The 'make' list

I make a lot of lists. I'm type A enough that checking things off a list is a good feeling. I totally add things to lists just to check them off. (Did I just admit that?)

So, it's no surprise that I share a lot of lists on the blog. Monthly goal lists. The house list.

Here's another list to add to my list collection. The 'make' list. It's been around since the start of the year, begging me to get started. I alluded to it in my goals for 2011. I wanted to make a list of items I want to make - particularly things that I'd like to make for Ryan and I that I never get around to.

So far, I've only completed one item, and then I added the Nook case to the list, since you know I like to check things off. These are items I'd like to try to make for myself and others.

Christmas projects:
Quilt and pillows for our bed
Handmade stockings

Over-the-door card holder

Fabric advent calendar with pockets
Christmas pennant quilt

Quilted tree skirt

Gifts for me and/or others:
Felted wool mittens
Straight iron carrier
Etched glass Pyrex dish
Gym bag
Kindle pocket
Yoga mat carrier
Crochet blanket
Casserole carrier and pot holders
Apron
Shopping bags
Skirt
Rug pillows
Dress
Mixer and toaster cover
Cricut carrier/ dust cover
Button art
Hoop art
Applique art
Word blocks
PJ Pants

There are three things I hope to accomplish by having this list and making things from it:

1. I have a variety of Christmas projects that I want to make. I've even purchased some of the supplies. But, the holiday season is so busy that I usually don't get much finished. Then the holidays are over and I'm in no mood to do it A handful of larger Christmas projects are on this list. I'd really like to have several of them completed by November this year.

2. There are lots of small, simple projects that I find on the Internet and want to try. But, most of them never happen. I hope this list will help me organize these projects and make time to try them. If there's something new I'd like to add, I'll add it. 

3. When I make a project, it's undeniable easier to make it a second time. At the same time, I usually have friends or family who could use and would like items I make. So, I'm going to attempt to make duplicates of projects I work on to give as gifts this year and next Christmas.

What I don't expect is to make everything on this list. I'm not stupid or impractical. But, I hope that having the ideas there will give me some direction. And I'd really like to try to make something every month. With that said, it's meant to be fun and I won't be beating myself up over the list.

So, what do you think? Do you have a make list?

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Renovation progress report - week 29

Remember that beautiful hexagon tile floor I've been gabbing about for the past 2 weeks?

No? Where have you been?

Well, go check out all the dirty details at my guest post on Remodelaholic. I'm super excited to be guest posting again and thankful for the opportunity.

The post walks through the process step-by-step and gives a few of the tips we learned in the process. Our hope is that you are able to get through the process of laying hexagon tile floors without a single moment curled in the fetal position.

Besides loving our new tile floors, I've also been in a painting frenzy. I gave myself a little goal to paint the kitchen, dining room, upstairs hall and bathroom within the next few weeks since Ryan is traveling. Ideally, I'd like to also finish with the entry ceiling and repaint the front bedroom since I'm not thrilled with the color. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. ;)

This week, I finished the kitchen walls and ceiling and got a start on the dining room. These are the two largest of the rooms I need to finish, so I'm pleased. If I'd have had a little more time, I think I could have finished the dining room.

Oh well, patience is a virtue, right?

First up, the dining room:

Do you know how long it took to clean and prime the woodwork in the dining room?

Too long. Far too long. About three hours more than I predicted. I'm blaming the horribly out-of-focus photo on the hours of prep work and the oil-based primer. But it's all I got so you get the gist. And, it shows that the white trim brightens up the room quite nicely. I'm going backwards from my normal process and painting the trim first, at the recommendation of Sara at Russet Street Reno. It's going quite well.

(My poor father is going to be very disappointed that his hopes for non-painted woodwork have been dashed.)

And, the kitchen...

The kitchen has no trim right now, so it went really quickly. I'm really pleased with the kitchen paint color.

It's the same color as our current kitchen - Silver Sage by RH color matched to Behr. I considered changing it up for about a minute, but I really love this color and think it's perfect in the kitchen. It's really a lovely color, although this picture is at 9:30 at night, so it's not perfect.

I also decided this week that I'm never going to live in a home with textured walls again. Smooth walls are the bomb. The paint goes on so easily. They also take about half the paint of our current plaster walls, so that's pretty sweet.

I've updated the house list for your reading enjoyment.

What do you think?

And, please don't forget to check out my post over at Remodelaholic.

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Look! A sleeve for my Nook!

My new e-reader is treating me well, friends. And it makes me feel like rhyming. A book! A  book on my Nook! Look!

(You can ignore me. I may have been up until 12:30 last night finishing the book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on my e-reader.)

(Which, by the way, is a crazy book. Good. But crazy. And graphic. Have you read it?)

Because I'm still in my height of glory about my new Barnes & Noble Nook that I won, here's another e-reader post for you.

I knew I wanted some sort of protection from scratches and dust to keep from destroying my new reader when it's traveling in my purse. Unfortunately, my choice from B&N was $125. What can I say? I have good taste and I like the Kate Spade cover best.

Instead of settling for a different case and forking over $30 or $40, I figured I'd dig into my fabric stash and try to make something on my own.

I put together a really simple pocket for my Nook in some coordinating fabrics I had in my stash.

It's the very last of my pretty paisley fabric. I've made two lunch bags and this case from it. I'll miss you, old friend.

I added a pocket to the front and a Velcro closure. I used fleece interfacing for a little padding.

I think I'm going to try a flap front for the next one that I can open like a book. I'll let you know how that goes. Until then, I'll be using this to carry books in my Nook. Look!

While I think this is pretty self-explanatory and it's a simple project, I'll be making another one for a friend soon and would be happy to post a step-by-step tutorial for it in the future.  Let me know if this would be helpful.

What do you think?

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I should buy a lottery ticket

Do you ever have the feeling that luck is you on your side?

Well, let's just say that the last few days have been lucky for Mrs. NewlyWoodwards.

It all began on Friday afternoon when I won a B&N Nook e-reader in a work drawing. I've been lusting over the Nook for months and I was really hoping I would win. That baby is awesome.

I think I thought I was on Price is Right for a moment after winning and promptly made a fool out of myself in front of 200-or-so coworkers. (Totally worth it. I'm still smiling just thinking about it.)

Then, everything just seemed to go my way on Saturday, too:

• I went to buy paint at Home Depot and there was a "buy 3-get one free" deal on gallons of Behr paint. (In case you are wondering, I bought 8 gallons. I've already used two of them.)
• I stopped for my favorite pizza bread for lunch at Grinder's Spaghetti House (local) and it was a special for $2.50.
• I picked up a small bottle of carpet shampoo at Bed Bath and Beyond and it wasn't priced. The manager said it was a sample for demo at the store and I could just take it home and try it.

By the end of the day on Saturday, I had a perma-smile on my face. Which brings me to ponder, is it really luck? Or is it all about attitude?

Regardless, I'll take it. And a Power Ball ticket, too. For good measure.

Do you believe in luck?

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Renovation progress report - week 28

It's probably pretty obvious what we were up to this week.

HEXAGON

TILE

FLOOR

Calling me obsessed with this floor would be an understatement. I've visited the floor every day, even when I didn't have time to work on anything. I've talked to it. I've caressed it (with sealer... don't think I'm going totally nuts).

Laying tile is a pretty intense feat. And have I mentioned that we've never done it?

Oh yeah... we've never installed tile. So, it's pretty clear that it was a mean little trick to fall in love with hexagon tiles. But, Ryan loved them too and thought it couldn't be that difficult.


Hardy-har-har.... that's a good one.

You can laugh with me. Sounds kind of like every other difficult thing we've tried. It always starts out innocently.

Anyhoo... You remember last week when I was frantically looking for hexagon tiles so Ryan could lay the tile before he began traveling? Well, I was able to find the tiles locally through an awesome local tile shop and distributor. I talked to the owner on Thursday morning and Ryan picked up the tile from the distributor at 4 p.m. That was about the easiest part of the process. (Besides writing the check, of course.)

And would you even believe that our tiles were Made in America? I had one happy husband.

But, that happiness soon dissipated. After 8 hours of trying to dry-fit the tiles in the space, Ryan was on the verge of a melt-down.

Okay, let's be honest. Ryan was having a meltdown. I am really not exaggerating when I say that I found him on the floor in the fetal position. That floor was kicking his arse.

Our house is so far from square and it was darn near impossible to get the tiles to fit properly. If we had ever done this before or had any real clue what we were doing, it probably would have went more smoothly. (Although if you google installing 1-inch hexagon tiles, you'll find more people like us. Totally clueless and frustrated. The experts clearly don't need to Google.)

At this point, it's probably good to mention that this is one of the only projects in a long time that we have worked on together. We typically do our own things and work apart on separate projects. Not this one. We worked on this one together. This project needed two full beginner brains to accomplish.

I've started a more detailed post on the tips and tricks we learned about laying tiles, and more specifically laying hexagon unglazed ceramic tile. The truth was that we couldn't find many really comprehensive tutorials or resources online for beginners. And, while we are certainly not experts (by any stretch of the imagination), there are a few things we learned that we hope can help any other DIYers who may lay this type of tile with zero experience in the future. (Ryan would like me to call it "Laying hexagon tiles for dummies.")

But, the happy ending is that we had the tiles dry-fit by late Friday night. By that point, cutting, measuring and installing the black flower tiles was a breeze.

By Saturday at noon, the tiles were installed. By Monday, the tiles were cleaned, pre-sealed and grouted.

 And, at this point I need to finish cleaning them really well and seal them again and we are done.

So, these pictures aren't the total finished results, but they give you an idea. I'm especially loving the daisies and think they really make the entire floor. We ended up going with white grout, and I'm hoping with sealer, it's still easy to keep clean. (I'll let you know.)

So, that's our little tile adventure. I haven't updated the house list, yet. Maybe soon.

What do you think?

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You-musts

You must:

• Make this adorable houndstooth baby quilt from V and Co. I'm honestly obsessed with it and think it would be fabulous in any size.

• Drool over these homemade bagels at Kesler Expressler.

• Make a fabric wall decal (or two) like these at Sewing for Scarlett.

• Check out all the great storage solutions in this closet at Russet Street Reno. (My favorite parts are the hidden scarf hooks.)

• Print a pretty laundry sign like this one at Just Another Day in Paradise.

That is all, friends. Happy Wednesday!

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I wanna talk about quilts, baby

I knew I wanted to make a quilt for my sister-in-law's baby shower, and I actually got started early enough that I was able to finish with plenty of time to admire it.

I ripped this quilt off from my girl Jenny at Anything Pretty. 100 percent. Not my idea. But, I've loved it since I saw it and knew I wanted to try it for Ron Santo.

The quilt top came together really easily. I used a charm pack of Kona Bright Solids and a white jelly roll for the sashing. That's a lazy woman's quilt, but I'm still darn proud of it.

For quilting, I went with tight (semi-straight) lines for the sashing and diagonals for the colored squares.

I also added a few tags on the back so Ron Santo never forgets his favorite aunt and uncle. ;)

Overall, I'm very pleased with this quilt. Definitely reminded me of the enjoyable parts of quilting. And, it really is fun to be able to give something homemade.

What do you think?

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Better than a dozen roses

Happy Valentine's Day, friends. Whether or not you go all out on this holiday, I hope you have a lovely day with those you love.

We don't typically celebrate Valentine's Day at NewlyWoodwards, but this year, we invited a few friends over to our house for supper and games on Saturday night to celebrate the holiday of love.

It was a lot of fun and I hope to make it a tradition. I only took a few photos of the red and white decorations I pulled out right before the guests arrived.

February snuck up on me, so I'm glad I had an excuse to bring them out. (And clean the house, but that's another post for another day.)

We served salad, lasagna and garlic french bread. Our friends brought appetizers and pie and then we played a rousing game of Apples to Apples. (I still can't believe that Shannon doesn't like the game and gave it away... Crazy talk. We love it.) Some wine and Coors Light was on hand and we were in bed by 10 p.m.

Perfect Valentine's Day.

And, to make it the best Valentine's Day in history, here's a sneak peak at my favorite Valentine's Day flowers of all time.

15 black hexagon daisies set in the floor in our newly-tiled bathroom. Ryan told me that these were the best kind of flowers to give, because I will see and admire them every day. And they'll never die.

Sweet, right?

I'm obsessed with this floor and can't wait to tell you more about it once it's been grouted. Not surprisingly, it wasn't all roses and chocolates. I may or may not have found my husband curled into the fetal position on the cement board floor at some point during the process.

Nothing better than a near-nervous breakdown to remind you why you love each other. Unconditional acceptance.

How are you celebrating the day of love?

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Renovation progress report - week 27

My buddy FC asked for a weekly belly shot of the renovation. (If you are confused, check out last week's post comparing house renovating to popping out a kid. I'm nothing if not PC.)

Well, friends, today is your lucky day. A belly shot is nothing if not a progress photograph. And since I have taken over 1,000 photos of our future home (so far), I can do progress.

The bathroom is Ryan's baby right now. He's working hard to get it into working order.

Here's the belly/progress shots of the bathroom over the first 27 weeks:

The tub is in and the main walls are complete. (The walls around the shower need cement board and tile, but that will come later.)

Ryan rebuilt the right wall for a cleaner line by the shower. It's not ideal to have the ceiling slope in the shower. But it will still turn out well, I think.

Ryan's also got the dining room ready to paint.

So now I have a lots of rooms to wipe down and paint. I'm way behind in the painting department. But, I hope to make some progress soon - I hope the dining room, kitchen, bathroom and upstairs hall by the end of the month.

In other renovation/marriage news... Ryan has this really annoying interesting habit of telling me that he'll need something for the house THE DAY BEFORE HE NEEDS IT. Usually, they are things of which I know exactly what I want. So it's not that it is hard to decide what I want. But, even though I try to ask what important items he'll need next, he usually doesn't actually tell me to get something until he needs it THE NEXT DAY.

Examples - light fixtures, faucets, siding color... and TILE! Which is totally fine except sometimes the items need to be ordered. And special orders can take weeks.

I love my husband - he's wonderful and hard-working and smart. But he really doesn't think about how horribly annoying interesting this is. Even though I try to make it clear. But this time - with the tile - I nearly lost it.

You and I both know that I've been very clear about what kind of tile we'll be going with. Black and white hex tile.

Moline bath by newlywoodwards on Polyvore.com

Ryan knew this and really loves the hex tile, too. Then he mentioned on Wednesday night that he would like to tile this weekend (YAY!), so could I please go pick up the tile asap.

It's unfortunate that hex tile is not carried in stock anywhere in our area. I'm kicking myself for not just ordering it when I picked it out. (Although that would have been too easy. And ordering everything for the house at once would be darn expensive.)

So, I'm quickly trying to find a local source that may carry hex tile in stock. Otherwise, these are my choices.

(The far left is the special-order tile that will take 2 weeks.) Honestly, neither of the others are speaking to me. (Imagine me stomping my right foot and letting out a very exasperated 'pfffff' in the Lowe's aisle.)

And, while we could certainly wait, Ryan will soon be traveling for work and getting the floors done would allow us to get more of the bathroom completed while he's traveling, including installing the toilet. So, we'd really like to do it now.

Needless to say, I've learned my lesson. I'm just going to order things when we decide on them. They can be stored until Ryan's ready. So, then when he asks for me to pick something up THE NEXT DAY, I can say, "It's already in the garage, darling."

The key to a happy and healthy marriage and renovation -

Call him darling.

What do you think?

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A Seuss baby shower recap

So this is the full, detail-filled post about the Seuss baby shower for my sister-in-law. If you are tired of hearing about it, come back tomorrow. I may have a post about the house that you'll like.

But, we had such a wonderful time planning it and are so super excited for little Ron Santo to get here already. I'm picking out loud and obnoxious toys to give him or her as we speak.

The shower was hosted at a local Anheuser-Busch distributor, which is a unique place to host a baby shower. But, it is a great space and it was free. And with a little red and aqua, it became a Seuss-haven.

The hosts of the party were myself, the momma's sister (a graphic designer) and best friend (an interior designer). We had a lot of fun planning all the details and seeing them brought to life.

(Nici, Beccy, Keri and Kim)

The decor turned out really well. We really stuck to the Seuss theme with red and aqua. It started with the great signs that Beccy made.

I found a few poster-size puzzles from Seuss books on clearance at Border's. I simply assembled and framed them, which made great art for the shower and will live second lives in the nursery.

I also cut about 16 million red and aqua circles for walls, tables and windows. The books were borrowed and the ABCs were also found on clearance at Border's.

The diaper cake was taken to the next level with this 6 foot creation by Nici. It held 300 diapers.

For the tables, we went simple with red carnations (horrible idea to buy these right before Valentine's Day) in little vases lined with blue boa.

I've seen the appliqued onesies around as decor, so we created our own and hung them from a clothesline.

We went relatively simple on the food. Keri needs to avoid sugar, so we tried to keep that in mind as well. We served cheese and crackers (Horton Hears a "Moo" Cheese and Crackers), Fruit (Sneech Treats) and Sugar Free 7-layer Jello (Cat in the Hat Jello).

We also had red sugar-free punch and water.

And we had the neatest cake of all time (see links to inspiration at the bottom). A friend of the family made the cake herself. She even made a sugar-free baby cake for the mom-to-be.

Because it was such a large group of 40ish people, we wanted a simple game that would go quickly. For this game, each person received a white paper plate, put it on their head and drew a baby in 30 seconds.

Then Keri chose her favorite drawings.

We also played gift Bingo, but we made the winners yell "Oh, baby."

And check out these great mustache mugs that Nici made for the winners.

After games, we moved onto the gifts. The mom-to-be received lots of great gifts for the baby.

One of the funniest was this iPod shirt that pulled out to become iPood. It was from my father-in-law.

I'll share the gift I made later. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. But I also found this onesie that I had to pick up.

Overall, it was a lovely shower with lots of fun. Now it's time for Ron Santo to get here.

Here are a few of the site we used for inspiration for Seuss showers. So many great parties out there! I hope they will help you with your planning:

Creative Baby Shower ideas (Seuss shower)

Kara's Party Ideas (Seuss shower)

Stem Parties (Seuss shower)

Newly Nesting (Seuss shower)

The Food Librarian (Red and white layered jello)
Emma Cakes on Flickr (Seuss shower cake)


So, what do you think?

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