Newest Creation

Adam's newest creation is a nightstand. Our room in this house is much smaller than the one in our last house so the nightstands we used before do not fit. New project for Adam!

Tada!


It's oak with inlays of walnut on the top.

Pretty fancy!

Wall Vinyl

My cricut cuts vinyl which means that I can make just about anything that Uppercase Living could make as long as I have the cartridge that has the images. I ordered the vinyl a while ago and my sister in law did some cute sports wall images for her sons room but I finally decided it was time for me to make one for my house.



I don't totally love it, but I don't dislike it either.

When cutting vinyl with the cricut I used 5 Pressure, 6 blade depth, 4 speed, a new blade and a new mat. Everything worked perfectly!

New Stairs

While digging the trench around the basement, Adam had to break out a couple of stairs. Here's a pic of the old stairs w/ some risers torn out.



Here's the new stairs. Nice and pretty.



Adam also made them a little more steep so there is a little more room at the landing. I think he did a pretty good job :)

Fixin up the basement

First off I have to say that it snowed today. A lot. Probably not a lot to those who are in North Dakota right now but for here it's quite a bit in one shot. Here is a pic I took this afternoon before it even stopped. Almost 8 inches. Sorry for the blurry but I think you can see it and I think you can see which #'s are which. (if you click on it and zoom in)



Yesterday Adam and one of his friends started working on fixing our basement. I mentioned the process here but instead of having it professionally done Adam and his friend went ahead and did it. It isn't finished yet. It still needs the tubing put in but at least the trench is cut. Adam said it was super hard work and it looks like it would have been.




We also need to get some new stairs made because they had to cut part of the old ones out and we are going to finish the front part of the basement and want them to be enclosed stairs anyway.


So now we have a mess but I'm excited that the process is started.

Antenna

Adam's latest project has been one that is more fun for him than stuff that needs to be done. He decided that since people are going to be having tvs with antenna's on them more he wanted to make one that was nicer aesthetically. He did some research online and came up with a plan. This is what he made.



We'll get it hung up on the wall soon to make it look more like a piece of art and it will look better than rabbit ears!

Weekend progress

This weekend we went to tear down the remainder of my parents house. When we got there they were breaking up the concrete with a jackhammer.

So when we got there they had already removed the porches and it looked like this (one the back of the house)


and by the end of the second day this is how far they had gotten.


It took a lot longer than anticipated because it's hard to get close enough and pick things up. Plus we weren't only knocking the walls down, we were hauling it all away and tearing up foundation, etc.
Here is the link to the photo album of all that I took this weekend. There are a lot there and it's kind of fun to flip through them because you can see the action going on. Here are a few quick sequences. (click on to view larger and then in the picasa album you can click on the top right magnifying glass to see even bigger)






Saturday was gorgeous but Sunday was COLD. They didn't get to finish this weekend because close to dusk on Sun. my BIL finally hit a nail with the tractor (it was inevitable) and the tire was leaking.

Here is kind of a fun pic to look at. Their house was over 100 years old. Two owners before my parents brought in another 100 year old house and attached it to the back of the other house. Over time porches were built on also. Here is what the original structure on the farm would have looked like.

Anyone still out there? :)

The only thing creative I've done lately is thank you cards.
Here's some pictures:









This past weekend was a fun weekend filled with a basketball game, a testicle festival and the Super Bowl. What a crazy Super Bowl too huh? I think that my favorite commercials were the Mr. Potato head one the "Coke heist.

Potato Head Ad

Coke Heist Ad

Here's a link to all of them in case you missed any!
All Ads

Happy hump day!

Jackpot!

My co-worker was wandering around Walmart last night and came upon Cricut cartridges in the clearance isle for.........$20! I got 3! $60! Which may seem like a lot of money but at regular price these three items I would have been $239.97!!!!

For those of you that know what I'm talking about:
I got the basketball solutions cart. (reg. $49.99), the Doodletype cart. (reg. $89.99) and the Disney Dreams come true cart (Reg. $99.99)

I promise, I'm going to be better at posting from now on :)

Christmas!

I seem to have skipped over Christmas stuff :) I finally uploaded pictures last night though which included Christmas pictures so here is my rundown of our busy holiday.

Christmas eve night Adam and I opened presents to each other before we went to church and his moms family gathering. Here he is pretending to be surprised with his sawzall (he found it about a month before Christmas):


Abby sure was excited to get big brother Chris' Rockstar setup





I think she might be kissing the box here.

Here's some more quilt racks that Adam made for my mom and sister for Christmas.

(Last picture from inside my parents house - quilt rack made it out of the fire)

And what Christmas would be complete without tuckered out kids?

What day is it?

I'm so off. Tuesday my computer tells me :)

Well this weekend we kind of got my parents settled into their new temporary living arrangement. Their neighbor had an open hired mans house so they have moved into there for now. They have some trash cans and soap and hangers and a recliner and a small tv and can kind of function now.

We were able to wash a few of the things we got out. Soaking clothing that isn't horrible in dishwasher soap and pure vanilla seems to do a decent job. Washing dishes in dawn and then sticking them in the dishwasher with lemon dishwasher soap seems to work.

Sunday the town churches had a benefit for my parents and there was a huge turn out. It was amazing really! Thank you to anyone who came!

We continued to sort through things this weekend and Sunday afternoon Adam and I hauled a trailer full of stuff to my aunt and uncles Steamatic shop for them to work on cleaning the rest of it. Hopefully they can save some stuff!

I'm freezing at work today! Is it 5 yet?

I'm back

I'm sorry that it's been 8 days since I posted but if you don't already know where I've been I'll tell you: my parents had a catastrophic house fire on Monday. They lost almost everything. The fire was electrical and started in the attic. My dad was home and the fire crews got there soon enough but it was too windy to stop it.

The whole top floor is completely gone. The bottom floor didn't get burnt except for one room but the roof caved in on the rest of it. The only room untouched was the kitchen. Thank goodness.

We've spent some time digging through everything and were able to pull quite a bit out. Now we just have to see if we can get it cleaned and smelling ok. It really was quite amazing the breakable things we were able to pull out. I'd go to find something because I knew where it should be and I would pull it out and it'd be ok! Another weird thing was when you'd be digging through a pile of ashes and come across something that was perfectly fine.

For now we are just trying to figure out what to do and trying to get my parents a couple of things here and there. They are going to stay in a neighbors hired mans house for now.

Instead of making my blog a sad place with the pictures, here is a link to them if you want to see them.

Please pray for my parents and forgive me if I'm not updating everyday. I have a feeling I won't be doing anything fun and crafty to show you for the next couple of weeks.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!!

Name Signs

What do you get someone who has enough money to get what they want when they want it, are a bachelor and just bought a house a year ago?

Well, I came up with the bright idea of a last name sign made out of wood.

This is how Adam and I work: I come up with an idea, he thinks, taps his finger to his lips, does some math and measurements, edits, then I edit and so on and so forth until we come up with something we like - whether he creates the end product or I do, this is how we work.

My initial idea was for him to sort of cut out some letters. He then wanted to router some out of a piece of wood. Which didn't really work so he wanted a template to use the router around. I had some craft letters in my craft room that I told him to try which worked pretty well. Once those letters were in the picture we then decided - well, why don't we just use boughten wood letters?

Here's the final results which turned out very nice and were very easy.


Slab of walnut, boughten letters, glue and danish oil.


Ta Da!

Successful Christmas presents #2.

Cinnamon Roll Recipe

Here is the recipe!

There are two parts to the recipe. The first part is the basic roll recipe that you can make for just dinner rolls.

Basic Roll Recipe
2 cups milk
1/2 c. margarine
4 eggs
1/2 c. sugar
2 t. salt
8 c. flour
3 pkg. yeast
1/2 c. warm water

Scald milk. Add margarine to milk while scalding. Cool.

Beat eggs with sugar and salt.
Add this to margarine and milk mixture.

Add yeast to warm water. Set aside.

With mixer add 4 c. flour to egg mixture and yeast mixture. Mix well.

By hand add the rest of the flour. Mix well.

Put in greased bowl and let raise 1 hour. Punch down and let raise again. Make into rolls. (About a small handful of dough)

To make the rolls into cinnamon rolls you will need:
1/2 c. butter
1/3 c. brown sugar
1 c. sugar
1 T. cinnamon


Melt 1/4 c. butter. Add brown sugar and spread into bottom of pan. I used my metal Wilton cake pans and had to make more of this mixture to cover the bottoms.

Mix sugar and cinnamon. Melt other 1/4 c. of butter in separate bowl.

Take a roll and roll it until its about 5 inches long and dip into the butter. Dip into cinnamon and sugar until it is covered. Tie roll into a knot. (I know this would have been easier to understand with pictures but my hands were a little dirty.)

Put the rolls into a pan not too close but not too far apart :)

Let rise.

Bake 13-15 minutes or until slightly brown on top at 375 degrees.

Train Table

One of the Christmas presents Adam made this year is a train table for our nephew. It's just the perfect height for 2 year olds to play with stuff on it and it fits this perfectly on the top.


The white stuff you see on it is just dust from sanding the poly so disregard that.

We were at Adam's sisters house this weekend and Trey just loved playing on the table. Anything that was on the table, he played with it. If you knelt by the table, he'd look at you and then kneel too because he thought that was what you are supposed to do.

The table is 48" x 32" and about 14" high. He made the base out of walnut and the top is birch plywood stained and finished with poly so all the little spills I'm sure are going to happen don't hurt the table.

Homemade present #1 a success!

P.S. If you want one Adam can make you one :)