Bathrooom redo

The half bathroom has always bothered me since we moved in. It is shoddy all around. An access panel was cut and instead of fixing it it was covered with wainscot and then painted with a random color, it was poorly hung and didn't match any other wainscot in the house. And it had floral wallpaper... do I even have to describe why that was ugly, not to mention that it was peeling off. The pedestal sink allowed no storage and the little shelf that was in there was a bit water logged and the kids kept pulling the towels off it and carpeting the tile with them.

The kids pulled the towel rack out of the wall... so that was another beauty mark. The caulking at the bottom of the toilet was done poorly and stained. The mirror backing was peeling off on the bottom and the sink had issues draining.

One day I decided I was serious about fixing it and so I started removing the wallpaper. This said to Gary, "I'm serious and I want it now." But things are never that fast so we worked on it when we could we have kids and all that which come first.

I was finding the before image and Nev who is almost 4 says, "That is ugly." Yes, it is dear.

The after pictures don't even show new baseboards, toilet caulking redone, new light fixture (square since I broke the other one on accident while painting, and yes it really was an accident) etc. and my bathroom art on the right wall. And look at all that STORAGE. Just what I needed. The sink drains and everything.

I still have some detail work to do on the frame around the mirror, it has a leaf pattern that I was going to add some accent touches to but haven't gotten to it. (I've been obsessing over my carpets lately)

I am so much happier with it. It is right next to the dining room so the grossness of it REALLY bothered me. I feel so much better now. :)

a bedroom for boys: almost done

My little boy turned 5 recently. Since we moved into this house the boys room has been an eyesore. I've been dying to get rid of the ugly elephant wallpaper and edge to edge blah color. I mean the baseboards were even painted the same color, and closet doors... He's never had a room that really was his, since he shared with his sister before. So it was time we rewarded the little boy who keeps his room so clean. Seriously, his is always cleaner than the girls'.

We finally got around to beginning it and emptied out their room. Z was SO excited to sleep on the floor and had been dying for his turn since his sisters did while they waited for their new bed to be put together.
 
First I had to remove that awful wallpaper border. Which thankfully wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. My mother in-law had to help me get over my fear and get to it. :)

Zurich has wanted a Spiderman room for a while now so of course we went with that. I wanted a paint scheme that would age well though so I had it in my head to do a cityscape silhouette at twilight in comic book greys, which are really more blue and purple. Gary couldn't envision what I was describing but went along with it anyway, what a dear.

He left me to pick out the paint by myself and he went to get the wallpaper... What? you are supposed to match the paint with the wallpaper? no.... I think it will all work out though.

Gary came in from working on the beds and taped off a few visually identifiable silhouettes, and I worked on the general buildings. Tip: paint top color first to the lowest point your buildings may dip then tape off building lines and roll or brush into paint. I didn't roll down far enough and had to touch up some later, but I had to do that anyway so it's not a big deal. I had my basic line at 33 inches where a chair rail would go and had some higher and lowers along that line.

I'm pleased with it.


We also had a set of bunk beds from my days growing up. Sturdy suckers. However, when we moved here we chose to keep some brand new mattresses in the house and found they were xl twin. So we had to make new side rails to lengthen the bed. We just covered up the unfinished wood with bed skirts in the mean time.

Gary and his Dad decided to make some necessary and some pretty modifications to the beds and sand them down and re-stain and gloss them to match the dresser. It turned into a pretty big project but they sure turned out pretty.
Here is the room partially put back together so the boys could sleep in their room again. Giddy is still in the crib so that will free up space when he moves to the bed. 


While waiting for the wallpaper and decals to arrive we haven't put any of the pictures back up and I was missing the clock. So I got his Thomas clock and decided it would be easy to add a Spiderman face to it. The blue border would work well. Of course we are mildly out of black ink and its 10:30pm and Gary is gone on a business trip so I decided the little ink failure adds to the effect. Don't judge me. I'm moving on with my life.

I used the image from here: http://everdaylittlethings.blogspot.com/2010/10/spiderman-head-svg-mtc.html and stretched it a little to make it circular. Downloaded the free spiderman font that had numbers here: http://www.1001fonts.com/homoarakhn-font.html  I reversed out the 3 and 9 with a little text rasterizing and erasing.

Snap the thing back together and I can hang it up tomorrow when kids aren't sleeping. Gary said he will pick up more ink on his way home tomorrow... The numbers run into the border a little. Hmm maybe I will fix that and print it out again... maybe.

Valentines

I didn't worry about Valentine's in January as I normally would have because we were gearing up for a trip West and my oldest would miss the valentine's exchange in school.... but recent turn of events we didn't go on our trip and so I had to figure something out. I wanted something that she could have a hand in putting together and she wanted to make the packets like we did for Gary. So I sat down to put together a little card for her with more appropriate messaging... and then had an idea and ended up making some for the older kids, just because I could because it was so fast and I had the pictures to work with already.

It's not a novel idea given all the examples you can find of picture/sucker valentine's all over the internet, but the spin we put on it was fun and personal and the kids were proud to put them together and give them.

Olea used the silly picture cards with candy packets for friends at church (I didn't get a pic of one of her's made up but you can use your imagination if I you've looked at Gary's from last year.)

She used the archery shot with the suckers for school.


Zurich and Nev gave out theirs to their friends at church.


While making up the packets for Olea's little cards, Zurich wanted to make one that had him on it, so I drew a pic really fast and had him draw the body. I get such a kick out of this. It's so cute.

As soon as the picture was done and I had taken a picture of it he ripped it open and ate the treats. :)

Being Rich

I always tell Gary, "when we are rich..." I want such and such. Some of those items have been pretty silly like a Lava Lamp. We must be rich, because I have one. ;)
Some are just pie in the sky... okay that makes them silly too.
Anyway: The other day I had a brain child. I've had four real children so a brain child shouldn't be too far of a stretch.

Gary was outside teaching Zurich how to ride his bike with no training wheels. Awesome. View.

Nev had just gotten run over by Olea (who was riding her bike). I took Nev inside cleaned off her knee and affixed plain brown, but super huge band-aid and had her fetch a basket.

Of course the scene of me and Nev gathering mystery objects in the grass was intriguing so eventually I had all my little helpers there adding to the basket.
Coming so close to the ground and seeing, because we were looking, Olea commented, "We are rich in acorns."
We are. Super. Rich. in Acorns.

So there. I am now super rich.

I could get the squirrels to do whatever I wanted...

We gathered lots of acorns and a few pine needles too for good measure.

Sometimes Gary is really good at taking pictures, sometimes he even lets it focus. Sometimes not so much. :)

Then some wading in the pool.


A few days later...
some awful hot glue and a ring of foam core board...
and an awesome hot glue burn...

When we are super rich: I will still make my own wreaths and I'll still have a lava lamp.

Family Ceramics

Back in the day... like in November. :)
I bought some clay
for FHE I tried to teach some basic hand-build techniques


Nev tried to eat the clay.

some of the work from that evening
Then we let it dry for 2 weeks.
Bone Dry clay before fire:

My hand build is sore out of practice, plus I was trying to teach and keep the younger ones from eating the clay and what not.

Fire, we also added a small cup my mom threw at a local art on the lawn thing.
Glaze



Glazed pieces with some large plates that I did the clear coat on (which is pink)
Then Olea helped me Food grade Clear Glaze the pieces

Fire one last time.... oooh lala

Most of the pieces have a found a purpose
Olea's is a q-tip holder in her bathroom
Zurich's is a snack cup

My cup sits next to the kitchen sink for water.
Gary's two dishes hold Tatties downstairs and my keys on the bar.
My lil pink dish holds Tatties upstairs.

Make your own snow globes

Olea brought home a snow globe from her last day of school before the break. I, of course, figured that it could and should be accomplished by our family. Esp with two weeks of vacation. I obtained appropriate bottles via facebook shout out and Freecycle. I did a lil internet research about it.

And then for FHE we set to work sculpting our figurines out of sculpy clay. Bless Gary for helping the two younger ones do theirs, Zurich asked for a Reindeer spaceship, I wouldn't have known where to start! Nev quit trying to destroy what I was working on when Gary helped her make a Christmas tree.

We cooked the sculptures and went to bed. This picture is minus two sculptures.

The next evening we put them in their globes.


I had a lot of frustration with mine from the beginning to the end but it ended up working out fine. They were worth it, it was a lot of fun and the kids love them.

Olea also made one for her cousins that were coming the next day.

It turned out cute but after a little bit the tree ended up coming unattached from the base, so it was a floaty tree. I think it was because it was rushed a bit where the other ones weren't. It was still fun and appreciated at least. :) All the other ones we made are holding up great.