A very non-Pinteresting Valentine's Day

There are so many creative, crafty, and fanciful ideas on Pinterest. I've learned a lot. It is impressive, the lengths people will go to celebrate every holiday to the fullest.

I applaud them for their creativity. I even thought of doing a few Pinterest projects myself this year. Teacher gifts:

All this project required were some labels from Staples and a bag of Hershey's Kisses.

But in the end, even that proved to be too much effort. I decided to go the easy route and just do simple store-bought valentines. I let the children have at their own boxes for school this year too, with little input from me. Mostly because I put it off until the last minute and then ate too much, which resulted in me spending the evening glued to the couch as my abdomen tried to find room that just wasn't there. And the baby needed some practice kicking my bladder. But I also stayed out of it because it's probably good for the kids to enjoy the creative/destructive process on their own terms.

My daughter had already finished her container at school, so she helped her little brother create his.

He made a robot face with a hole for the mouth.





I'm not sure what's going on inside the box. My guess is that these are the robot's innards:



I'm not gonna lie, some of the Valentine's Day boxes I saw going into school today were fantastic and I felt like I could have done more. The children carrying these boxes were proud and excited. Those kids loved their boxes. Even though the fanciful containers put my little Kindergartner's offering to shame, you'd never know it. He was so excited about his box! It was just what he wanted, and I'm okay staying out of the creative process as long as it's just what he wants. (Disclaimer — I'm sure that if I had made him a cool box, he would have been very happy with that as well!)



The teachers requested that the valentines be generic, with only the "from" portion filled out. Someone was kind enough to point out to us that by taping the lollipop in this particular location, all of my son's valentines basically say "to: Dum Dum." :)

I see a tan door and I want to paint it black...

I've been fighting the battle against time and tiredness the past couple of weeks. Time and tiredness have been kicking my trash. But this week I was able to eek out a little door painting project.

We decided to paint the front door black for now. I wasn't originally planning on painting it a high gloss, but when we changed our minds about the fireplace and made it white instead of black, I had this little can of paint left over. So, on the door it went.

Here's what the door looked like before:



And here it is now (in poor evening lighting; sorry!!)



I ended up painting the light fixtures next to the garage as well, to tie the black door into something. They were all that dark tan color before:



The paint I used was this new kind that is super thick and promises to dramatically decrease the appearance of brush strokes.



I was excited to try it, to see how it would work.

Pro's:

-It's really thick and doesn't drip.

-The brush strokes are greatly diminished.


Con's:

-Because of the viscosity, it can't be mixed. You have to buy one of the pre-set colors, and there's not a lot of choices.

-The thick paint made me think that I could get away with one coat. That was not the case; this definitely needs a second coat once it's dry.

-It takes a long time to dry.

-Ten minutes into the project, I got some on my fingers. I wiped it off on a paper towel and realized that it was an oil-based paint. Which is fine, if you're expecting that, and you buy the appropriate chemicals to get it off. I, however, had no such chemicals on hand. I've still got black marks on my hands and arm. And I had to toss the brushes I used.

-It doesn't cover as much square footage as it's thinner equivalent.

-It's more expensive.


In all, I don't think I'll be buying this particular paint again. It served it's purpose. And it would go unused if I didn't put it on the door. However, in the end I think it was more trouble than it was worth.

Well, painting the door black wasn't a dramatic change, but we're happy with the results.



And hey, I'm just proud of myself for getting up and doing something — anything — productive this week! It's been a long one. Glad it's almost over. And now I can't get Paint It Black out of my head. Time to break out Rock Band and do it justice... at least, attempt to. You know, with all the extra time and energy I have. ;)

Chair Re-Cover

Okay, so I lied. But it was a little white lie. Or, rather, a little brownish greenish lie.



I tackled a sewing project this weekend. I have these light green chairs that have seen better days, before the cat and the residing in the children's rooms for a few years.



Bad kitty! They needed to be recovered. The metal legs screw right off, so I figured that fixing the chairs would be quick and easy. (Which it was.)



I wanted to cover them in a darker fabric; the light green, aside from being dingy and damaged, was too close in tone to the gray walls. When I saw this deeply discounted fabric a while ago I knew I would end up going back on my words to never recover another couch. Although... these are chairs, so maybe I didn't REALLY break my promise to myself after all...



It's taken me more than seven years to get over doing that couch!! I felt like it was time to give sewing a cover another go.



After pinning some expendable fabric to the chair and outlining the profile, I added 3/4ths of an inch to every side (1/4 inch for wiggle room; 1/2 inch seam allowance).



Then I simply cut out the fabric, sewed the edges, and slipped the cover on.



Oh how I wish I had a huge padded table like my grandmother did in her basement, for making draperies.



I secured the material to the undersides of the chairs with staples and re-attached the metal legs.



I still might spritz the fabric with a bit of water to get it to fit more snugly; not sure if that will help or not. I'll let you know if that actually works. The effectiveness probably depends on the type of material.



In the meantime, the chairs look much cleaner and I like the way the darker fabric works with the wall color. Not bad for a $30-something fix!

(I don't want to think about how long I have before the cat starts pulling out threads with her claws. She's lucky I love her!)