veryjane, very cool + Giveaway

If Groupon and Etsy had a baby, I think it'd look a lot like veryjane.

You know I'm a sucker for good deals (ie. Giveaway below). So when I stumbled upon veryjane, I was quickly hooked. Screamin' deals on cutsie, crafty, handy, genius treasures. Each deal only lasts a few days max, so you have to act quickly before selection or time runs out.

I, myself, have taken advantage of deals for cute lace bloomers and a ruffled romper for baby girl (due Oct) as well as some nifty vinyl labels for kitchen containers. I even got my husband's Father's Day gift through veryjane -- matching ties for him and our son!

It gets better -- Right now veryjane is doing a Giveaway for three lucky winners - 1st place $100 AMEX gift card, 2nd place $50 AMEX gift card, and 3rd place $25 AMEX gift card. The Giveaway ends Monday, June 25, at 12:01am EST. To enter, simply utilize this handy widget below and increase your chances of winning! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

laundry.craft room

My laundry room started out as nothing special.

 6' x 10' ... Enough room for a future washer and dryer, and random storage sitting on top of builder-standard linoleum.

 Don't forget the lovely MDF shelf. That's a standard feature, too.

 We started the sprucing up by painting it Behr Spa. Ahhh.

Brent installed the washer and dryer, we used the built-in shelf for detergent and other keep-out-of-reach cleaners ...

  and I stored some craft boxes on a tiered shelf and spare cabinet (picture taken pre-paint). Nice.

For a few months we just let the room sit. But we knew the room had way more potential, despite its small size. We tossed around the idea of cabinets and a countertop to utilize wall space and high ceilings. We priced out configurations through cabinet companies but weren't sold on their products or prices. Brent was a stud and researched cabinet options for me at local stores and online. After much consideration and planning, I chose my cabinets and he ordered them online -- saving us lots of cash!

 The cabinets shipped a few weeks later and Brent went straight to work. The uppers went up in a jiffy since they were delivered pre-assembled. Brent is pretty handy with a ledger board and drill. 

 Oh yeah, we also said goodbye to the ugly linoleum. By shopping around we bought this 10x20 gray linen tile for $2.89 sq ft, which was a dollar cheaper per sq ft compared to other stores -- which adds up! Since Brent was juggling several other projects, we had a guy install it for us in the bathrooms and laundry room.

 Once the uppers were in, the base cabinets came next.

 Lookin good, eh? These are Cardell Classic II Flat Panel Maple cabinets in white with pewter glaze. I absolutely love how they have the look of antiqued white cabinets, yet with a modern twist using flat panels and pewter glaze accenting. It fits right in with our modern style.

Then the countertops arrived! This is Silestone (quartz) Stellar Snow. It literally sparkles. Because the amount of quartz we needed was less than an entire slab, we ordered it through Home Depot, who charges by sq ft instead of making you buy an entire slab -- saving more cash!

The guys who installed our baseboards downstairs (a few months back) returned to outfit the upstairs, too. 

So we turned this ...

into ...

 The finished product! Three drawers on the left base cabinets, three big base cabinets on the right. Nine upper cabinets. Space for me to sit and do crafts. And still enough room for the washer and dryer. All within 6' x 10'.

I am beyond thrilled to have my own little mom cave.

Maybe I'll even add a chandelier.

evolution of a pool, pt. 1

If you've ever wondered how a pool is built ...

This is the our landscaper's design, as if viewed from our house looking out. 

And a bird's eye view. We're working with Green Planet Landscaping, who subs out the pool itself to Laguna Pool & Spa.

And here's how it's done.

 04.10.12  Measuring and spraying the form.

Digging the hole. Since we have a wide side fence, they knocked it down and brought in the big guns.

04.11.12  After digging less than two feet down, they ran into caliche: (wiki) a hardened deposit of calcium carbonate, which cements together other materials, including gravel, sand, clay, and silt.

Which means they had to bust out the jackhammer at an hourly rate. Awesome.

 04.17.12  The pool is finally carved out.

 04.29.12  Plumbing and gas lines set, after several days of placement. The gas line runs to our gas meter on one side of the house, and the plumbing runs to the other side of the house to our pool equipment.

 05.04.12  Rebar placed over a few days. Electrical hookups also added.

 05.11.12  Cement sprayed, aka. shotcrete.

Later that day, the pool has form. 

 Over the next several days, the concrete will set.

 And so I tried out the hot tub.

 05.23.12  Forms for the decking placed (at first in the wrong spots, so they reset them this day). Also, previously the retaining wall in the background was dug out and started to be formed.

 And tiling continues (started earlier that week).

 Closeup.

 05.25.12  Glass tile starts.

Closeup.

 05.31.12  Grout started, worked on next day

 More tiling completed.

06.06.12  Hot tub tiling started, worked on again 06.09.12. Retaining wall finished as well.

And that brings us to today, two months since we broke ground. 

Still needing to be completed: tiling finished, decking poured, fire bowls installed, gas and electrical hookups finished, plaster poured, inspection passed, landscaping installed ...

Someday my pool will come.

bachelorette emily premiere bingo

I'm still working on house projects (oh, am I ever!) but I'd like to share something else I made.

I'm a Bachelor/Bachelorette watcher. I've watched several seasons with the same girls for a few years. After seeing/enjoying TresSugar's BENGO on AfterTheFinalRose for Bachelor Ben's Finale, I had to get me some more bingo.

So I made my own. For premiere party of The Bachelorette with Emily, I created Emil-INGO cards full of phrases and scenes typical of premiere nights. Special thanks to EmbellishGoods and Ashley S @ SayNoToCosmo for some great phrase ideas from earlier seasons.

Here's a sneak peek:

Emil -    I     N     G   O

“Great connection/ chemistry with …”	“Ready to fall in love”	Helicopter	“Here for the right reasons”	“Can I steal you away?”
Fight or heated argument	Kisses Emily	Bio for a guy from outside US	Hair worse than Ben F.	Gift giving

There's more where that came from. Get your Emil-INGO cards here.

I can't hardly wait for tomorrow night.

PS -- I just saw Embellish Goods also has some fantastic printables for tomorrow's premiere.

PPS -- TresSugar also has some more bingo cards, if you need more for your party!

bike wheel clock

Last fall while watching the pilot episode of the new Design on a Dime with Casey Noble on HGTV, I saw the designers create a clock out of a bike wheel. I thought it was so neat that I had to try it. 

Months later, after hours of fruitless searching for the episode online, or any other tutorials, I almost gave up.

But then I decided, why the heck not?

I set off to find a guinea pig wheel or bike. I struck out at several thrift stores. But then I was directed to Southwest Bikes and I tried my luck. After explaining my idea to them, I asked if they had any junk wheels I could buy. As fate would have it, they did!

Please forgive me for using a few stock photos.

Then I bought a clock kit from a craft store, similar to this one. I toyed around with the idea of buying a clock and taking it apart, but that sounded waaay out of my skill level. Or patience.

I took my treasures home and spent the next few days brainstorming and trying to disassemble the wheel. After several unsuccessful attempts, despite the youtube videos that said I could do it without special tools, I turned to professional help.

The awesome guys at Broken Spoke Bikes endured several visits from me (one where I accidentally left the bike wheel in the parking lot, they held it for me til I returned). They graciously took apart the bike cassette and sawed down the hub so the wheel could sit flush against the wall.

Then I was left with an empty skeleton of a bike wheel. I scrubbed it and the cassette parts with oven cleaner and steel wool til they shined.

I could finally begin turning it into a clock.

And since I was so wrapped up in the project, I failed to take tutorial pictures. But here's how I did it.

Total cost: Free wheel + $12 clock kit + free handy help + glue and paper on hand = $12 and DIY labor

- I dry fitted the clock parts with a few smaller sections (gears) from the bike cassette. According to my husband, some wheels' cassettes come completely apart, some are completely stuck together, and some come in several chunks. Note this when looking for a wheel. I lucked out. I sandwiched the gears in between the clock motor and the clock hands, making sure the hands had plenty of clearance to spin around. Measure twice, cut glue once, right? I carefully glued the gears to the front of the clock motor using E6000/super glue, waiting plenty of time for it to dry.

- I dry fitted the clock motor onto the middle of the wheel, looking underneath it to make sure where I would be gluing wouldn't keep me from changing the battery or changing the time on the back of the clock. I also decided I wanted the top or "12" on the clock to be where the reflector was, so I positioned the motor accordingly. Then I carefully glued the motor to the wheel.

- For the clock hands, I wanted something bigger and brighter than how the kit came. But I had to find something that wouldn't weigh down the hands or else they wouldn't function correctly. Cue scrapbook paper. Yep, I cut out four skinny rectangles, two of each size for hour/minute hands, and glued them together with the clock hands sandwiched in the middle on one end -- poking a big enough hole through the paper so the hand could attach to the clock motor. I decided to leave off the second hand. Seemed appropriate.

- I attached the clock hands to the motor, per the clock's instructions, and stepped back to look at my master{time}piece.

And then I gave it to my husband's boss, an avid cyclist.    Now I want one, too.

lightbulb vase

 I saw a lightbulb vase somewhere ... probably Pinterest. And I couldn't get it out of my head. My friend's birthday was approaching, and considering her interests and profession (a high school biology teacher), I felt that the lightbulb vase would be appropriate.

I searched for the right tutorial(s), bought my materials, and got to work. Since I was dealing with glass, hammers, and a lot of trial and error, I wasn't able to take any pictures. Plus the tutorials already have great photos, anyway.

Part 1:

http://thehipsterho.me/2010/01/how-to-make-a-tiny-terrarium-in-a-light-bulb/

I liked the idea of using silicone bumpers for a stand, keeping with the minimalistic look.

 But when water spilled down the side and onto the silicone bumpers, they slid around and were no longer balancing the vase. I resolved that this method is good for a dry vase/terrarium, but not one involving water.

Back to the drawing board.

Part 2:

I really liked the look of this vase holder (and the herringbone background) so I gave it a shot. http://www.readymade.com/projects/lightbulb_bud_vase

Bending the rod was a lot of guess work. I used my bare hands for some of it and a wrench for the tricky parts. I essentially made each side six inches long -- which meant the back split into two sections of three inches. Curling the rod around to fit around the lightbulb was the trickiest part. When pieces broke off I had to improvise and readjust. I finally got it right and superglued the bulb to the vase just to be safe. But it turned out pretty good in the end.

I finished it in time for my friend's birthday, and when she opened her present, she was ecstatic! I really enjoyed brightening her day.

And now I want to make one for myself.

bookshelf window seat

I had a few ideas for J's room that I wasn't sure how to execute:

- reading nook, for our storytime

- window seat, to watch the cars and enjoy the view

- bookshelf, to contain all the books

After tossing around ideas involving big pillows, coffee tables and multiple shelves, somehow IKEA was able to solve my problem in one shot.

I may not have made it, but I assembled it. And I have to say, I'm pleased with the result.