Killer

This weekend, I killed something that I was kinda fond of.  No worries though, friends, because it wasn’t a living thing.  A few weeks ago, I started working on a Pinterest inspired project that everyone and their mother has been making lately - an ugly framed picture into a lovely framed chalkboard.  I bought a large framed picture from Goodwill for $8 and change, I grabbed spray paint in chalkboard, primer, and breezy blue, and I started spray painting my heart out.  Once the first coat of chalkboard paint was on the glass and I had primed the frame, I carried my masterpiece to the basement to dry.  Fast forward a couple of weeks, and tragedy strikes …

On Sunday, B was cleaning in the basement, and I went down to bother him.  The cat was wandering around downstairs, and B was mentioning that he didn’t want her to fall into a hole in the workroom floor.  I challenged him, saying I didn’t think it was possible for her to fit - so of course we had to go investigate to see who was right (spoiler alert:  It was B.  No surprise, because I know next to nothing about this house and he’s lived here for 20 years).  So we walked into the workroom, and I had to get closer to the area to get a good look at the hole.  On my way to the opposite side of the workroom, I wasn’t paying attention, and I stepped right on top of the chalkboard painted glass.  It cracked immediately, and I was so disappointed.  If anyone is concerned, I was lucky enough to avoid getting cut by the glass.  B was not so lucky, and got a small cut while disposing of the shards.  Sorry honey.

Even though I experienced a huge disappointment this weekend, I haven’t given up on the chalkboard frame idea.  I have come up with a new plan for *hopefully* making this work - I’m going to chalkboard paint the foam board that was going to serve as the backing to the glass - this could actually be a bonus because it will make it so much lighter.  Hopefully the paint will look just as nice, but if it doesn’t … then I guess I move on to plan C (start over with a new ugly Goodwill picture/frame and use the original in a different way - string some wire across, use small clothespins or clips to hang pictures).  Even though I failed miserably the first time around, I’m hoping that the mistakes I made will lead to an even better result to share in the future.

When Hubs is Away ...

The wife will craft [and in this wife’s case, fail miserably at it].

B had a work dinner tonight, which meant not only was I on my own all day on my Monday off, but I also had most of the evening to myself as well.  This makes for a very dangerous situation (no supervision all day = I’m productive.  No supervision for over 12 hours = I get antsy and make bad choices).  I spent the whole day doing laundry, cleaning, and other household-y things (and managed to spend 2 and half hours on the phone with B’s aunt - yeesh).  But then, around 7:00 pm, I. Was. Bored.  Super Nanny wasn’t playing on Style Network anymore, so I needed to find a way to entertain myself.  After about 5 minutes on Pinterest, I came across a pin linked to this tutorial using an old t-shirt to make a woven headband.  I thought to myself, “I can do this, no problem” and ran upstairs to grab an old stained tank top out of my girl cave garbage (don’t worry friends, all that is currently residing in that garbage is old shirts that Goodwill would turn down - no nasty dumpster diving for me!).  I brought the tank top downstairs, cut my strips, and then things got really interesting.

I planned on just hand-stitching the strips together until I realized I could probably figure out how to use the sewing machine my mom had brought up here for me a year and a half ago.  I pulled the machine out, checked to make sure it was already/still threaded (it was, thanks mom!), plugged it in and took ‘er for a drive.

The first time, my threads got all knotted, the fabric didn’t move, and I had to do surgery to free my strips from the machine.  I reconfigured the thread and went for attempt 2 - success!  All five strips were sewn together!

Then … I looked at what was left of my little tank top and thought, “hey, I think that might make a cute mini pillow.  There’s some poly-fil in the cabinet in the laundry room.  I could even sew little fabric flowers on it.”  So I cut out two rectangles, placed them right sides together, and started sewing around the outside of my rectangles.  I got one long side done with no incidents, turned the fabric and started sewing again - the thread wasn’t sticking.  I pulled it out and - oopsie - the bobbin was out of thread.  And so ended my plan to surprise B with a mini pillow when he got home.  [Insert sad trumpet sounds here]

Oh well, back to my original idea (the headband) I went.  I taped my long strips of t-shirt down, pulled on them … and the edges didn’t curl.  Ugh.  I’m not really sure what I did wrong - I think I cut them the wrong direction? - it was a hopeless case.  So I threw away the 5 strips that I had managed to put together, went back into the dining room to clean the bobbin-threadless sewing machine up (aka get rid of the evidence), and went to sit back on the couch to watch House.  Until … inspiration struck again.  Dun dun duuuuuuun!

I ran up the stairs to the girl cave, dug into our wedding crap box (yes, we’ve been married almost 2 years and we still have a wedding crap box … we’ll get around to putting things away in due time, thankyouverymuch), and pulled out one of our many empty picture frames.  “Perfect,” I thought, “I’ll use some of that cute Valentine’s wrapping paper from the Target bargain bin and make a cheap and easy Valentine’s picture to hang.”  I opened up the back of the frame, hoping for a piece of cardboard to wrap my wrapping paper onto.  I was disappointed by what I found - a flimsy piece of cardstock-ish paper.  I took the paper to cut out the shape from an old cereal box, but the box was too small.  Damn.  So I decided to just use the flimsy paper, cut my wrapping paper so it could be wrapped around, taped it up, stuck it back in the frame, and stepped back to admire my work.  And then I realized the paper was crooked.  [More sad trumpet sounds here].



I don’t think we’ll end up hanging this up, but it was a good effort, if I do say so myself.  And this evening’s craziness was well worth it because I found out I still know how to work the sewing machine.  Perhaps the next time Hubs is at a work dinner I can use a new bobbin (with lots of thread on it) and actually complete my cute mini-pillow.  Haha, probably not - but I’ll keep dreaming!