February

The month is almost gone and it has really flown by!  I have been busy working my little part time jobs that are now a bigger part of my life than I thought they would be.   I have a few piano students, have done some childcare, have worked some days at Sodexo catering, have cleaned houses for three wonderful ladies, and have been very busy helping put together the women's conference in our stake.  All of these things should be talked about in detail, since they have all been fun and good experiences for me.  In the future I want to start doing this..but it takes a lot of time and I must keep trying to be more patient and just do it!!.   I will blog more as things happen next month.    Details make things interesting, right?  Anyway, that's another goal to work on.

I was talking to Erik tonight about making things with wood. I told him how I had wanted to make a simple table without fancy joinery and this is what I came up with. It is a country table that resides in our kitchen. There is very little hardware involved with this table. There is a screw and knob for the drawer and 4 screws to fasten the top. You may notice the apron goes around the outside of the legs instead of the typical way of between the legs. The legs are the key to holding the table together.
They are face glued straight to the inside corner of the apron.

The top is joined in the normal way for a flat panel, no dowels, splines, or plates.

The drawer does have dovetail joints at the front. These were simple and I cut them by hand using a saw and a chisel. A router takes a lot more set up time. I think I remember using the band saw also. The other end is a simple dado cut on the table saw. I added some interest by beveling the ends of the drawer front. It makes it look much lighter, don't you think so?

The drawer slides are simple also.
Just wood above, below and to the side of the drawer. It slides so nicely! I love wooden drawer slides with a little wax on them. The hardware is to fasten the top. Maybe you can see below. There is an ell shaped piece of wood with the nose inserted into a slot in the apron. The ell is then screw to the top. There are 4 of these. One near each corner. I used a router to make the slot (dado).


I think this is a nice looking table. It is light weight and light in appearance. It doesn't have that refined look of gentrified furniture. The top overhangs a bit more than usual. This also adds to the country look. The pictured colors are pretty much true. The stain I used turned out way more orange than I had planned for, but it has grown on me, until I now like it. The top is finished with gloss polyurethane. Stain only on the rest. Maybe someday I will finish it. What do you think? Is it worth messing with, or should I leave well enough alone?

Being creative....I can do it!

This week I went to lunch with a friend that showed me some cute head bands she was making to sell.  I thought they were so cute and looked easy so I would try and do the same.  You mostly find unexpensive headbands and then embellish them. 
I even found the embellishments ready made for a good price, so last night it was pretty easy to put a dozen of these together.  Now I'm thinking it will be more fun to give them as gifts since I don't really have a way to market them.  It was fun to be successful at doing something new!
I did buy one from her for a good example of how cute they can be.  I bet you can tell which one it is!

This is a picture of my latest and not so great find.
This mirror was free. You know one of those old gold painted ornate frames you never want. More burnt yellow than gold and flat, not glossy. Well I thought maybe black paint would bring it into modern times. Didn't happen! Although it is an improvement, I can't find a place it the house that I would want to see it on a regular basis. I will try it for a while and see if I can get used to it enough to keep it. I have a smaller mirror almost like this one, but no black paint as of yet.

What do you think? Maybe white paint? Chuck the frame and what? Make a frame? What should it look like?  Here is another picture with a different exposure, but fuzzy as I couldn't hold still enough without the flash.

Remember you have to overlook the mess.

Cleaning out

We had a great class in RS recently that motivated me to clean out and organize around the house.  Today I hit the kitchen pretty hard.  Pulled everything out of the cupboards, washed the shelves, and then proceeded to throw away, give away and change around whatever was left.  Like things go together, food in one cupboard, cooking items in another, new place for the toaster and some serious cleaning underneath the microwave.  Wow, it looks so much better and makes you want to simplify and enjoy having extra space!  Now for the closets and drawers.....The rule is to ask yourself::  Do I need it?  Do I use it?  Do I love it?  If the answer isn't "yes" to at least one of these, then the item should go.  Another tip to make this easier is to tell yourself, "if I haven't used this item in a year I am being selfish if I keep it...someone else no doubt could use it more than me."  This helps let go of those valuable little treasures that we are attached to, but aren't using and don't have a place to keep.
It also helps to repeat to yourself over and over while working, "A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place."  If you can't find that "place" to put it away, then it has to go!  Simple, huh, but actually hard to do for me since I have the mentality of knowing I want it around in case I need it sometime, and I certainly don't want to give away something I think is valuable......Still, there is a lot of peace of mind in cleaning out and letting things g,.  so I will continue with the closets and drawers.