Lake Tahoe Trip

 

Update: a few weeks ago, Chris and I took a trip to Lake Tahoe with my sister Ruth and her husband Jordan. It was absolutely beautiful, and so much fun.

We spent a lot of time scrambling around the rocks, shrieking in delight over all of the crawdads, luring them out with bacon and scooping them into our buckets with nets. We must have caught 50 or 60.

Unfortunately, we didn't realize that if you keep them in a Styrofoam box for a few hours, they die. We went out for dinner that night.

It was a perfect combination of pine-forested mountains, rocky pools, and clear lake water. Someday, I think Chris and I will go back to camp and kayak and explore the area a little more. (We will be cooking for ourselves, though--the restaurants in the area are not a great alternative to dead crayfish.)...Doesn't Chris look cute with his little scruffy beard and boyish smirk? I think he looks darling (ahem, manly!) In these pictures.

 Here is my lovely sister Ruth, with her precious little girl Evelyn...

 Evelyn was a little dubious about the water and sand, but after a while she got used to it and started having a lot of fun. She was sweet and giggly, and fascinated by the crawdads. But more so with the potato chips and Oreos.

Aren't they precious? It makes me so happy when I see how much my sisters love their children and their husbands and my parents and each other. Love is just one of those things--you can feel it even when it isn't directed at you.

 It really is such a beautiful place...the mountains are just bending down to kiss the lake.

 Selfie! (Just for Elise!!)

It was so fun, and a much-needed break before school. Someday we'll go back and see this again:

Christmas Body Scrub

I love Christmas, and about this time of year I remember it is coming and I get really excited. I want to wear boots and scarves and gloves and fall colors, and I want to bake cookies and pie and have warm bread and soup for dinner. I start thinking about Christmas gifts, and that gets me even more excited...I absolutely LOVE giving gifts. It is the most exciting warm fuzzy thing ever. This year I am considering doing handmade gifts for everyone...just to make the gift giving experience even more exciting  and personal and last much, much longer.

So, I've been experimenting, and I've finally come up with the perfect recipe for a Christmas Body Scrub. Not only does it leave your skin feeling amazing, it SMELLS like Christmas!!

Here's my recipe:
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp cloves
zest of 1 orange
juice of 1/2 orange
1/8 c olive oil

In a bowl, combine white and brown sugar.Both sugars are exfoliating, though the white sugar is harsher (use more or less of each depending on how gritty you want this to be).

Using a mortar and pestle, grind the cloves until they are in small pieces. it's okay to still have some chunks. (Yesterday I was making this and I didn't have a mortar and pestle. Chris improvised by putting the cloves in a plastic baggie and smashing them with a weight. It actually worked really well :))

Add the cloves and orange zest to the sugar mixture. Mix thoroughly, then add the juice of 1/2 an orange and 1/8 cup of olive oil (I used canola oil, which also works, but olive oil is nicer.)

Mix and spoon into air-tight containers. I used little mason jars, but plastic would be better if you are planning on  using this in the shower, plus it prevents bacteria if you are going to have a bigger jar and be using this for a long time. My jars are tiny, and I want to use them for my hands and feet, so I used glass.

I found a cute printable for the lids online--there are tons of free ones. If you are giving these as a gift, It would be cute to add a little spoon and ribbon with instructions for use.

To use, stir the contents of the jar and spoon 1/8 tsp into your hand. Gently rub into wet skin. This is not a very gentle scrub, so don't rub too hard, and don't use it on your face. Rinse with water and feel how soft your hands are!! (And run around telling everyone to smell your hands!)

What do you think about homemade gifts? Give this recipe a try and tell me how it works for you!!

Stenciled Dishtowels

Hello All! I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, but our trip to Tahoe and the sudden start of school means I'm a little behind on blog updates. Plus, We've been doing so many projects we haven't had time to update on them all.

 The chair is progressing, but is currently stalled (Chris left all of his tools at Ruth's house, so we can't work on it until he gets them back). I am hoping to finish it this week, I'll keep you updated.

 In the meantime, I have a new favorite speedy craft! Stenciled and stamped Dishtowels. They are easy, cheap, and fun. Best of all, they allow for a lot of creativity and personalization! Here's what you need:
Floursack towels ($5 for 5 at Walmart)
Stencils ($1 at JoAnn's, or $5 for bigger ones at Hobby Lobby)
Fabric Medium ($2 at JoAnn's)
Acrylic Paint ($65 at JoAnn's)
Foam sponges ($3 at JoAnn's)
Rubber ABC stamps ($20 at JoAnn's, but I got mine on sale for $10)
Paper bags from your grocery store
You can cut the cost by just doing stencils, or even making your own! Here's how you do it:

1. Figure out how you want to fold your towels. I find that the neat little package the stores sell them in is almost NEVER how I fold mine. Fold them how YOU will fold them from now on, and iron them flat for a good work surface (I hate ironing, so I smoothed mine out and skipped this step ;))

2. Cut a paper bag to fit inside your towel. The paper bag will prevent the paint from bleeding through the first layer of towel. (I ran out of paper bags and started using the stencil backing--it was plastic, so it still didn't stick. Just don't use newspaper or paper towels, or anything that will stick to the paint when it dries.
  

 

3. Mix your paint. I chose to mix fabric medium with acrylic paint because there are more color options, but you can use fabric paint, too. Just make sure whatever paint you use is for fabric, so that you can wash and reuse these towels. For fabric medium and normal paint, you mix 1 part fabric medium for 2 parts normal paint.

4. For stenciling, position your stencil and use a foam sponge to apply paint. If you want to stamp words on the towel, apply paint with a sponge to the stamp and press the stamp carefully to the towel--not too hard, or you will have a border, not too light, or it won't show up.

 5.  Lay out the dishtowel to dry. DO NOT REMOVE THE PAPER BAG INSERT UNTIL FULLY DRY...It will make a big mess if you do.

 6. Wait 24 hours, then iron the towels. The heat from the iron works with the fabric medium to make your design permanent. Do not use the towels until after they have been ironed. That's it! Super easy!

 I made these for a friend's bridal shower, for a sick friend, and last night I did a few for my mom and mother-in-law. Here's some ideas for stencils:
-farm animals
-forks, knives, and spoons
-fruit or vegetables
-borders
-keys
-sail boats and anchors
-polka dots
And here's some ideas for sayings or words to stamp on (Some of these I used, others I just think would be cool)
-bring home the bacon
-let them eat cake
-home cooking is best
-hey honey
-let's eat
-kiss the cook
-eat at mom's
-eat your veggies
-I like my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.
-All your kind words and all your well wishes never replace your help with the dishes
-eat, drink, and be merry
-bon appetit
 -all good wives let their husbands eat dessert first
-I kiss better than I cook
-A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand
-Cooking should be entered into with abandon or not at all
-People who love to eat are always the best people
-I ate my willpower
-We love our bread, we love our butter, but most of all, we love each other
-Do you know the muffin man
-you don't have to like it, you just have to eat it

I think it would be fun to do holiday ones, too--handmade Christmas gifts!? ...Trees, gingerbread men, angels, bells, holly, reindeer...I think it would be really cool to have holiday dishtowels. :)

Part 2: Tufting the Back and Seat

Saturday was a crazy work day for this chair. We went shopping in the morning, and got a killer deal at Joann's for the fabric (80% off!! Only paid 60 bucks for 7 yards!!), bought tons of foam at Home Depot for $50 (soo much less than at craft stores. And I think I'll have plenty to do another project after this one.), and got some batting to protect the fabric from exposed wood and springs.
We also spent a fair amount of time driving around desperately trying to find button forms for the tufting...we went to an upholstery store, Joann's, Michael's, you name it. No one seemed to have them, though everyone said everyone else would. We gave up and decided to reuse the old ones. More on that later.
I went to the fabric store thinking I wanted a solid dusky rose color...something to add some very subtle color. I did not get it--I fell head over heels for this instead:

I love, love, love this print. It was 20 bucks a yard, but with the 60% off sale and our 20% off coupon, we could just swing it.
We came home and got to work...cutting the foam, shaping it, drilling holes in it for the tufts. Our method was pretty much look how the original was done and mimic it any way you can.
The buttons were a challenge. I assigned Chris the job of separating the original forms (tough one, because they are only meant to be used once, and aren't made to come apart.) We tried for a while to cover them the way you normally would, but quickly realized that it wouldn't work with used forms. So, I cut big circles of fabric, wrapped them around the forms, and tied them with a piece of thread. (Normally, you would push the fabric into the inner circle of the form, which would clamp it in place. Doesn't work when you've taken apart the original form and it's lost its shape.)

It was pretty tedious work, but once it was done, the tufting was actually really fun. The challenge with tufting is to get the fabric positioned the way you want it. I made it simple by pulling it as tight as I could, adjusting the wrinkles, and pushing the button as far into the foam as it would go...it kept it pretty consistent.

  

I had cut the foam to size by laying the old foam over the new and tracing it out. We did something similar with the holes--just drilled through the existing holes in the foam into the new foam. It kept it simple by eliminating all the measuring we would normally do. Then we just laid the fabric over the new foam and pulled the excess fabric towards the bottom, since we started tufting at the top. (You need more fabric than you think you do, the tufting takes up quite a bit.)

When we were done, we stapled the foam to the chair frame. Here is where all those photos we took while taking it apart came in handy--we knew to wrap the foam over the back of the chair and staple it down, and pull it down and between the back and seat. We only stapled the top, because the fabric, once pulled tight and stapled in place, holds the foam where it needs to be. We didn't staple any foam for the seat, since the fabric pulled through on all sides and we could staple it down. 

OH! And I forgot to mention that we restructured the seat and the springs. Chris got some rope and bound the springs in place, and we screwed some boards in about 5 inches beneath the springs to make the chair more stable, and make sure the springs didn't sag down too far. We also added a layer of foam and batting underneath the springs, but on top of the boards. The original chair didn't have this, and I think it makes the chair more stable and more comfortable. Our saggy seat is gone forever, now we have a firm, but comfortable, chair to sit in.

After a full day's work, and making a MESS of our living room (No joke, Chris didn't even bother to go outside to saw through those boards--it was such a mess a little sawdust made no difference), we were exhausted, but we had finished the biggest part of the chair. Here's how it looks now:

It looks absolutely fantastic. I can't wait to do the arms and wings, and put the final pieces on the back and sides...but I need to find someone to borrow a sewing machine from first, so I can do the piping. And I need to make a decision about the chair legs...I planned initially on painting them white, but now I'm not doing the rose chair anymore, and this fabric has a lot of white in it, so the original brown legs don't look too bad. I think I may just sand them down and put a fresh coat of dark stain on them. 

We are planning on finishing this in the next few days...Chris is building a custom window seat for my sister Ruth, and we want to have this out of the way by then. Plus, Ruth was with me when I got this chair, and she got one herself:

It feels a little Dolores Umbridge-esque to me, but I think she is planning on replacing the hot pink with a subtle floral. Anyway, I promised to reupholster it with her, so I think that will occupy me while Chris is framing the window seat.

I promise to blog again by Wednesday. Have a great week everyone! 

..and some advice from Chris: get your sleep while you can!

...he falls asleep so fast lately...probably because I have him up till 1 pulling out staples. That's true love right there.