Tired but happy!

I've been busy lately, some with crafting, some not. Today I just finished constructing a raised bed to be used for a vegetable garden. We'll need to install it yet. When we order mulch, we'll also order some top soil and compost to fill it with. Then I just need to figure out what vegetables I want to grow!

I've also been in a quilting kick. A co-worker of Brad's is having twins (a boy and a girl) after a long time trying. In celebration, I'm making matching quilts for them. This yellow one is for the girl, I'm almost finished with the green one for the boy. The only difference between them is the backing color. It's hard to tell from the pciture, but the blue fabric has ducks and frogs in funny clothes, and there's green and yellow in there that the other colors pick up on.

....And another one for a friend in England whose wife is pregnant, also after much trying. This time I added in two more fabrics (blue/green and orange) and made 1/3 of the squares "log cabin" style. I had to try a few combinations before it didn't just look like a jumble of mismatched squares. There are a few squares missing, but you'll get the idea. Once again, it looks so much better in real life!

Finished Albums

I was able to finish the 2 albums I started. They turned out great, and Dina really likes it. Now we just have to fill it with pictures. We also ended up making 2 smaller albums for Dina's parents, since they are eager to have more pictures of her. We made them with only 1 larger signature instead of 4 smaller ones sewn together.

4 signatures done

The memory book is coming along well. I pickedup some fabrics for the cover last night at Joann fabrics. I got both the pages and the tracing-paper pages cut. Today I cut the spines for each signature, made a hole template and have started making all the holes for the sewing. Once I have all the signatures done, I'll have to figure out how to sew them together.

Memory Book...shhhh, don't tell Dina

I subscribe to "Craft:" magazine. While most of their stuff is a bit amateurish, this memory book really caught my eye:

http://www.craftzine-digital.com/craft/vol10/?pg=80

I thought I'd try making one to give to Dina filled with pictures of her time with us. I hit up Pat Catans today and got a bunch of paper. I'm going to be adding in the feature of a sheet of vellum (in this case, tracing paper) between each page so the photos don't scratch each other.

I'm using drawing paper and tracing paper. The paper comes 14 x 16.5, so each page will be 8.25" wide by 7" high. It's just enough to have one picture per page with a few inches for writing.

Here's my start:

It's been way too long, sorry! With the holidays, fighting a sinus infection and a cold, and putting in as much time as possible to finish the office, I've just had so many other things to do.

Without further ado, the new office!

My corner...

Brad's side...

Notice the big pail of beer doing it's primary fermenting on the floor! Also, you can kinda see Brad's computer hanging underneath the counter. I hope to keep as much up off the floor as possible! We don't have curtains up yet, we need to finish filling the nail holes around the window and touch up. Probably shouldn't have moved in before doing that because now there's no incentive, but we were just too excited to have our office space back.

This is a credenza I bought for Brad for the basement last year. It never really worked for us down there, so I repainted it and repurposed it for the office. Eventually it will hold our printers, papers and files. I bought it second hand from an industrial surplus warehouse, so the outside was a bit banged up (even though the inside was immaculately brand-new clean). I did a distress finish on it so that it didn't matter what the outside looked like and I didn't have to try to get it smooth. The doors haven't been polyurethaned yet, so I didn't put them back up yet.

A closeup view of the distressing.

Here's the aftermath of the junk from the old office still in the dining room/living room. I had it all spread out to sort and now it looks like a hurricane blew threw! Add this to my list of things to do...

Cabinets

Dugan's getting ready for the holidays! No, not really, just further evidence of torture by Dina.

Stanley's enjoying some time with me all on his own, since the big, bad dog is in the other room and things are quiet in our temporary office.

Today was a productive, yet expensive day. Brad and I bought each other our Christmas presents (PAB - if you're reading this, don't give me a hard time, 'k? I know your position on Christmas gift giving time-frames).

I got office cabinets for Christmas! They're very nice, and I can't wait to get them installed. They're oak with a whitewash on them, so I think they'll go well with the floor and grey walls. Brad got an air compressor that we can use to put in the wood work and install the cabinets.

The casing are all painted and ready to be installed around the windows and doors. We were going to do that today, but by the time we were done cabinet shopping and tool shopping, I was just too tired to do anything.

I just realized I hadn't posted pictures of the floor. It turned out extremely well, especially considering that it was the cheapest flooring we could find. It's supposed to be floating, but we glued it down so that any future water issues would not find water trapped underneath the floor...

My Boys