Boat Beds are done... almost!

We set them up in Mari's room. The painting and varnishing took longer than expected, with the wait times for drying and all that. Daniel bought some frog tape from Home Depot, which is how to got the blue stripes so straight, and it was amazing! We have tried other types of painters tape and masking tape and always had trouble with paint bleeding under. Not so with frogtape! I enjoyed using it so much that today I used it painting the bathroom ceilings.










So, we still need to made headboards and railings for the boat bed, but we are not really sure how we want to make them yet, and they can easily be added in Mari's room, so there is no rush. We need to make a ladder too, but might hold off on installing that to save worry about her falling off.
I've enjoyed looking for buoys and other decor online. We found some small, yellow ones at Overtons that are only $13 apiece.
More to come on the bed next week!

Oatmeal date cake

I was listening to a mystery book the other day in which they mention eating some kind of oatmeal date bars. That made me crave oatmeal date bars, and I immediately looked up a recipe. Surprisingly, I had dates on hand. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough of the right ingrediants for any recipe that I found, so I looked at several different ones and created my own version to make these fabulous date bars. Daniel likes them too and said he was surprised at how good they turned out, which made me happy because he doesn't care for dates or oatmeal very much. I don't want to forget what I did, so we can have these again in the future.

OATMEAL DATE BARS

Food Process:
2 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar
Add:
1 stick cold butter
1/2 cup canola oil

Preheat oven to 350F.
Butter a 9 in square pan. 
Press 2/3 of the oat mixture into the pan.

In a pot over low heat, simmer 1 package of chopped dates (I don't know how many cups that is... maybe 1.5), 1/2 cup water, 1/4 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla until most of the water is absorbed. Took me about 10 minutes.

Pour date mixture into pan. Top with remaining oat mixture and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Daniel said the flavor of this reminds him of pecan pie. I have never eaten pecan pie, so I'm not sure...
We have been keeping these in the refrigerator and eating them cold. A very large glass of cold milk is a necessary accompaniment.

The table is in the kitchen

Our table is done and set up! Our chairs are getting closer to being done! So much sanding and painting later...
I hate sanding. Mostly because of how uncomfortable I am wearing the face mask. I hate the way sanding dust covers EVERYTHING. The chairs took two days of sanding. Some was done with the orbital sander, but most by the strength of my own hands, cause of all the curves. I sanded until I couldn't take anymore, and felt like begging Daniel to tell me that it was good enough. Looking back, now that the chairs are stained, I kind of think I should have done a little more sanding around the spindles because I didn't get all the old stain off, but am trying to embrace the rustic "farm table" look of imperfection.
Same embracing of rusticness goes for the table. I thought I sanded the 3rd coat of Verathane with 400 paper, but based on the scratches that I see now that I have applied the final coat, I must have used 320 or 220. I kind of is driving me crazy, especially since the 3rd coat was as perfectly smooth as glass and looked 100% fabulous. I also used a different, larger, more worn brush for the final coat, thinking it would save a little time, but it made brush strokes. You can't really tell unless the light is shining on the table and you tilt your head sideways. I'm done with the table top though. Someday way down the road when I am bored, I will take it out to the tool room, sand it, and apply another coat of Verathane.
So, once the sanding was done, I stained the seats of the chairs with dark walnut stain and applied the varnish.
The next step after the seats dried was taping them, so the paint wouldn't get on that part. I spent most of Friday morning taping the seats. Daniel was home from work with a cold, and he watched Mari practically all day, so I  could devote uninterrupted hours to finishing these chairs.

I tried Kilz oil based primer in an aerosol can. I wanted to spray the primer because of all the nooks and spindles, and figured paying a few dollars for a can was worth the time and trouble of cleaning oil based primer out of the spray gun. I sprayed the paint with the spray gun, cause that it not oil based.We chose black paint (Valspar Lincoln Cabin black). Spraying two coats on all the chairs and table legs only took 1.5 hours.

Other thoughts on paint: I noticed Lowes and Home Depot sell paint and primer in one unless otherwise specified. That is so annoying to me, since it isn't the same as using a stain blocking oil based primer, and if I'm using primer anyway, I don't want to pay 40% more (or however much more they charge) for paint that will apply a little thicker. That's really all the paint and primer does. Here is a brief summary of the combo paint: Roomations.com
However, I bought the paint & primer Valspar paint (1 qt. was $20), and I really like how it went on. The base of the table was hand painted, and one coat covered marvelously well despite the white primer underneath. I applied two coats, just for good measure. I also used an expensive Purdy brush, but this was the first time I've ever painted anything and not had any brush strokes show up.

Finished chair!

The color is a little funny in this picture. In real life it don't look so shiny and blue.

Painted and drying - this is a bit more true to real life color

Daniel took apart our old table to store in the attic. I felt a little teary to see it taken apart, since we've been using it ever since we were married. I'm looking forward to when we have room to use it again, because right now I am a little hesitant to let Mari do anything off the new table, since it's so new... I'm sure that feeling won't last long.

Marbles

I made good cookies yesterday and thought you (especially Mom) might want the recipe. It's a Mrs. Fields recipe from an old book that I have.Very easy and a little different from the ordinary standbys that we usually make (chocolate chip, sugar, peanut butter, molasses, chocolate crinkle, and snicker doodles).

Makes about 2 1/2 dozen

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar (I used dark brown cause it's all we had)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 stick softened butter
1 large egg
4 ounces sour cream (1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 ounces (1 cup) chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300F.
Combine first three dry ingrediants and set aside.
Cream sugars and butter. Add egg, sour cream and vanilla and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.
Add flour. Do not over mix.
Melt chips in the microwave. Pour over cookie batter. Using a spatula or wooden spoon, lightly fold in the melted chocolate to create a swirled, marbleized pattern.
Drop by rounded tablespoons, 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 20 minutes. Do not brown.

I think they are best right out of the oven. Otherwise, we like to heat them up in the microwave for a few seconds. These cookies are very good for my health right now, because they cause me to drink lots of milk, and the baby needs calcium. =-)

Girl blankets for a boy

This weekend I tried dying clothes at home! I read online somewhere about how easy dying clothing in the washing machine is, so that was my original plan. Once I read the RIT dye package, I decided the stovetop method would probably work better, because even though our HE washer has a hot setting, I was unsure about putting salt in my machine.

Getting ready

Overall, I just followed the directions on the package of navy blue dye, pre-dissolving the dye in 2 cups of hot water and adding a cup of salt (I used canning salt and the kitchen smelled like canning pickles), simmering the clothes for 30 minutes in 2 gallons of water while stirring constantly, and then rinsing the clothes in warm water until the water ran clear. Rinsing took just as long as simmering. Once that was finished, I stuck them in the washing machine for 2 cycles. The bathtub sustained some color damage, but nothing a little bleach couldn't handle. On the plus side, our bathtub has never been so clean!

I dyed a bright red maternity sweater and 2 pink "Swaddle me" blankets from the salvation army. The sweater, I only wore a couple times because I don't look very good in red. Hopefully, the weather will get chilly enough by the end of October for me to break out the winter maternity clothes, now that this sweater is a more appealing color. The pink blankets, I picked up recently, being too good a deal to pass up at 99 cents apiece. Unlike Daniel, I am hopeless at swaddling with a real blanket, so these are awesome.

After

Unfortunately, I didn't take any before pictures, but I am so happy with how the blankets turned out! The white and dark polka dots showed through on one blanket, but that's OK. I might sew some yellow stars on the plain blanket if I get bored this week.
The navy blue dye turned my bright red sweater into a nice maroon color. It's a very soft sweater, so I am hoping for a chance to wear it! After so many months, most of my summer maternity clothes have lost their appeal.

After

This was a fun project. Not as fun as tie dying was as a kid, but almost. I would be up for doing it again.
By the way, the dye was half the price at Michael's than it was at Joann's, and that is without coupons.

Kitchen table and chairs

     We bought a kitchen table and 4 chairs off craigslist a couple weeks ago. Our chairs are upholstered in cream colored fabric and are not holding up to Mari very well. I wouldn't mind the white, and would actually prefer it, if we could easily  wash the covers. Our slip-covered white armchair has turned out to be fantastic and still looks as good as new after I wash it with a little bleach. Alas, the kitchen chair cushions are attached with dozens of staples. I'm ready for some easily-wipable wooden chairs now. 
     I tried really hard not to get excited about this table and chairs when I saw them online. The guy was only asking $50 and the solid wood table is really pretty. After some e-mailing we arranged to pick up the set later that day. Turns out, a dog has chewed many of the chair legs and they are uncomfortable, at least when compared to our plush, cushy, rolling chairs, but when the guy lowered the price to $30, I couldn't say no. We figured they would need to be refinished anyway because of the color, and most of the chew marks are superficial.

     Our current table is very functional and we've been extremely happy with it. It's some kind of laminated particle board - virtually indestructible. The only downside to this table is that it doesn't look very nice without a tablecloth on it. Still, we want to keep it for a craft/school table. Someday, if we have a dining room and eat in kitchen, two tables with be handy. In the meantime, two tables and eight chairs won't fit in our dining room, so Daniel took the legs off the new one and is storing it in the shed until I can start working on it.

One week later:
I started refinishing our kitchen table! I had been waiting for the perfect, cool evening to do it. Daytime weather is too hot and humid and Daniel and I cleaned the tool room, so I didn't want to sand in there.
The finish was very easy to sand off. It took about 1.5 hours with 60 grit sandpaper and the orbital sander to get most off. By then the sun had set and I had to quit. The table is so heavy that Daniel moved it in and outside for me. I'm impressed he could manage it alone.

Early the next morning I spent another hour sanding with 120 sandpaper. After that I switched to sanding by hand with 220. Finally, an hour after that, I gave it a final sanding with 400 and cleaned the dust off.
Daniel moved it inside and I began staining using leftover Dark Walnut colored stain. The color is a little darker than we originally wanted... It looked much lighter on the underside section of the table that we tested. Oh well... in general, I'm really happy with it.

Close up

The table saw makes a great work surface

Another view

Every day for the past four days I've been giving it a very light sanding and applying a coat of Verathane. So, the top is done! Now we need to pick out a paint color for the legs and chairs. We'll probably go with a very dark blue or green, like they already are. We decided that stripping all the paint off the chairs and table would be WAY too much work, so I'm just going to sand off the teeth marks and rough up the paint enough to re-paint them.

My goal is to have this done by the time our new baby is born. Hopefully, I'll get on a roll and finish them this month. The weather needs to cooperate for that though. 







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Sneak Peak at Mari's Birthday Present

Mari loves accessories. She will keep sunglasses on for hours. She likes to wear tons of jewelry, play with hats, socks, and anything else that she can get to stay on her head or around her arms. So, Daniel and I want to give her some dress-up clothes for her birthday. Given her love for "capes" (blankets draped around her shoulders), I thought it would be fun to sew her a real cape. Even though she doesn't turn 2 until November, I wanted to sew it now, in case I don't feel up to it later. Yesterday, I went to the fabric store and picked out the pinkest fabric there. Originally, I was going make my own pattern, but McCall's patterns were on sale for $1.99, so I bought one of those too.

Since Daniel stayed home with Mari, I enjoyed taking my time choosing fabric and browsing the fall decorations. With 20 people in line at the cutting counter, it's a good thing I wasn't in a hurry! Deciding whether or not to make it a pink cape was tough because they had this sparkly, navy fabric that would have made a really great magicians cape. The green and purple fabric was really nice too. In the end, I just couldn't make up my mind, and I was afraid Daniel would think I was never coming home, so I went with my original idea and bought pink.

This picture shows the sparkles!

This project was definitely my speed. The pattern was super easy and it took about 2 hours to make. We are not going to use grommets and ties, because our grommet maker is rather large, and Mari wouldn't be able to put it on by herself. We'll figure something out with velcro, but I still need to buy that, so it's not officially done yet. Now that it is made, I with there was some kind of collar or hood at the neck. Maybe next time I'll modify that...

Almost done!

The length is long for Mari. It'll probably touch the floor. I haven't tried it on her yet because I don't want her to see it. Even if it trails along a bit, she'll grow into it.

Michael's had some dress up clothes on a major clearance sale over the weekend, and I picked up come pink slipper-style dress up shoes to go with this.

I'm so eager for her birthday in November!