Mari was a kitten

Mari was a kitten on Halloween. I just wanted her to wear a tutu. One of the great joys of having a baby girl is  dressing her in cute clothes; and there are so many adorable tutus out there. Not wanting to spend $20-40 on a luxury item that she will probably only wear a handful of times, I decided to make her one. The spool of tulle cost $1.99 at an online fabric site. I only used one spool for Mari's 12 month sized tutu, but in the future I will probably use at least two spools to create a fuller effect. I bought a couple colors, included a Tinker Bell green and her cat costume gray. Pink and purple were sold out. As many online tutorials said, it was as easy as tying strips of tulle onto a band of elastic. I love the finished result!

Meow!

We didn't to trick or treating this year, since she is a baby and we had pouring rain all evening! However, we did take Mari to a potluck lunch at Daniel's work where quite a few children showed off their costumes and trick or treated among the desks. Daniel even dressed up! He was Indiana Jones. I'll have to track down a picture, since I didn't take one.

Weekend Work and Cards

Daniel's grandparents came to visit us this weekend! We accomplished more in three days with them here than we would have in 5 weekends without them! We were able to check quite a few items off the "to-do" list including much needed work on the shed, making apple butter, and weeding along the entire back fence. They also mounted speakers outside, so we can hear the radio out there.

My first time making and canning apple butter. It turned out great!

Removing this old clothesline in the shade took some muscle

Making new concrete pavers

Removing broken lamp from front yard

Soon after arriving on Thursday evening Daniel and Grandpap were hard at work on the shed. They dug a trench from the shed to the house to run wires for electricity!

 I love what they did to the inside, hanging tools on the wall- enabling us to walk right in without having to haul out the lawnmower and bikes, but the best part is being able to turn the lights on inside.

Clean, lighted shed

They replaced some rotting boards and re-enforced some loose ones with new nails. We do have to paint the shed soon, to prevent more rapid deterioration. It only had one coat of paint on it anyway. I've been busy trying to decide on a color.
The weather couldn't have been more perfect on Sunday afternoon than the sunny, 60 degrees that it was. Mari played outside on her blanket while Grandma and I weeded and Daniel and Grandpap cleared away debris from behind the shed.

Side of shed - all cleared out!

The back of our yard was overgrown with vines

They poisoned the poison ivy and raked all the leaves and uncovered a ton of concrete blocks back there. The blocks got stacked under the perimeter of the shed. Among the blocks was an old fireplace grate and milk crates of glass insulators. Who throws thrash behind their shed??!! The glass insulators are kind of cool. I am not sure what to do with them, but they are cool. We also got some huge rocks for the hydrangea garden in front of the AC.
My favorite part of the weekend was playing cards in the evening. We usually play 500, but tried pinochle. The first night Grandma and I beat the guys about three times in a row. Something happened after that and for the next few nights we lost every time. Very productive weekend.

Chalkboards

A few weeks ago I discovered chalkboard paint; now I am hooked. I like to paint stuff in general. Cleaning dirty, old furniture and sprucing it up with a fresh coat of paint is so fun and feels wonderfully productive. Kinda like baking bread. Whenever I am bored or feel in a rut, I paint something or bake bread... or exercise. One of the three is sure to improve my mood. Plus, Daniel really likes homemade bread.
So, I was having no luck finding a large, vintage chalkboard (preferably from a historic schoolhouse in New England) for less than $100, when a few results for homemade chalkboards popped up on Google. What a brilliant idea! Having seen a frame that we really liked on a mirror in a restaurant recently, and chalkboard paint being pretty cheap, we decided to try making our own.
As practice, I chalkboard-painted our dishwasher. Our dishwasher is probably from the 90's. It works great since we fixed it, but was ugly, scratched and dented.

I can't believe we lived with this for so long! Terrible!!!

It's still dented, but looks so much better as a chalkboard.

I am hoping Mari will enjoy it, if we don't replace it before she is old enough to draw. We slipped the thin sheet of metal on the front off and I painted it outside with the spray gun, to avoid brush strokes. I had to thin the paint with a little water to get it to go out of the gun, but we normally do that with latex paint.
So, after the dishwasher success, we bought some masonite and decorative molding and got to work. It took a few nights of working on this to finish up. One night we bought everything. The second night Daniel cut the frame. The next day I colored all the leaves and stained the wood.

Then we applied 5 coats of paint. It would have only needed two, except for the brush strokes. I primed the wood with a brush cause I didn't want to go outside and even after intense sanding, could see the brush strokes through the paint. Then I painted too thickly in one spot and it dripped as it dried and I had to sand it and go over it again and then I had extra thinned paint and wanted to use it up. Finally, everything dried and Daniel screwed it all together and hung it on the wall.

Now we have a permanent location for to-do lists. No more scraps of paper full of lists on the fridge and in my pocketbook!

Cabinets III

All done! Actually, it's been done for months, I just haven't taken any pictures. The glass for the upper cabinet doors came from some old storm windows we removed from the tool room. Being inside, we certainly didn't need storm windows there!

I think some bright, cheery curtains would look nice over the kitchen sink, instead of the shades. Maybe a bright blue print... Also on the agenda for the kitchen is a new ceiling light. The one there would look better in a child's bedroom (Mari's room has a fan or we would swap them). Overall, we are very happy with the kitchen right now. My dream kitchen has stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops. Daniel's dream kitchen has an induction range and sliders in the cabinets. However, for now, this kitchen suits us fine.
Something we really enjoy doing together is cooking. It's become a tradition that on our anniversary, instead of going out to eat, we go to the market for ingredients and cook a delicious meal together, appetizers and all. Now that I stay home with Mari, cooking dinner is usually my job, but a couple times a month, Daniel and I will make something together after the baby goes to sleep. The last meal we cooked together was dumplings. They were amazing. Daniel bought me a dumpling press for Christmas and ever since then, we've had lots of pierogies and pot-stickers. Dumpling wrappers are quick, cheap and easy to buy from the Asian market, but the homemade ones tasted out of this world and were totally worth the huge mess. Instead of the typical cabbage and pork filling, we wanted something more Italian. As Daniel made the wrappers (partly following a recipe found online and partly making stuff up), I worked on an artichoke, Parmesan and spinach filling. The end result was so good , I want to remember it forever. Unfortunately, I can't find the pictures of this unforgettable food. Just thinking about it is making me hungry!