Laundry Bins

A while ago, I decided the reason I don't do laundry on a regular basis is that I don't have laundry sorters near the washer and dryer. If I had a container for each type of load (so I could run that load as soon as the container was full rather as soon as we were completely out of clean {fill in the blank}) as well as a place to fold the laundry, why then I'd be a laundry-doing machine! Honest!

So I started looking online and finally found the answer to all my laundry-avoidance problems:

Perfect!

And then I saw the price:

$87.99

And I needed two of them (or 4 sorters: hot/whites, warm/lights, cold/darks, no fabric softener/towels&such). With S&H, it came to $203.93. For laundry sorters. Um? No!

So after some measuring and planning, a trip to Home Depot, some sawing and drilling and screwing and nailing, another trip to Home Depot, some re-drilling and re-screwing and re-nailing, some more measuring and planning, a trip to JoAnns, some sewing, and about 8 months total(!!), I had my laundry sorters.

At some point, I plan to paint them white and add some oilcloth to the tops so they're easier to keep clean. In the meantime, I got some laundry to go do!

P.S. I had been keeping track of how much my materials were costing me but I lost that little cheatsheet long ago. But I can tell you this much: it was a lot less that $203.93. Plus I got the added satisfaction of making something myself.

Table Cover

I love the carved, rosewood table and buffet my parents gave us when we moved up here. But I often shudder to see what it has to endure during this season of life: sticky fingers poking forks into the carved design, loose lips dribbling yogurt into the various cracks and crevices, booster seats strapped tight onto the chairs, little tykes climbing into and out of those booster seats multiple times a day, tabletop used for eating and coloring and crafting and playing games, table legs bumped into daily by the much-needed vaccuum, etc.

So in an attempt to protect at least a portion of the poor table, I finally cover a vinyl cover sewed up. Look closely and you'll see some messy seams and lumpy threads, but I'm too busy looking at other things these days (3 beautiful girls growing up quickly) to notice the bumps and lumps. And oh, it's so easy to clean! : )

Now I'd like to do something about the chair cushions. The yucky-beige, daily-newly-stained, ripped-from-constant-tugging chair cushions. And maybe figure out a different chair protector under the booster seat than a bright blue bath towel!

Cobbling...

The girls love these shoes. Love them! Love them so much they ripped through the cheap green straps with all their traipsing around as princesses.

Heidi: "Mom, can you please fix this?" (How long before she no longer believes I can fix everything? )

Mom: "Sure, let's go find something fabric..."

Heidi: "Ooh, ooh, this one!" as she pulls out a bright orange with polka dots.

Heidi: "But it also needs something fluffy." (Everything these days needs "something fluffy.")

Mom: "Would this work?" as I find some eyelet remnant, seeing as how I'm currently all out of boas, plumes, or other such fluffiness

Heidi: "Oh yes. That's beauuuuutifullllllll!"

Now off to make the other one match (and reinforce it while I'm at it).

Scenic wall art for Sas

More Saskia stuff. I saw a similar idea on Debbie Travis' Facelift so decided to make this for Saskia's birthday. She: 1) loves nature and sunsets, 2) was jotting down quotes she found in a magazine on our plane trip to Vermont, and 3) is always commenting (i.e. complaining) that her walls are so bare. So I thought this would be a fun gift for her.

I didn't actually make it today, but I did finally "make" a picture of it! : ) Had to do it while they were all up on the wall again -- we're having issues getting them to stick! For the record, a while after adding adhesive pads to the corners instead of the centers of each square, we heard the first one fall off again. -sigh-

Oh, I guess I should mention, the squares are CD covers - the thick ones. I pulled the black CD holder part out, put the picture in the back of the cover, then snapped the CD holder thing back in place. Maybe I should've tried the slim cases.

The quotes (and ideas for layouts) I found at allposters.com under Inspirational Magnets.

Saskia's birthday cake

It's Saskia's 16th birthday today and here's her cake.

Back when we were making the cake for the Exchange Student Picnic, she had seen a birthday cake in my little cake book and commented that she liked it, so that's the one I chose as my inspiration. I know she likes sunsets and I think this cake kind of invokes that feeling...
I used 2 9" rounds - cut the dome off the lower one but left it on the top one, why cut off good cake, right? (Though I wish I could figure out how to bake cakes without them getting such a high dome in the middle... I wonder if those wilton "wrap" things would help...) Then did a crumb coat and covered it with a big bowl. When I went to put the good thick coat of frosting on the top, it pulled the crumb coat off. Aaargh! I wonder if that was because I had covered the cake and so it didn't "dry" right, or if the frosting I was using was too stiff. I ended up adding more milk and then it worked.