Yarn & Kleenex - a weekend project

This is weekend #2 I have felt like crap. I'm going on two full weeks of battling a cold that insists on lingering, thanks in part to the fact that I admittedly don't take good care of myself. I stay up too late. I eat badly. Frozen blueberries and V8 is literally the bulk of my fruit and vegetable intake. I've never made time to take care of me. Until recently (which isn't all that recent anymore) Roger was the one that forced the issue of going to bed, nursed a sickness with fluids and all that stuff they tell you is good for you, even reminding me I should probably take time to eat lunch at work.

Let me save you the trouble by telling you the results of my recent experiment: purposely dehydrating yourself does not stop snot production.

When you actually put that into the written word, it sounds a lot dumber than it did in theory... I finally broke down and bought some sign-your-life-away-give-them-your-drivers-licence Sudafed today which says a lot because I can almost guarantee I won't sleep tonight because of it. I'm one of the lucky 5-10% of the population that Sudafed causes insomnia. woo hoo.

Instead of sleeping my cold and weekend away, I chose to start a project that ended up taking most of the weekend due to trial and error. My project of choice - a sleeve for my MacBook Pro. I already have a fancy case/bag for it, but sometimes I don't want to carry that and just want a semi-protective sleeve that will fit in my school bag or my fancy new giraffe print purse (thanks Joan!). I was inspired by this sleeve, but my stitch pattern and actual construction is unique.

I think I may hate the colors. I like the red, but I've been going back and forth on the edging... It was between a variegated taupe and this sparkly black. It's current state is a bit too Texas Tech for me, but the taupe looked very... "homey"?.... to me originally. If I change my mind I can easily replace the edging, but I am kinda fond of the crocheted "d" on the back. :)

Thoughts?

3 Day Weekend = Pinterest Projects

cowl pattern

right cowl pattern

wreath tutorial

A Pinterest Inspiration

So over Christmas break I succumbed to the vice known as Pinterest. I had seen some Facebook friends comment on things they saw on the site before and decided I needed to check it out... Oh my goodness have I spent too much time on that site since that fateful moment.

My first attempt at recreating a Pinterest find was a project using paint chips. Allison at the 3 Rs blog sliced up 3 tone paint chips and then arranged them creating framed art. Below is her red version and my teal version that now resides in my un-tealed toilet room.

 I mod-podged the strips to a piece of paper that fit the frame, and wa-la! I think it would look better in a matted frame, so that'll be the next step.

Working on completing a forever-ago started project, this weekend I decided to actually finish up the bathroom. Kind of. I still need to go back and repaint the back wall the lighter color brown that I decided looked best, but that's another today. Today was all about caulking.

I became a professional caulker when we installed the crown molding in our bedroom. Unfortunately, it took a lot of trial and error before I learned the secrets of fantastic caulking. :)

The key to caulk is painters tape. They certainly don't tell you that on the tube or on a lot of the websites out there. First you have to decide how much caulk you actually want to be visible. If you look at a lot of the newly built houses, the contractors actually leave a decent amount of caulk visible, becoming almost an extension of the molding. As nerdy as it sounds, I spent a lot of time looking at the caulk in my in-laws' recently built house, even taking pictures of it with my phone, so that as I did it in my house it matched what current builders were doing. I like leaving a few millimeters visible.

After it's taped, I run a healthy line of caulk along the molding. I operate under the philosophy of "more is more". If you thinly apply caulk, sometimes your paint peeks through, especially if the wall is darker like in my chocolate brown bedroom.

With my finger I force the caulk into the gaps, simply running it over the line. I use the excesses my finger picks up to start caulking the next section. The caulk spreads onto the tape and the molding itself. A damp paper towel easily takes off any excess that ends up on the molding.

DON'T WAIT FOR THE CAULK TO DRY TO REMOVE THE TAPE... One of the many mistakes I made learning how to do this. Tear it off at an angle away from the molding, and ta-da! :) I discovered in documenting my fabulous caulking skills that caulk is not that easy to photograph... But if you visited my toilet room (which would be odd visit in and of itself), you would be dazzled. :)

Since a little molding in my toilet room obviously doesn't use the entirety of a caulk tube, I simply put an appropriately sized nail or screw into the tip to keep it from drying out for my next project - which is to caulk the molding we put in the office in 2009...