Chef Messy

Cheapo Pottery Barn Wannabe Garage Projects

Today, I'm building stuff.  Stuff that involves saws and paint and cutting galvanized steel with steel clippers.  You had no idea I was such a guy did you.  OK, you probably did.

It all started with this photo that I clipped out of a Pottery Barn Teen catalog.

 

OK, see on the right, that great grid system above the desk?  These are what Pottery Barn calls Style Tiles.  You can mix and match them in any format you like, with whatever materials you prefer.  Corkboard, metallic board, chalkboard, whatever.  There is an empty wall above Matthew's dresser, and I have been trying for over a year to figure out just what to put there, and I think Style Tiles are just the thing.  He's starting Kindergarten this fall, and this would be a great way to keep him organized, put up his chore lists, display his artwork, put up pictures of his friends, etc.

Here's a closer look...

 

And they have girl versions, too.

 

Cute, huh?  Here's the thing, though.  If I go out and buy a 3x3 set of Style Tiles from Pottery Barn Teen, it's going to cost me $378 to get the set that I want.  Even if you go with their premade sets, you won't pay less than $299.  I'm looking at this thing and thinking "I can do better than that."  We recently had this sortof tactless visitor who wandered around my house looking at my decorating and exclaiming that "Wow, we must be rolling in the dough these days."  Hmm, if only that were true.  Rolling in money.  That is funny.  But, nope.  I just like the challenge of taking an expensive idea and doing it as cheaply as I can.  You have to be willing to improvise, and you have to be willing to get your hands dirty, but there's a reason the DIY movement has such a following.  You'd be amazed the things you can put together yourself for a fraction of what it would cost to buy it.  This is definitely one of those projects.

 

It might not be as absolutely perfect and pretty as the Pottery Barn version, but so far it's coming along quite well, especially considering that the final result is going to cost SO much less than what's in the catalog.

So, I had to buy:

5 squares of thick corkboard
2 sheets of galvanized steel
1 sheet of pegboard
1 scrap of plywood
Adhesive to glue it all on to the backer board

That came to about $45, and I had a Lowe's coupon, so I ended up paying $35.  All of the above were cut down to size for free by my friendly Lowe's sawing guy.

And I already had:

Fabric scraps to cover three of the corkboards.  (Don't you love that car print?  I'll have to get a closer shot when I get this thing all sealed together.  It was a gift from a friend, and I've been saving it for a while, trying to find the perfect thing to do with it.  I wish I knew who designed it because I'd love to get more of it!)
Chalkboard Paint
White Paint
Thumbtacks to attach the fabric
Tools (I live in the mecca of tools.  If I don't have it, my mom and dad do!)

I still need 2 big strips of molding for the frame, but that shouldn't cost me more than $15.

So, I now have a $300+ set of style tiles for around $50.  Not too shabby.  I'll post again once the paint dries and I get it glued together and attached to the wall.

Conversations with Matthew, who is rather perplexed by Michael Jackson

"So, does everyone know that person is a girl?"

"No, everyone knows he's a boy."

"But how do they know he's a boy?"

"Because he's very famous, and everyone just...um...knows he's a boy."

"But all his pictures look like a girl."

"Well, yeah, sometimes.  But he's a boy."

"And if he's a boy, how come he looks like he has lipstick on?"

"Um, I don't know, some boys just like to look like that."

".....But that's stupid."

"Well, I know, but I guess he just likes to be different."

"And some people like to be weirdos."

"Sure.  Some people like to be weirdos.  If you were as famous as Michael Jackson, you could be a weirdo, too."

"So, if he's a boy, how come he talks like a girl?"

"Well, that's just how his voice is."

"....Are you SURE he's a boy?"

"Yep, see, look at that kid singing right there in the middle.  That's him when he was little, and he looks like a boy there, right?"

"Yeah, I guess he must have been a boy when he was little.  But, hey, how come he had such huge hair?"

".................How come you ask so many questions?"

Because we can't just have nakey babies running around everywhere...

The nice thing about scheduling a C-Section is that, well, it's scheduled.  Unless something changes or Baby P. decides to make an early appearance, October 15 is the magic day, which leaves me just a little more than three months before this baby shows up.  Even though the last three months are the slowest and most miserable, I'm glad I've got them because I've done hardly anything to prepare for a baby!  Except sewing.  That's the important thing, right?  If the baby has cute jammies, it hardly matters that he doesn't have a permanent place to sleep, does it?

 

I LOVE this pattern.  This is the baby kimono pj set from Amy Butler's Little Stitches book, size 0 (which will probably be too big for about two weeks, until Baby P. morphs from size 0 to size 9, which is pretty much what Matthew did).  It barely took an afternoon to make these.  I think I'll make about fifteen more sets, starting with these prints...

 

And when I finish that, maybe...just maybe...I'll get the nursery together.

Hope your 4th didn't involve a flood.

So, did anyone else have a very soggy 4th of July?  It didn't matter.  Ours was great.  Up in Logan, they do the fireworks a day earlier than most other places.  So, if we take a trip up to see Ryan's family, we get to see fireworks twice!  This year, Pocatello got majorly pelted by hail about an hour before the show was set to start.  Crops were ruined.  A fair amount of sound equipment was destroyed.  Flowers were squashed.  Basements flooded.  And I assume that everyone at the fairgrounds was pretty much sopping wet.  We passed some people about a block from our house trying to get shelter under a tree, and I seriously thought about inviting them over.  At the time I decided it would be better not to invite random strangers into my house without knowing them at all, but I'm still feeling guilty about it.  Anyway, fortunately for us, we live a block from the fairgrounds, so we don't have to deal with parking or weather, so we were happy when the weather cleared up and the fireworks went on as planned.  It is seriously nice to get the show from your porch!  I didn't bother to take any photos.  My fireworks photos are rarely worth the effort.

Oh, but I did make a shirt.  Took about ten minutes.  Anyone else notice that five-year-old boys frequently make scowly faces when you point a camera in their direction?

 

Hey, that's better.  Sortof.

We've got babies.

Baby eagles, that is.  Mom and Dad were nowhere to be found (out fishing?), but all three babies are out of the nest.  One of them is shy.  That, or he's the only one that's good at flying yet.  But the other two were content to sit in the tree and make grouchy faces at us until we drove off.

 

 

 

They're sortof awkward, moody little adolescents, I have to say.  But it's nice to see they are all doing well so far.

Work in Progress

Ryan took Matthew to work today, which means that while Ryan works on divorce case paperwork, Matthew is meanwhile running around Neeley completely unsupervised, getting filthy dirty in mud puddles, and snuggling the barn cat so much that he will surely come home with hives.  The important thing, though, is that Matthew is outside having a ball, and today I have the whole house to myself.  It's so quiet around here that I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.  So, it's a good time to get some work done on some unfinished projects that have been lurking in my closet for a long, long time.

 

This baby quilt is not for me or Baby P.  This one is for a friend.  It was supposed to be for her first baby about two years ago.  Now, it will have to do for her second son.  The main thing is to just get it done, so that it will stop sitting on the shelf and tormenting me.  "Hey, Kim.  Hey.  Pssst....  Are you ever, ever going to finish me?"  I can't ignore it forever.  It lacks only some basic stitching and the binding, but the finishing is always the hardest part for me.

And because I'm a complete glutton for punishment, I'm also working on this:

In which we see old landmarks that somehow avoided getting blown up

Over the weekend, we drove out to Aberdeen to hang out with my Grandparents.  The town celebrates "Aberdeen Days" every year, so we went out to see the parade and the fish fry and the whole shebang.  A trip from Pocatello to Aberdeen would only be about ten miles as the crow flies, but since we aren't crows, we have to drive around the American Falls Reservoir to get there.

And with the recent rain, the reservoir is about as full as I have ever seen it!

 

There's sortof a funny story behind this local landmark.  When they stopped up the Snake River back in the twenties, it left three-fourths of the original town underwater.  Even now, when the water gets low enough, you can still go out and see the ruins of the old buildings.  This old grain tower is the lone survivor.  Supposedly they tried to blow him up, but he wouldn't blow.  So, he still stands there in the middle of the lake, measuring the water line for us.  I'm sure they could probably get rid of it now, but it's been there so long that I think everyone would miss it.  Outsiders call it an eyesore, but those of us who grew up with it still have a fond spot in our hearts for the old geezer.

 

Here's the view from the other side.  There is a whole lotta water coming through right now.  Anyone want to go for a swim?  You wouldn't be the first crazy and/or dead person to attempt it.

 

There is really only one good reason to go to the Aberdeen Days Parade.  Just a hint, it isn't the Aberdeen cheerleaders uniforms.  It isn't the Halloween-sized mass of candy that you can collect, either, though Matthew would say otherwise.

The best reason to go is that Jeff Driscoll buzzes the town every year at 1 p.m. with his WWII-era P-51.  It's not every day that you can see these up in the air.  Supposedly, there aren't many of these left in the world, and there are even fewer that are still flown.  This one happens to be the 13th nicest P-51 in existence.

 

It is loud, and it is fast, and Jeff likes to fly it just low enough to scrape the tops of the trees.  (I guess he takes after his relative "Killer Driscoll," who got his nickname by flying low enough to scrape the tops of the cows.)  Definitely worth a drive around the lake.

Facebook Snark

I joined Facebook a few months ago.  Several of my siblings and friends don't blog, so it was a good way to keep track of a handful of people that I didn't want to lose track of.  I can't decide, though, if I really love Facebook or if I hate it.  Here is my random I Love Facebook/I Hate Facebook list, which probably won't make sense unless you're on it.

Love:  Getting in touch with people that I lost contact with years ago.

Hate: Getting in touch with people that I lost contact with years ago.

Love: It's nice to know what the teenage crowd is up to, since they don't communicate unless it involves Facebook or texting.  I don't do texting.

Hate: On Facebook, it seems the entire teenage crowd is bipolar.

Love: Mafia Wars

Hate: Please stop sending me "hugs," and please stop poking me.

Love: Nice little updates on what my friends and family are up to.  Most of these are genuinely interesting to me.  I actually really like seeing your vacation photos, baby pics, and random thoughts on life.

Hate: I do not care which Twilight character you are, or how long you would survive in a horror film, or what your superpower is, or what color your aura is, or which celebrity would play you in a movie about your life.  If you are going to take quizzes all day, that's fine.  But why does Facebook have to post the results of every single one?

Love: Being able to see my friends' photos.

Hate: Friends being able to post and tag photos of me, no matter how old or ugly.  (Please stop tagging my Jr. High photos.  I beg of you.)

Love: Updates on bands I like.

Hate: Updates from people who only seem to be able to talk about their kid's poo, ear infections, runny noses, crying children, and medical issues.

Love: On Facebook, everyone remembers your birthday.

Hate: Getting "gifts" every ten minutes.  I do not need another stinking virtual teddy bear.

Hate: Trying to come up with halfway interesting Facebook updates.  Yo, peeps, my life is mostly boring.

Hate: People who keep trying to friend you after you have "ignored" them several times.

Hate: Being "friended" by my parents' neighbors.

Hate: If I haven't talked to you in 18 years, and we weren't really friends in the first place, I probably don't really want to chat with you.

Hate: People who leave messages asking you questions that are answered obviously on your profile page.  "Hey!  Are you married now?"  "Hey, do you have kids?"  Ehm, did you not even see my profile photo?

Hate: Some people are fun to see again on Facebook.  Some Facebook people are fun to see again in person.  Some people are better to keep just as Facebook friends.  These same people always seem to be the ones saying, "Hey, we should get together!"  Ehm, no.

Really, really, really hate: Ex-boyfriend friend requests.  Dear ex-boyfriend, I don't believe either my husband or your wife would appreciate us rekindling the friendship, do you??  Seriously???  Decline.  Decline, decline, decline.

How about you?  Love it or hate it??

Chef Messy and Her Granny Hobbies

OK, so I've been working on cross-stitching Matthew a Christmas stocking on and off for about two years (to go with a family set, of which only one other is finished), and it is FINALLY done.  Hooray!  Want to see?

 

Cross-stitching is sortof a granny hobby, and it is absolutely the slowest way possible to get something done, but I like it anyway.  There's something kindof cool about seeing counted cross-stitch come together, like watching a picture come together pixel by pixel.

But as pixel by pixel goes, it does take forever.  Just for scale, this is about what you are dealing with.  In a square a little less than an inch wide, there are a hundred stitches.  Here's what a 100-stitch square looks like:

 

So, that is a LOT of stitching, and that is why you won't find cross-stitching in any of the "Last Minute Gifts" book series.  But, if you are looking for a bang-for-your-buck hobby, you can't beat it.  I think this kit cost me around $16 when I got it, so when you divide that by the number of hours you are going to spend on it, I calculate that it is going to cost you something like .00005 cents an hour to make a stocking like this one.  (OK, I just totally made that statistic up.)  And then you can feel extra proud of yourself when you finally finish it.  Several years later.

This is also not the hobby you want to pick up if you are worried about your blog getting boring.  Cross-stitching makes for a very, very boring blog.  But, I like it anyway.  Well, two down, two to go.  Should I tackle mine next, or pick one out for Baby P.?  Or should I move on to something with a little more instant gratification?  Like knitting a giant sweater?  Right.  Like I ever seem to be able to get that done...

RAWR means i love you in dinosaur

So, I stayed up until 3 a.m. last night making a little gift for my brother and his girlfriend, who also both just had birthdays.  Have you tried freezer paper stenciling?  It's so fun!

Actually, this one wasn't so fun.  This one took me forever.  Cutting stencils with a junky knife takes all the fun out of it.  Not much you can do about it at 3 a.m., though, so press on, press on...

 

(Logan has this thing with pirates.  I can't remember where I saw the idea for this, but it was probably Threadless Tees.  They always seem to be sold out of everything funny, though.)

This one, on the other hand, was really fun.

  

Here's a closeup.  It's actually a combination of stencils (the top part) and alphabet stamps (the small letters).  Stampin' Up is a great source for alphabet stamps.  I've had this set for years and have used them for all sorts of things. 

I can't remember where I heard the slogan, but I thought it was funny, so I drew up this design myself.  Matthew is bugging me to make one for him that says "Woof means I love you in dog."  That kid loves his dogs.

By the way, how do you avoid getting those fuzzy edges when you pull your stencil away.  Anyone know?

I'm Old

So, I turned 30 yesterday.  Ryan likes to make a big hoohah every year because, for one day, I am two years older than him.  (His birthday is the 25th, making him exactly one year and one day younger than I am--that's right, I'm a big cradle robber, and now officially old enough to be considered a "cougar.")  As of today, I am 30, and he is 29, and I am going to spend the next year hearing about how I am an entire decade older than him.  Hmm....lawyers and their maths.  I say it's just good that he knows who is in charge.

So, really, I have no problem turning 30.  I see it as good riddance to my 20's.  Most of the silly things I have done in life happened in my 20's, so it's good to move on to a new older and wiser decade.  Right.  That's what we'll say for now.

And I had a good birthday.  I had originally hoped to do something really exciting.  My sister-in-law went on this crazy twenty-mile river hike for her 30th birthday, and I always thought that was so cool.  And I had all these ideas.  But the reality is that I am 6-plus months pregnant, which means most exciting things are out of the question, and that the funds for said exciting things have been diverted to the lovely doctor who is going to deliver this baby.  Happy birthday to me.  I get a baby.  It's a good present.

Anyway, my family threw me and Ryan a nice little barbecue, and that made the day exciting enough.

 

Yes, of course they included black balloons.  And accessories.

 

Ryan will kill me for putting this picture on the web.  Haha.  Happy birthday, princess.  You're old, too.

 

Um, I don't think there are 29 or 30 candles on this cake.

 

I think this is the cutest photo ever.  I just love how Katrina looks at Logan.  They are so cheesy, but we love them for it.  Logan is always good to take requests, and he has good taste in music, so whether it's Ben Harper or Red Hot Chili Peppers or Eve 6, he can probably play it.  (Am I showing my age?)

Maggie got invited to the party on the condition that she not beg the guests for leftover hamburgers, but we figured out the most likely reason why she loves my mom best.

 

And Matthew spent most of the party doing what Matthew usually does: talking Transformers with anyone who will talk Transformers with him.  This list is getting smaller by the day, but Grandpa will always oblige him.

 

And then we spent the rest of the evening playing guitar hero, where I showed off my mad drumming skills, Logan proved that he's better off singing Ben Harper than FooFighters, and Ryan proved that he will never play any musical instrument.  Good times.

Oh yes, and there was traditional birthday cake at midnight.  We actually made it to midnight in our own time zone this year.  (About half of the time it's more like midnight in Costa Rica.)  Two birthdays at the same time.  I love it.

 

P.S.  Best present of the day?  My funny Grandma that has alzheimers brought me a Matthew-sized basketball outfit and a Feliz Cumpleanos for your fifth birthday card.  The other silver lining on the alzheimer's cloud--She doesn't remember how many times in one evening she has already told me how I'm just so beautiful while I'm pregnant.  :)

Perfect Pie Crust

Pssst.....You want to know the secret ingredient for perfect pie crust?  You might be a bit scandalized.

 

You ready?  Really?  Are you sure?

Shhh.....it's Vodka!

If you replace half of your water (your cooking water, silly, not your drinking water) with the secret ingredient, you will never have overly-chewy pie crust again.  Who knew?

This message brought to you by the Kendell women, one of whom really wishes we would stop calling it "Vodka Pie."