Welcome 2010 11 days late

Hope everyone had good holidays! I did. I figured since it is the second week of January I ought to post my New Year's resolutions. There's only two as I don't usually do them.

Resolution # 1

Blog more. Yep. I was kind of slacking in 2009 so I'm going to beef it up. Besides, I miss it and all of you. So watch out.

Resolution # 2

Get things done. And, mostly I mean house things. I can't take not having a finished house anymore. Gotta get things done, and if that means I have to do everything myself I will. I've all ready started by finishing my closet I talked about in this post. About time I say. Almost 3 years is too long. I hated to nag Mr. Man, but it looks good, doesn't it?!





Then I got the nasty faux bricks torn off the fireplace and tiled it, as well as, put on new drywall under the window installed 2 summers ago. Now to finish painting, but I plan on redrywalling the ceiling so it will have to wait. Whatcha think so far?





I have a great year planned so take your shoes off and stay awhile. Kisses!

Weekend Finds and Projects

It's Monday. Yet again. Two weeks into school and the child is all ready sick hence the late post. At least it's not raining again today.

Figured I'd show you what I had been accomplishing with all the rain going on. Look at this! Just love it, and I'll give props to the Mr. Man for figuring out the design. It needs to be cleaned off and grouted, but you get the idea. It previously had white vinyl sticky tiles that went all the way to the wall making it completely assymetricaly which drove me nuts.

I'll show you pics when it is completely done.

Look at my fantabulous new stools for my worktable. The best part was I found them at a yard sale for $10. They were $5 a piece. Before I got a hold of them, they were regular old actual bar stools that had brown pleather and matte black bases. I transformed them into this with a little fabric I paid next to nothing for at another yard sale and some lime green epoxy paint. Lurve them so much!



Now. My favorite thing ever! I paid absolutely nothing for this except the fabric that is going to go into it to reupholster it. Got this on Freecycle. It was her great aunt's, and I am so in love. I've been wanting one of these forever but haven't been able to get one. Check it out.



Just look at the scalloped back. You can't find that anymore.



What did you do this weekend? or have as a project?

Not all sunshine and roses

As the title implies, a jeweler's life is not all fabulous and glamorful. It really isn't. Sad but true.

This is how I spent my weekend. Here's the man on the roof. It's very early hence the big ol sun.


Here's the man again.


And, here was my task for the weekend as I have discovered I am not as brave as I near 30 as I used to be.


This is not how I would've chosen to spend a very chilly weekend in January, but it had to be done as we sustained a bad hit during a wind storm last week. Thank goodness for gift cards and the know how! Oh, and while I have you, give me your thoughts on my idea on a bloggy party to organize our lives. Yay or Nay? I'll go into more in depth tomorrow.

Home Improvement Roundup

It's Thursday so that means another Home Improvement Roundup.

Last week, Debbie from Craftymoose asked about refacing cabinets. I have never done this before. I'm from the old school with cabinets because my dad is a cabinetmaker by trade. I did a little research though and found some interesting articles.

doityourself.comhas a whole series on refacing. It tells you which sides of the cabinets to do first, gives you a supply list, and everything. It seemed very informative. Plus, for those of you who would just like to spruce up your cabinets, you will find how to stain your cabinets and how to paint your cabinets.

kitchenrefacing.org is an illustrated tour of how to reface your kitchen. The guy who runs this site is supposed to have 35 yrs experience in cabinet refacing. He's known as Mr. Refacer. He even tells you how to accurately measure your kitchen.

Those are my favorite links. Of course, there are lots of places on the internet to shop around for these supplies so keep looking to make sure you get the cabinets you want. If refacing isn't for you but you need new cabinets and no money, you can very easily build some really beautiful modern but plain cabinets from plywook. I've seen it done, and it can look quite attractive.

Now, I thought I would give a review on a product I wanted to try. We recently installed a motion sensor light switch in my temporary workroom. They switch on when you walk into a room and switch off on a timer when you walk out. The one I bought also makes it so you can work the switch like a regular light. This is what I've been doing during the day then turning it to auto at night. The hard part is remembering to switch it before I get ready to work. It takes a lot of getting used to. Plus, the range on it is ginormous. I was planning on using it in all the rooms but now I'm not so sure. I think it would be perfect for those rooms that aren't often used but lights get left on like hallways or for bathrooms at night. I'm just not sure about this product yet, but it probably takes a bit of getting used to like anything else.

A Little Bit of Everything

Well, my duckies, how did your weekend go?

I was back to painting my mom's hall and second floor yesterday. With the cost of gas and the gas guzzler car I have, I can only afford to go to her house once a week as she lives over 30 miles away. Why did I ever agree to paint her house? Seriously. I'll be glad when this is done. I at least got some color on the second floor this time. Thank goodness. Don't get me wrong I love to paint, but this is just ridiculous. I think it's the color. I just don't like the colors she's picked out together. It's just too much. It was literally giving me vertigo.

Oh, I was on the front page of Etsy this weekend. Thanks, stephaniegibson, for letting me know! It was like all of 10 minutes so it's a good thing she told me. I do believe this is the first time I have been on the front page when it involved a treasury list. Last time was because of the Crest trunk show at the Labs, and the other was Christmas Day last year. Here's a screenshot just because.

See my ring in the top corner?

Btw, Project Runway starts this week! In two days as a matter of fact! Yay! I'm so excited.

Last but not least is my little oyster ring. It was inspired by the Creative Challenge in the Etsy forums. This week's challenge was to create something inspired by something under the sea. My little ring is all copper. The copper oyster has been soldered to the band ring, and then it was accented with white opal bead attached with copper wire. I just love it even though it's a substantial ring. I'm planning on doing a necklace just like it in sterling if the Post Office would quit taking holidays so I could get my solder. lol.