New Sofa

Our old sofa was a free hand-me-down from my parents {Daniel asked for it}. It was very comfy, but big, ripped, and the wrong color. It overwhelmed the living room. Our new sofa is antique, bought from a friend, longer then the old one, but dainty. Someday I'm going to re-upholster it myself. We're still looking for the perfect fabric. Though now I'm OK with keeping it this way until all future babies are past the spit-up stage!

Chair Re-uhpolstering

Ikea curtain with permanent marker

I bought this chair at the thrift store while we were engaged. I knew it would be easy to re-upholster, but I didn't have a fabric picked out. About a year later, I saw a similar chair in a magazine with fabric that had French handwriting on it. I asked around at all the upholstery stores, but all they could give me was this fabric. Not what I was looking for! So, I decided to make it myself. I found curtain fabric at Ikea that was the right weight {and cheap enough!}and considered screen printing it. But the complexity of doing so deterred me. So, I skipped some steps and just wrote on the fabric with permanent marker. I tested it for water-fastness and discovered ironing it on the highest setting {this is cotton fabric} made it water and soap fast. I did not try it the washing machine, though.

The text is from Pride and Prejudice, you can find the full text online here. I copied selected portions into Google translate.

Work

My favorite part of the week: having taught children how to throw on the wheel all week, at the end they get to teach their parents what they learned.

Frame Re-do

 I bought this frame at the thrift store, intending to make into a chalkboard for the kitchen. I like the nice wide moulding, but didn't like that it said family across the top {to trendy for me}. So I knocked them off with a putty knife and sanded the glue down. But I couldn't match the paint color or the finish or ever sand it smooth enough without messing up the surrounding areas.

Then inspiration struck! make something to cover the areas up. I originally thought of ceramic flowers, since I could make them it at work, but I would have to paint them. And then I remembered my Sculpey stash. I couldn't find chalkboard paint in a color I liked, and though I had a recipe to make some, tracking down 2 tablespoons of unsanded grout {I didn't want to buy the whole bag and then have to store it}proved difficult, so I put the glass back in with some scrapbook paper, bought whiteboard markers with an office store return, and hung it in my laundry room {the kitchen didn't have enough wall space}.

Pinterest

About a month ago, I heard about Pinterest, an online "bulletin board" and got my invite from a friend. I love saving pictures (one of the causes of clutter in our house: unfilled magazine tear-outs) and my computer is choking on all the data stored on its hardware. Enter Pinterest.

No, it won't scan all those magazine pages for you, but it does save and organize pictures from the web or already on your computer. You can also easily grab pictures that other people have posted. You can create as many boards as you need, and pin as many pictures as you want without worrying about taking over your computer's space. I have a board for clothing ideas, a board for home ideas, boards for pretty pictures...

Currently I am working on a baby shower for a co-worker, so I have a board just to save all the ideas for her shower. The theme is rainy days (shower) with lots of clouds and rainbows.

http://pinterest.com/gretas/adrienne-s-baby-shower/

All photos are the property of their respective creators.
Most of the photos are from Bump Smitten http://www.bumpsmitten.com/
The rest are from various sources cataloged through Pinterst. All photo sources can be found by going to http://pinterest.com/gretas/adrienne-s-baby-shower/

1 Year

Daniel and I have been married one year! We have experienced a lot of firsts this year: first holidays, first home, first pregnancy test (negative!), first garden.

In the past year:

• Daniel passed all four sections of the CPA exam the first time (very rare) with high marks (even rarer!)
• Greta graduated college
• We both learned clutter has a mind of its own
• Lots of dinners ruined
• Even more good recipes created and discovered
  
• Many dinner parties; even spur-of-the-moment, people-dropping-by parties
• New church
• New friends
• First grown-up Bible study for each of us

Craft Ideas

I just requested a $50 dollar check from Opinion Outpost, a survey company! How it works: I get emailed a link to a survey almost every day. Sometimes several a day. If I qualify for the survey; don't answer to quickly, right demographic; then I get a certain number of points. This company is great because each point corresponds to 10 cents. (More then most places do! The next best one the points are a few cents each.) So to get $50, I just had to earn 500 points. And the average survey pays 20 points.

Want to sign up? Copy this link: http://OpinionOutpost.com/join/8498775

I have a long list of things to get with those fifty dollars!

Fabric to make this:

From Pottery Barn, $100

And this:

Inspired by a Anthropology duvet cover
From kojodesigns.blogspot.com

And wood to make this:

From Pottery Barn, $300

And this:From Pottery Barn, $250

And a chandelier from the thrift store to make something similar to this: