Our latest project

Over this past weekend we made the trek up to the folks house for a joint birthday celebration for me and my sister (in law). [Woot! Birthday Princesses!] While we were there I asked Dad to make a Kitchen Helper based on these *FREE* plans from AnaWhite.com. We spent just shy of $45 for the entire thing and I have seen these sell at many other stores (including OneStepAhead.com - I love that store) for a whole lot more. I'm REALLY happy with the results and so is Daddy and most importantly, The Bear! Besides, it was SO much fun to make a project with Dad. He is really great at this stuff and I learn a ton and get to hear cool stories about him as a boy and about his Dad. It's really nice :)

The lumber (1 1x8, 4 1x2s, 1 1x3)

The hardware (2 sizes of screws, 2 sizes of hinges)

I am nothing if not safe.

The teacher and the apprentices.

The finished product.

The Papa and his Bear.

This is how it looks folded. Sweet, huh? :)

Sorry for the break in broadcast

Blargh! Sorry for the huge gap in time from my last post. We had so many leftovers from the lasagna and pizza that we didn't do any meal planning last week except to try and space out the leftovers so we weren't eating the same thing several nights in a row.

On the decorating front, I've finished with 2.5 projects so I thought I'd post some pictures of two of them (you'll have to wait on the third one for a few more days).

This project started out as 2 of these simple birch Bekvam spice racks from Ikea.

And ended up these stained front facing book shelves for K in our living room.
I used a dark brown acrylic paint that I wiped on using paper towels to stain them.
Now before I get hate mail about K using these as shelves to climb out the window
she isn't that much of a climber anyway and secondly it's on the first floor so if she
should manage to get onto the shelves and through the glass, she's only going down
about a foot  and a half (God forbid). I got the idea from this nursery on Ohdeedoh.com.

I stained the shelves to match this rocking chair in K's
room that originally belonged to my Mom and her
sister when they were little. However K already has 2
full bookcases in her bedroom and all of the lower
shelves on our bookcases in the living room are full of
toys so these provide the perfect place to store a few
books that can be rotated out with others from her
collection to keep them fresh.

The other project I finished today was hanging A's
Martin Backpacker guitar in our bedroom. As you
can see he also has a full size guitar on a floor stand
(and two more in cases in the closet.)

Back in IL we had them hung like this in large shadowboxes we made with
my Dad. We'll probably use these again when we're in a house where we
don't mind hanging something so heavy (although I may end up repainting
the boxes before they're hung again. Currently they're red with a black fleece
lining. I think maybe all black? Or leave them red? I guess it will depend on
what the room looks like where they eventually end up.)

In other news, we've been having a visitor to these parts recently.

This cute little fellow comes to our window several times a day.

It might be due to the fact that I leave cans of tuna for him.

But seriously, how could I not? Look at that cute face!

And he doesn't even mind an audience :) I've decided his name is Bob because of
his bobtail. We aren't sure if that's how it's supposed to be or if it was from a fight.

Mid-week project

Hello JAKS Place Blog Readers!

I finished up a project for K's room this afternoon and thought I'd share a few pictures with you. Plus, my girlfriend has been asking to see our house and even though it isn't *totally* finished, I figured I'd tease her with a few shots of K's bedroom and the playroom.

I saw this idea at Knock Off Decor which originally came from Be Sweet. If you want to make one of your own there is a tutorial at Be Sweet. It's pretty self explanatory though, in my opinion.

The cast of characters (and wire cutters for the fake flowers).

This is the finished product. I'm really happy with
how it turned out. I like the colors and how they
look in the room. K likes it and enjoys saying
hello to the bird, butterflies and acorns.

This is how it looks in her bedroom.

I wanted to make my mobile similar to this one that
my sis made because I love it so much. It's
incredibly adorable and I love the flowers and birds
on it.

Here's how it looks in the playroom.

And here's our beautiful turkey saying "cheese!"