Runaway October

Before and After: Craft Room

Aug
2010

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Or the S.M.O.R as I like to call it – The Sewing Machines Operations Room.

Remember this sorry little 11′x11′ room?

Which was later cleaned and somewhat organized to look like this:

Well, it’s kind of finished now. It’s now a very workable space and I can actually complete projects somewhere other than the kitchen table. YAY!

I took at least 100 pictures today, and about 20 a few weeks ago. This room is very very hard to photograph.

I even tried to take a video with my fancy new Flip Video Camcorder from my Prilosec sponsorship, but it eats batteries like no other.

Of course I couldn’t find any batteries to replace them with.

Such is the life of a mom.

The project table is completely handmade by me and my dad. We used plans from Knock Off Wood. Here’s the top and the cubby sides.

I’ll go into it in a little more detail later.

I’ll have to slowly buy or make some pretty baskets on containers to go in here.

Love these stools from Overstock.com

Handmade string balls made by one of the boys.

There was two.

One of them bit the dust, or rather, the dogs water bowl.

The string ball, not the boys.

Well, okay, they usually assault the water bowl at least once a day, but they don’t melt.

Unless you count the dirt that melts off.

I should make some more. String Balls, not boys. Maybe a little girl but that’s a different subject.

Now maybe I can get these bad boys quilted and bound and in use.

And what craft room photo shoot is complete without a picture of a cat.

I used Martha Stewart Hydrangea flat paint for the walls. I also painted the ceiling and all the trim, but can’t find the names of them. They’re the same ones that were recommended on the paint chip palette. No worries about everything matching together. What a smart girl, eh?

I can’t seem to find a decent sample color online, so you’ll just have to squint and imagine you can tell the true color of everything.

I do hope to make some roman blinds or curtains for the windows. And the baskets I mentioned earlier. I definitely need some artwork and other pretties to hang up and keep me happy while I work. I would really really love a stereo or MP3 player of some sort in there too. I work so much better with music.

So, that’s the S.M.O.R.

What do you think?

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Category: Before and After, Crafting, Homemaking, Pictures, Prilosec Official Sponser 3 Comments

Crafty Catchup

By Katie

Aug
2010

I have a really bad habit of doing nothing during the summer. You might have noticed that the heat is a central part of my last couple posts.

It’s really a central part of our lives from Mayish to Augustish. Even in the house it’s just too easy to veg out and keep cool.

BUT! I have done some stuff lately. I swear. I have proof!

I made this clock for my brother a while back, for his birthday.

It’s pretty hard to photograph this, but oh well. I got lucky enough that a local BMX shop gave me the chainring, after I offered to buy one. Funny enough they had a similar clock displayed in their front window.

The tutorial is here. Mine is not nearly as cool, but hey I was working with what I had.

I also made a cover for my sewing machine. I figured that plastic one it came with wasn’t good enough for the new craft room. (More on that soon.) Also, the melted hole in it from the iron didn’t help any.

I just used the dimensions from the old cover, plus seam allowances, and threw together a rectangle with ties on it. I backed it with flannel, because it seemed like the thing to do. Isn’t that fabric gorgeous? I got it on a whim at a local mill end store. Kicking myself for not buying more.

Sewing Machine Cover tutorials:

Sparkle Power! – This is pretty much exactly what I did.
Sew Inspired
Chez Larsson

Last, but not least, a new ironing board cover. I love making these things. It makes me actually want to iron. Yuck.

This is also more fabric I picked up on a whim. This time from IKEA. Their upholstery fabric is the perfect length from regular ironing boards.

I always leave the old covers on, for padding. Sometimes I’ll throw a layer of fleece in between too if I have big enough scraps.

Here are a couple ironing board cover tutorials:

That’s it for now. I hope to have more soon. I ordered some goodies.

What are you working on lately, or do you have any interesting tutorials to share?

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Category: Crafting, Homemaking, Pictures, Tutorial Leave a Comment

How To: Grow a Jicama Vine

By Katie

Aug
2010

Step One: Find a lovely Jicama. One you fully intend on eating. Make sure it’s not irradiated – a Farmer’s Market of some sort is your best bet.

Step Two: Place Jicama on your counter and contemplate what to do with it. For a few weeks. Begin to worry what to do with it when it starts to sprout vines, kinda like potato eyes.

Step Three: Get creeped out when the vines get long enough to reach out and caress you while you’re cooking.

Step Four: Name it. Herbert is what I went with.

Step Five: Find a pot, mine still had some old soil in it. Partially fill pot with cactus soil, after reading on the Internet that Jicama needs really good drainage. Place the Jicama in pot so it’s top is a couple inches down from the rim. Put more cactus soil around the bulb. Realize you don’t have enough cactus soil and top it off with some compost mulch. Leave the bulb sticking out of a soil because you think it’s pretty.

Step Six: Put it in a sunny location and water sparingly. You don’t want the bulb to rot.

Step Seven: Worry when the vines start to dry up and die and notice that it has no real leaves yet. Decide that all the info that you read on the Internet was right and that Jicama is really hard to grow. Give up hope and leave it alone.

Step Eight: Realize that it’s starting to get really nice leaves. Feel your sense of accomplishment swell.

Step Nine: Allow your green thumb to take full credit of your awesome Jicama Vine. Decide you’ll worry about replanting it later, when it’s not so blastedly hot in AZ.

Notice: Jicama is highly toxic in most forms. The leaves and vines especially. I find mixed information on the toxicity of the pods. Apparently they’re fried and eaten in some cultures.

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Category: Gardening, Homemaking, Pictures One Comment

Garden Catchup

By Katie

Jul
2010

Hey guys. Remember me? No? Dangit. I don’t blame you.

I have lots of excuses, but no real reasons. Maybe it’s my short attention span?

Summer is on full blast here in Arizona. When I say full blast I mean you walk out the front door and are literally blasted with Summer Heat. My poor garden has seen better days.

Today

Considering we get to plant sometimes as much as a whole season earlier than other parts of the country, I can’t complain. We ended up with more tomatoes then we knew what to do with. We made many batches of salsa and lots and lots of fresh tomato slices. I even experimented with ketchup, but it turned out way way too sweet and pretty much inedible. Boo.

The boys wanted in on these pictures.

This is one of a few big harvests. We basically ended up with a lot of squash, jalapeños and tomatoes.

Does this look like a zombie version of that guy from VeggieTales to you? Me too!

We also planted ONE “honeydew” plant and ended up with a few good sized melons off of it. It’s still going strong though. It LOVES the heat apparently. It takes up a huge amount of space still. It’s not a honeydew by the way, I’m thinking maybe a Crenshaw or Casaba melon.

Those leaves are about hand sized, for reference. In the bottom right, is my Spanish lavender bush. It seems happy to have a little bit of shade.

The heat is causing the jalapenos to be red and small from the start.

Some straggler tomatoes. About 70% of the cherry tomatoes ripen okay, the others succumb to the sun and shrivel up.

I’d say all in all, the garden was totally worth it. There’s nothing quite like finding your boys nestled in your garden filling up on tomatoes.

Some things I’ll do differently next spring:

Space out the tomatoes a smidgen more.
Cage them immediately, and continue to support them as they grow.
Read up on cucumbers. I think that by the time my pickling cucumbers came up, it was too hot. You can find itty-bitty inch long cumbers one day and the next they’re shriveled and gone.
Plan for sprawl more. The tomatoes overtook the green beans, dill and carrots. The one squash plant took out the lemon thyme, cilantro and most of the spearmint.
Possibly plant a week or two earlier. I don’t have to worry about frost much, but I do have to worry about the sun killing things right as the fruit matures.
Possibly some kind of shade cloth over the whole thing too.

So, that was our garden this year. Still debating on when to rip things out to prepare for the winter garden.

How did yours come along?

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Category: Gardening, Homemaking, Life, Pictures 2 Comments