Spring Break Crafternoons!

Finally, it is Spring Break! The weather is utterly gorgeous, I am energized and feeling ready to take on the world. At the very least, my backyard.

Yesterday I was browsing the internet (no pun intended), looking at garden veggies, when I came across a smoking deal on mulch for the yard. I chatted with the husband, and proceeded to buy 10 bags of the stuff. Is it kind of ridiculous that I was more excited about the prospect of new mulch for the yard at the end of the day that I was about the actual end of school for the break?

Doesn't matter. I was.

I have a To-Do list for this whole week, neatly lined out on a Post-it Note.
Saturday: Chalkboard Wall and Moss Quote
Sunday: Clean the cupboards and kitchen drawers
Monday: Closets and Garage
Tuesday: CRAFT IT UP!
Wednesday - Sunday: Get my first sunburn.

In between all of this, it is my hope to potty train my daughter. She has been on the cusp for a couple weeks now, but always gets a little gun-shy at home. Why she can do it at her daycare with others watching, but not at home is beyond me.

So, today started early, as every Saturday does, and I am completely finished with the chalkboard wall. The moss wall will have to wait until the garden shops have moss and we fix our hose outlet.

Onto the project!
We have two long, large cinderblock walls in our backyard that function as fencing. I will assume that they have been around since the dawn of time as these kind of walls are a theme throughout our neighborhood. Since the first time I laid eyes on them, I knew they needed... something. I considered hiring our talented friend Dave to paint a mural, perhaps tearing down the walls and putting up wood fencing, or even just plain painting them. Three years later, here's what's going down:


Step one: Wash the wall. As you can see Matt and Ellie got a little overzealous waiting for the actual chalkboard to be finished.

I just used water and a scrub brush I found at the Dollar Store. And yes, that is a good dish.  You can see I traced a rough oval shape with some white chalk. I won't lie, my finished product is about four or five inches larger than the original sketch. Thus is the way I craft.

Step 2: Prime! I used Kilz2 Latex Primer from Ace. It was $8.99 for the quart, and I used about half the container over two coats. The blocks didn't soak up nearly as quickly or as much primer as I thought they would. I let the first coat dry for about 20 minutes and then added the second. The second I let sit for about 30 minutes. Kilz says wait an hour between coats; I'm lazy.

Step 3: Make your chalkboard paint! I used Martha Stewart's recipe, but as per my usual, I added and subtracted. Her method is 1 cup paint + 2 tbsp unsanded grout. I used roughly 2.5 cups paint to 3tbsp grout. I went to the hardware store this morning on the mission to find the Kilz and lo, I found a mistint black for $2.50! ROCK!

 Step 4: Paint! This is just one, albeit thick, layer of paint and grout! I added the black frame with a smaller art brush I had on hand. I think it adds personality.

Voila! Gator's chalk wall!

 All said and done, this project was a little more spendy than I anticipated. I thought I'd use leftover paint we had on hand and completely neglected the priming part. Unsanded grout was $6 at Lowe's, Kilz was $8.99 and the paint was $2.50. I spent about 2 hours from start to finish, so a quick, easy project with a fun result!

Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub and who do you think they be?

I have said it before and I will say it again: Once you have Oregon in you it's hard to shake it out. That smell of trees and mold in the Portland airport. The way you can spend all day inside without feeling bad when it rains. That no one uses an umbrella, but they still wear flip-flops. Yes, I am a hippy.

Today, maybe more than any other day, I demonstrated my true hairy-legged ways. I made dishwasher soap and laundry detergent from scratch.

If you'll allow a little aside; for my birthday I was given a book called "Planet Home" by Jeffrey Hollender. There are great ideas for cleaners, reducing waste, composting and the like. Included in the book was a reference to an article I recently read about fragrance in products we use daily (ie. wall air fresheners, laundry soap, cleaners in general). It stated something to the effect that there are 500 different types of "fragrance" used in commercial products. Of those 500, 50 or so are known carcinogens. Wait for it: and those 50 do not have to be on the label of the items we buy daily.

Excellent. Now, I don't know about you, but let's just say the next time I see Cancer I'll be giving it a swift kick in the balls. That's enough for me to make a change.

That leads me to my Crafternoon today. I decided since I don't know what "fragrances" are in my household cleaners and the like, I will faze them all out one by one. We ran out of laundry soap this week and Matt was all about making the leap.

After some thorough interweb research, here is what I came up with:

1 cup Borax ($4.99)
1 cup Washing Soda ($4.98)
1 bar of soap (I used Vegetable Soap scented with Shea Butter) 2 bars/$3.99

 

Grate your soap bar.

Combine your soap bar, Washing Soda and Borax and whisk until thoroughly combined.

Each load should take 1 tbsp of detergent, two if you have a rough and tumble toddler. I ran my daughter's clothes through and they came out super clean; as if I had used a Name Brand detergent! Whoo! 

Next up? Dishwasher soap.

Only four months later.

I am winning at craft blogging. I imagine that those of you who follow this blog, or stumble across are super stoked the see that I have, perhaps, something new to say. After four months. No biggie.

Today was the first day I've been in front of my sewing machine in at least a month. I don't have a to-do list right now, and without that, I tend to spend the majority of my days watching what's left of Soap Operas.

But, today was different. There are no Soap Operas on on Saturdays. Even on Telemundo. So, instead I pulled out some fabric and crafted up a quick baby doll dress for Gator's baby. She seemed to love it, turning the baby over in her hands for a full 15 seconds before she told me she was all done. Ah, toddlerhood.

I've started in on a couple other things that I've been lusting over at Pinterest. That site is as addictive as Facebook without feeling so voyeuristic. Thank goodness new different obsessions.

Look forward to hearing more from me soon; especially with Christmas in seven weeks. Yeah, I said it.

No glue gun burns today.

It's always a lofty goal to end any Crafternoon without a new blister. I have a penchant for sticking my hand directly in the hot glue. Why? Because pain is weakness leaving the body, of course.

Today's Crafternoon was an idea I've had for a few months, marrying a couple trending styles that I've not yet attempted. The final product; a bunting wreath with twisty flowers. Say whaaaat?

Tutorial to come when the bebe goes to sleep tonight. This Crafternoon was finished in the nick of time - like 5 minutes before she got up. Win.

Come on, Janna, get it together.

I tried to think about Elvis, Memphis, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. I tried to think about hair-dos, tattoos, sushi bars and saxophones...

On that note, here's my excuse. I hated my camera, had to wait to have money to get one, got one and now am ready to rock your crafternoon socks. I have about a million projects in mind and cannot wait to get started! Things are going to be a little slow for the next two weeks as I finish up an after-school program I am working with right now. But, my oh my, will the wait be worth it!

In the meantime, here are two few flavorite (yes, flavorite) sites I came across today.

Heartsy <3 : I am in love. Think Groupon for Etsy sites. Ahhmazing.

WhoopdWhoop : Super amazing craft trade site. Your money is no good here; just trade your items with other crafters for "whoops". Welcome back to the age of bartering!

25 Likes!

We are ONE like on FB away from a giveaway! Tell your friends, mom, sister, cousin, great-aunt who isn't all the computer literate (heck, why not?!) I'm thinking a necklace or a shop credit this go around, or gosh, tell me what you'd like to win and I might get a wild hare and do that!

Crafternoon

After two snow days, a school dance, lots of cooooold weather and many attempted projects, I'm back. Truly, it's just laziness that gets the better of me.

On Monday, before the freezing weather came, I spent the better portion of my afternoon making a pillow case and a table mat. We have a wooden remote holder than scratches the table if it isn't set on something; something that Ellie can drag the remote holder off the table with.

This one was a little more time consuming. I think the next time I attempt a pillowcase like this, I'll work through the petals differently. I don't really like the way the light pink ones turned out.

Is it bad that I have my tax return spent on fabrics and it isn't even in my bank account yet? There is this amazing Eric Carle fabric that I want to make a crib sheet out of. But at $15/yd, I can't justify it just yet. Eight days after February 14th though, why not?