Adventures in Book Binding

(and misadventures in craft room cleaning!)

A few months ago there was a coupon for a Leather Book Binding class given by the Denver Book Binding Company. I convinced my friend Lynn and my mom that they wanted to do this with me, so on Saturday morning, we headed to the Highlands to take the class.

The class was pretty neat and took a good three hours to complete our books. There are quite a few tools needed which might prevent me from starting my own projects...that and I have about 50 other projects ahead of it.

It was great class and I'm looking forward to taking some additional classes with the Denver Bookbinding Company!

Then we have the misadventure in cleaning up the craft room! The room was clean pre-painting and then somewhat organized for awhile post-painting. Then it went downhill...and stayed there. So, yesterday I dragged my mom down to the basement with me to help me start cleaning and clearing things up.

What got done:

• emptying of a laundry basket full of random things
• storing all tubs/containers in the closet or within a larger tub to make it look less cluttered
• clearing out the ridiculous amounts of paperwork (bills, paychecks, random receipts  etc) to figure out what needed to be scanned, shredded or just tossed.
• finding awesome memories that have been tucked away including two 20th birthday cards from dear friends, my college retreat journal and coasters from my Antwerp study abroad trip

What did not get done:

• any kind of change to the overall look of the craft room. It still looks rather disastrous. 

I think I need another desk in the craft room and that would help give me some more working room as well as store all my tools (sewing machine, silhouette machine, etc) where I can have easy access to it while also leaving me "working" space. 

The other big "to-do" is to clear out some of my tubs by actually accomplishing the craft project that is stored within it. I may need to institute a "complete a project a week" challenge so that I can start using all the stuff and ideas I have in the basement. 

mom hanging out with Diesel

Gardening: Raised Beds

I've been raising some seedlings the last few weeks and have been excited to get them into the ground. However, before settling them into the ground, I wanted to build a raised bed. After reading many gardening books, they all recommended raised beds for greater produce, less weeds, and easier planting.

With the help of my co-worker and friend, Tom, we spent the day putting together the raised bed. A quick trip to Home Depot ended up with $190 worth of lumber. Both of us were a little confused as to why the raised bed was going to end up costing so much, but since we had sketched out our plans at Home Depot, we decided we would just go with it.

the garden area

Tom cutting under Diesel's careful eye

Titan enjoying the weather and being in the way

setting up the layout

digging the posts

finished product

fence to stop the dogs from entering

As it turns out, we might have over bought on lumber...by a lot! Turns out we had bought 6 more posts than we really needed. Even if we had gone with our original plan (of having three layers) we still would have had too many posts and too few long boards! The total cost was $68! Alas, that is what you get when you have BA and PM without an engineer on a project! (HA - that was my IT joke for the day!)

The next few weeks will involve me finding some free dirt and then filling it with a good mixture of compost, peat moss and good soil. Hopefully by mid-May the weather will be nice and I can fully plant the garden!

Adventures in swimming

As a kid, my parents put me in swimming lessons. I don't remember why, but I don't think I liked it and therefore never learned how to swim. It's never really impacted me...unless you throw me into a body of water when I'm unaware-- then I drown.

In the last few years, I've been thinking about learning to swim more since it would help with my asthma and I keep pondering doing a triathlon. I kept putting off swimming because I felt like I needed to have a teacher since watching You Tube videos can only take you so far. Jamie came home one day with a flier from the Wash Park Rec Center that listed the dates and times for Adult Swim classes. Woohoo! An actual teacher to teach me how to swim!

In the four or five classes that I went to, I have already noticed a huge difference in my swimming. Here are my accomplishments (which most kids have by age 5):

• freestyle stroke that successfully gets me across the pool
• breathing from both sides of my face when doing freestyle
• still working on this - breathing more than every stroke on the freestyle
• breaststroke - actually saving energy by spending more of the stroke gliding. (This was actually the stroke that I used to practice when I did practice because you got to breathe every time. However, I spent ridiculous amounts of energy because I didn't understand the "glide" concept".)

While I may never have these:

I will stop looking like this:

Crafts: Hats and Glass

Today was one of those days that I just wanted to spend in bed rather than be productive. My list of to-dos was long and I had zero motivation to do any of them. After dragging myself out of bed, I did started running around town getting my errands done. It turns out that I got all my to-dos done AND had some time for some fun crafts! It is always a great day when you have time to craft!

After making my cowl I decided that I wanted to make something else with my circular needles. I decided to make a matching hat, however, I wanted to follow a pattern rather than just a basic ribbed beanie. I found a Milanese Lace Topper hat that had instructions that I could understand and a few new stitches I needed to learn. Thank goodness for You Tube, because with a few videos I learned the new stitches quite easily.

attempting to "block"

I'm not sure that I'm a fan of how the colors blocked together, but I think it provides good contrast from the intertwining colors of cowl.

Here are a few things I would change if I was to do this pattern again:

• Do a few more rows of knit/purl at the beginning. The base of the hat is curling and I tink it is because of just the knit stitch. 
• I would learn how to knit with four separate needles because towards the top, it was really tight to knit on the circular needles.

Here is a picture of me as I will look in the next two weeks if it gets below 35 degrees:

I think it is an upgrade from my black balaclava.

I pull the balaclava down for pictures so I look less ninja-ish

My other craft project was glass etching. I bought Martha Stewart's etching cream and with the help of my Silhouette created a few fun sayings.

Be Inspired

I'm thirsty

I'm not completely sold on how these turned out. (Note: I think they look better in the pictures than in person.) I was thinking that the frost/etched look would be a little darker. The instructions say to leave the cream on for 15 minutes but it seems that 15 minutes or two hours makes no difference on the effect.

If I was to do this again:

• I'd buy Armor Etching
• I'd use different paper for the stenciling. I'm not sure what paper would be better since the Silhouette needs thicker paper but the stenciling needs more flexible paper for curves. 

All in all, it was a great day to craft!

Crafting: Twisty Cowl

Earlier this winter I realized that I had not knitted for quite a while. Turns out it had been two years since I had last picked up my knitting needles as I had started a cowl on circular needles when we lived in the apartment.  After a trip to JoAnn and Michaels' I found out that they don't carry the yarn any longer and so I ended up with ear warmers.

For my new cowl project my main goal was to finish it in 2013! I ended up going with a 'basket weave' pattern that is one of my favorites. It's a multiple of 10 stitch which makes it easy to keep track of - the downside is that you have to keep track of where you stop with the pattern.

It is long enough to cover my face but then I can pull it down and wear it like a scarf. I'm not entirely sure how I got the twist within my circular needles but it added more character:) (Note: I think I will take a class to learn how to purposefully put twists in.)

My next crafts include: making scrubbies, knitting a matching hat for my cowl, and glass etching. When my mom comes into town I'll plan on starting my quilting project!

Gardening with a black thumb

As you may recall, in November our pipes in the backyard got replaced from the house to the main line. It was no bueno! Everything about it was painful: from the price tag to the dirt pile in the backyard. Lately the dirt in the backyard has been causing a lot of grief as the dogs have been tracking the mud back into the house.

This has lead me to dreaming of spring and planting season! So, the next big mis-adventure is going to be in GARDENING! Woohoo! Jamie and I aren't very good at keeping plants alive - to date we have killed more than we have grown, but I feel with all my research from Pinterest and the library we have a better shot this year. I've also will have lots of compost between my outdoor tumbler and my worms!

Here is a picture of our game plan:

The main part of the fences will have the flower plants and grass, and then back part of the yard will be our garden. I'm going to make a raised bed (TBD on HOW that actually happens) that will contain quite a few of our veggies. The tomatoes did really well last year in the ground, so I'm going to keep them in the ground this year. The vegetables we're going to try this year include: brussel sprouts, lettuce, cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, chives, sweet potatoes and ginger. The list will probably grow as I need some other things to put in the raised bed. Our herb garden will be similar to last year: mint, basil, rosemary, oregano, and stevia.

This year, I'm also trying to start from seeds! I was at Home Depot and saw a sample seed started that had a great amount of sprouts. I figured if the seeds can grow at the Home Depot, then I can make them grow in my house. 

our sill of growing

harvested vermicompost

There is still a ton of research I want to do, as the next big piece is figuring out watering. I know that we want to install a drip system, but actually going about making one has proven to be more difficult than I expected. Also, the house is very far away from the garden, but this could prove to be a good thing because then I could water the plants along the fence as the hose makes it way back to the garden. 

Februany or really Februnone...

My January was awesome with achieving my goals and starting off on the right foot for the new year. Of course, everyone is very motivated in January and then February drains away the motivation. For me, February was a lost cause. Being overwhelmed with work and traveling, I did not seem to get back on track.

The only joy of February is that I swung 10,000 kettlebell swings. Yay!

March is a new month and I'm excited about cooking and eating healthy again. Jamie and I came up with a high level game plan for the meal plan for the MONTH! This way we can stop eating the same things over and over again because I get tired of that.

March Goals:

• eat healthier = W30 5 days a week
• walk/run 8 miles per week
• blog once a week

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