Thursday, December 16, 2010

Sneak #4

Now this is it until next week!

anise

Iced Anise Cookies

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Sneak #3

How about some hermits?

hermits

Sour Cherry and Walnut Chocolate Hermits

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Bake-a-Thon Sneak #2

It's hard when all you want to do is anything but study.

So instead I thought I'd sneak another bake-a-thon photo! Unfortunately one person is missing from this shot.

DSC_0107

Monday, December 13, 2010

Bake-a-thon 2010 Preview

went really well! Here's a sneak preview of things to come next week.

cookies

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Excitement Explosion!

This morning my hubs and I trotted over to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. We'd never been to the store before, and we were curious to see what type of things they have.

Guess what?

They have DOORS! Lots and lots of doors (in addition to a lot of other very nice and reasonably priced things. 75% of the stock is from donations)!

door

They had FIVE "Five Panel Ladder Doors" like the one in the DIY Dining Room Table project that I was oogling. These tables were about 80x30.

But it was actually a different door that caught our eye - this door was a little wider (75x35) and there would be no need for a glass top to cover the paneling.. because.. there is no paneling! It's just solid wood through and through.

door3

It's a very heavy door. I have no idea what type of space this door was used to enclose, but I can't imagine having to swing it open every day. Our guess is castle door, and we're sticking to it.

Right now it has a nice distressed look about it. Parts of the wood are chipped and peeling, so it needs to be cleaned off and have the more jagged parts sanded down. I don't know yet if I want to clean it, sand the jagged parts and lacquer it to maintain the distressed look OR clean it, sand the whole thing down and stain it a nice sophisticated mahogany or cherry stain.

door2

What do you think?

I'm also thinking about metal legs from Ikea so that it's not just wood galore.

It's going to be a big table and a big job. I think if it turns out too big for the next place we live I could sell it and make a little bit of profit.

Either way, I'm extraordinarily excited. Hello, winter break project!

Let me know if you have ideas!

Friday, December 10, 2010

My husband thinks I'm crazy... am I?

I'm in the middle of my exam period, and I'm also going through another home furnishing/style renovation craze. I use the term renovation loosely because all I'm really doing is oogling photos of stylish apartments online that I will never have.

Among the things I'm oogling:

Design Sponge's DIY Dining Table
table2
Using a found door (a five panel ladder door), a large piece of glass from an auto repair stoor, table legs from Ikea and neat decorative paper that can be swapped out, this person created a unique, relatively inexpensive table with plenty of room. She claims the glass was about $75, the door $50 and the legs $20. After exams, I am on a mission to find this door. I have no idea where to start and I'm sure I won't find anything cheap in Charlottesville. I guess I haven't learned my lesson yet that DIY projects actually don't save me any money.

diytable

Etsy Pillows, pillows and more pillows

pill3
I had success with the pillows I made a few months ago, and it was a lot of fun. But I learned a few things - linen is a very wrinkly fabric that sucks up all the dog hair in the room. It's also a bit itchy, not like an inviting soft plush pillow. I'd try again but the sewing machine was borrowed, and I have no idea how to make interesting designs yet anyway.
pill2pill1

Silly animal thingsteacup3
I saw this listed as a new item on a blog for a Charlottesville store that I think is fantastic - O'Suzannah. They have adorable, quirky things and great gifts. I showed my husband these teacups when he got home from a business trip, thinking they would make a cute Christmas gift for a friend... he laughed and laughed and then laughed some more. I told him how I saw the teacups on the blog, then found them on Amazon, then went to the store to compare prices. He thought this extraordinary effort for strange little animals inside a teacup was the most hilarious thing he'd ever heard. "That would be annoying almost immediately," said husband. At least I made someone laugh? I guess I'll skip the teacups as a gift idea...
teacup2teacup1