repurposed door: diy desk

Isn't she beautiful?

Let me tell you a little story about the desk I had before this one graced my office. It was small. And short. And ugly. And it didn't have a lot of work space. And I'm 5'10" so I was all hunched over and my back hurt. Those conditions don't make for a happy work environment.

So after looking for an alternative on Craigslist, I decided to enlist the help of my personal carpenter and build my own. It's custom, if you will. I wanted the supports to be shelves. And I wanted A LOT of work space so I could spread out. And I wanted it to be red.

We headed off to the Habitat Restore, paid $20 for a door and another $3 for lumber, and here she is:

Cute as can be.

The top is the door, painted red. The dimensions of two shelves are 29 tall x 34 deep [the depth of whatever your surface will be] x 16 wide.

Oh, hey clutter.

It's amazing what hemming tape and velcro can do :) And look at that purple seat cushion. So happy.

The hole for the doorknob is the perfect cord keeper. Yessssss.

Also, how cute is that IKEA planter turned pencil cup?

To make me happy: a bag of dried lavender [a gift left in my purse from a visit with my grandmother] and an all-time favorite picture of me, said grandmother and my mom at my aunt's wedding.

PS: I'm cracking up at the neck on this lamp. It's so long! No shade in the history of man will hide it. Not even the one it came with.

More details: an engagement picture, a mod-podged box and a pretty little vase.

One more time...

Cute.as.can.be :)

Sometimes I like to party....click here to see where I link!

diy dry erase board

Let me give you some background on that hubby of mine. He's an officer in the Navy, training to be on submarines - at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command.

Did you check out just then? Because it's alright if you did, it's hard not to :) Basically, because I have bragging rights as his trophy wife, I'll say this: he's uber smart and is in school all day to get smarter.

The other day, he came home and asked if we had any extra dry erase boards. Not exactly something I have an abundance of, but I aim to please. Turns out, he draws a lot of diagrams in class and is tired of wasting paper [adorable] so he thought it would be nice to have a small dry erase board instead.

When he says diagrams, I see this:

But I'm thinking it might be a little more advanced than that.

I digress. Somewhere in blogland, I read about turning picture frames into dry erase boards. Makes sense, right? I've written on mirrors with dry erase markers, so why not glass? I have a stash of these guys that I scooped up at Target [for no good reason] and they looked just right for the part...

At only $3/each, thankyouverymuch.

All I did was frame a white sheet of paper. I mean, really? Does it get any easier?

[Something tells me the note of encouragement wasn't there when he took it in this morning.]

So what about me? Don't I deserve a cute version? Why of course :)

Old frame + scrap fabric [neutral, of course] + scrapbook letters + ribbon + clothespins [for holding receipts and stuff]

Ta-da! Cutie little dry erase board!

Note to self: buy ground mustard, apple juice, cumin and cheddar cheese. Who ARE we??

Oh and don't forget the craft room...

Look out, friends and family everywhere. You may or may not be getting one of these in your stocking this year.

I'm linking up with the Fine Craft Guild :)

repurposed: t-shirts to shopping bags

You know I'm all about saving a buck. And the environment. But I'm also about making my life easier. I'd be lying if I said that the reason I wanted to make these bags was because I'm earth friendly and want to decrease my carbon footprint. That's part of it, but it's really just an added benefit. What I really wanted to do was get rid of those ever-loving grocery bags stashed in my laundry room. Sure you need them occasionally for mini-trash cans or something, but really...do I need eleventy billion of them? No. And do I remember to recycle them at the grocery store? No. Also, they're hanging above Rudy's food bowl and one day they shifted and it scared the BEJEEZUS out of him and it took several seconds for his little paws to gain traction on the floor to high-tail it out of there. Then it took him three days to eat in there without company/protection. THAT was funny. But not worth the collection.

And I digress. Bottom line: I hate plastic grocery bags.

I saw this in blog land somewhere, a long long time ago. Now that I'm semi-comfortable with a sewing machine, I decided to give it a go. It's so easy, I really might turn all of our t-shirts into shopping bags. Take that, bag boy. I don't need your stinkin' annoying bags. Paper or plastic? How about cotton? Thankyouverymuch.

First, turn the shirt inside-out and cut out the sleeves and collar.

You'll only be sewing along the bottom of the shirt, so pin it. Or don't, whatevs.

[PS: every single one of the shirts I used was from Carolina (the REAL Carolina). Every one was from a Campus Crusade Hoe Down. It's easy to figure out a couple's history by looking in their t-shirt drawer, eh??]

Oh, and make sure you have good company. Here's Rudiger thinking, "This bag looks a lot less scary than those other bags."

Once you sew those babies up, you're ready to go! Your arm holes are the straps!

Eaaaaaaaasy day.

And yes, I know there's a plastic bag INSIDE the tshirt bag in the picture above. That's only because the blueberry lady at the farmer's market looked at me funny each time (x3) that I told her I didn't need a bag. So I took it anyway. And it's too small to do anything with, of course.

But the organic man said my bag was "really cool." We're besties now.