming along. I think this will be my only swap for the time being until I can get my craft supplies out of storage and my craft supplies organized. So far the swap is fun. I'm enjoying myself. But with everything going on right now, I am crunched to find the time to craft. Yay for this swap being a mini swap. I've looked through some of the other swaps and what people have sent and at this time there would be no way for me to put out my best for my partner AND refinish cabinets and the rest of the house.

Speaking of cabinets. I grabbed the cabinets doors from the front wall in the kitchen yesterday and sanded them all down and primed them. Unfortunately it was really, really warm yesterday. I would have given anything to spend the day in the pool like my son. He's such a fish when it comes to water lol. Luckily I was able to get everything sanded down before it decided to rain. I spent an hour in the garage while it poured getting the doors taped off and primed (at least the first coat of primer). Hopefully it dries up here soon and the sun comes out so I can get them painted and stained. At least then I can say that some of the cabinets are done lol.

Quick update..

This last week has just gone by in such a blur. Luckily, some of the stress of the remodel has been taken off my shoulders. Heck if I was still doing the drywall downstairs, I'd still be mudding my son's room lol. But in fact his room is ready to paint, our room is half done, and at the same time the new kitchen floor was put down and some of the kitchen cabinets and counter have been put in. The new appliances were delivered Tuesday and hooked up. The water softener guys installed "The Beast" (the water softening system as they call it), as I am lovingly calling, it yesterday.

The best part of all this, other than the fact that all of the renovations are all most done and I can get my stuff out of storage (it's only been there for 6 months), I was able to finally pull my new sewing machine out of the box. It's only been in the box for about a week and I've been dying to pull it out and just haven't had the space to do so.

I really, really can't wait to start sewing with my machine. It's a Singer 7470 and a total surprise from my husband. He and my son went out for one of their "boys day outs" and came back with my sewing machine. I was speechless..literally.

So I have a few projects lined up, including a few more poppets (they are really addictive), and I can't wait to just jump right in. Now if I can just dig my fabric boxes out of the corner in my storage unit and stumble on my box of thread, I will be over joyed. I've only been trying to get to storage and get my fabric for about a week now. Something always pops up or the weather changes and I'm left shaking my fist calling out "Curses!" like the cartoon villians.

Rainy weather woes

Today is not a bright warm sunny day as I hoped it would be. These days it's filled with all kinds of home renovations and a lot of them. Between sanding my son's bedroom walls and getting them ready for painting, pulling down old drywall in mine and my husband's room for new studs and insulation (both of which were highly lacking in our room), stripping and refinishing new kitchen cabinets, it's a wonder I find time to draw or craft at all.

The air dry clay dried beautifully. The only down side is that it's really challenging to sand by hand. Until we get all our things from storage, including my dremel, sanding by hand is the way it's going to be. This afternoon or maybe tonight when all is quiet, I will be working hard at sanding the pieces to get them the right smoothness and shape that I desire to draw on.

Here's hoping when the drawing step arrives that the clay takes well to colored pencils and the sealer I had picked up to finish the pieces with doesn't get sticky and ruin the piece like some sealers I had tried in the past.

I hope they turn out as beautiful as they look in my head.