Table for 10?

We had company for Shabbos this week, and one of my poor, unfortunate children found themselves seated upon (gasp!) a folding chair.  A small amount of whining ensued.  I blew it off, though, because we're lucky to have guests on a regular basis, and we only have "proper" seating for 8, although the dining room table can seat 10 comfortably...

So yesterday, I was driving carpool and I spied a pair of perfectly sturdy wooden chairs in dire and desperate need of immediate reupholstery. 

  

 Natch, they went into the trunk, and I was lucky enough to have leftover fabric from my last batch of chairs.  This was a speedy recovery---done in less than 40 minutes. 

In other news on the home front, I've been teaching art classes out of my studio.

My guys are happy to sit in. :)

And we have a new resident.  Meet Lizzy, our bearded dragon.

And I finally tried that baking-soda-and-peroxide trick from Pinterest.

Before (left) and After (right).  Whoa.

Easy, out-of-the-way storage for daily meds

So I have a few kids who take daily meds, and I've always kept them on the kitchen windowsill, right above the sink.  (Cue scary music.)  You know as well as I do that this is a Bad Idea, not only because the sunlight can't be good for the meds, but because the kids were getting a vocabulary lesson every time I knocked somebody's &%$*!# medicine into the &%$*!# sink.

But I didn't want to keep the meds in the medicine cabinet--how trite!--because then I wouldn't see them.  And  if I didn't see them, I would invariably forget to administer them.  Which is also a Bad Idea.  So finally---thanks, Pinterest!---after seeing everything from spices to puffy paint bottles to makeup magnetized and stuck to something of a metalic nature, it occurred to me:  I have magnets, and I have a great big metal fridge.

No more soggy drugs, people!  And I'm happy with the fact that they're high up enough to be inaccessible to all but the most motivated preschooler.

Now, I'm off to search for other bits and bobs to stick magnets to.  Because everybody needs a hobby, right?

Sneaky, sneaky me.

In the girls' room, there's a little room adjacent to the closet that most people would use for storage.  My kids claimed it for a playspace--- in spite of its dark, creepy interior--- the moment they discovered its existence.  I've been hoping to do a mini-remodel on the DL for ages, and last week I did the deal.

This is pretty much what the interior looked like when I started.  Studs everywhere, wood floors---lovely but decidedly un-cozy--and insulated snugly and finished with cardboard boxes.  Seriously.  My first stop was at ReStore to grab some carpet and padding.

The carpet was actually a foot narrower than the 10'x5' space, but I was planning to cover that side with book crates anyway, so I was pretty happy with what I carted home for my ten bucks. 

I thought about painting, and just couldn't see it in such an awkward space---it's kind of triangular---so I headed stashward instead.  Equipped with staple gun, a high tolerance for pain, and mucho fabrico, the ceiling took on the look of a badly pieced quilt.

Once I'd finished with the ceiling (well, mostly---you know how I am about finishing things...) I moved on to the space between the studs.  Armed once again with swathes of fabric and my trusty staple gun, I covered the boring drywall. 

Next on my list---adding shelves.  I hightailed it to my home away from home and picked up a couple of 2x4s, which they obligingly cut into 15" segments for me.  Upon my return home, I remembered how important it is to measure twice.  And how important it is to measure yourself, even when the 12 year old you've delegated to seems perfectly competent.  I headed downstairs for a little quality time with the table saw.  Twice.  Then my drill and I rediscovered the wonder that is making pilot holes, and the shelves went up in what passes for a jiffy around here.  (Remember that all of this was done on the sly---no small feat when one has a three year old following one's every move.)

Then I carted in vast amounts of books, soft toys, and pillows.  I added a few blankets to the mix and hung the music-box that was in my craft room in Des Moines.  Did I ever mention how bad I am at keeping secrets?  I gave up on Friday afternoon, and showed the girls my handiwork.

They were so excited!  They've been in there pretty much every waking moment, and the boys actually slept inside on Friday night.  Totally worth schlepping myself and all manner of sharp tools in and out of this glorified closet all week long...

Pinata Postmortem

 It would be wrong to say the pinata was a hit, right?  But the littles loved it, and they delivered some very satisfying---and effective---thwacks to its shaggy exterior, squealing with glee when it spilled its candy-filled guts.  And was it worth all of the work? (Because you must realize that although the finished product looks as though it was slapped together by a preschooler in need of Ritalin, all of the careful, gluey preliminaries were completed by yours truly.  In the wee smalls. )  So no, probably would have been easier to buy one, but that's not gonna happen on my watch. 

There's been a bit of a backlog at the workbench, which makes me happier than you'll ever know.  Just sent this little cutie out in today's mail...a bit of a spin on my washer keyrings.  I'm liking it.

Still here.

Cool porch, no?  And the kids are terrifying the dog-walkers and joggers alike as they careen down the ramp on their bikes...

The new house is a marvel of freshly-finished floors and just-painted (or just-about-to-be-painted) rooms.  The basement makes the Labyrinth look like child's play and the garage is chock-a-block with the vast majority of our possessions,  but the overall impression is favorable.  The laundry chutes work, the studio is coming along, and the bathrooms are intact, though terrifying.  (Seriously---who paints over the shower tile?  Wait!  It must be the same people who---I kid you not---wallpapered the entire kitchen with Contac paper.)

The kids' rooms are set up, for the most part, but Jess and I are shacked up in the basement until he can harness some manpower to help move our beds upstairs.  The paint colors we chose (long-distance) are fine, for the most part, although the creamy yellow in the living and dining rooms is a little more washed out than I'd hoped for, and the Honeydew that the little girls decided on at the last minute has kind of a neon subtext that borders on being less than soothing.  The kitchen---aqua walls, red accents, and black and white checkered floors---is a glorious sight to behold, although I'm in a snit about the flooring.  Pattern, fab!  Texture, FAIL.  Grainy.  Who makes grainy kitchen flooring?  Suffice it to say that the floor-maintenance department is unimpressed.  Pics forthcoming.

I'm mid-dresser-rehab, in the midst of the madness, and am making a slapdash job of it.  The girls are entranced, though, and can't wait to have the finished product in their psychedelic digs.  Just add princess crowns, and they're happy, thank goodness...

Akiva's 12th birthday came in a frenzy of chocolate-cake-making.  Given the fat that we'd been in the new house for a whopping three days and I'd yet to locate the majority of the Finer Things---like Shani's shoes, the damned baking powder, and all of our hangers---I felt justified in patting myself on the back for
a) unearthing the KitchenAid and
b) producing--- and serving!--- anything even remotely palatable.

Card art by Esti---she blows my mind.

The munchkins sally forth to school this week, and we're all looking forward with varying degrees of enthusiasm.   I'm hoping to have my act a bit more together in time to tackle the carpool-lunches-homework show with my usual aplomb, but have already accepted the fact that we may have to fake it for the first couple-few weeks.  No use being all Pollyanna-ish at my own expense...

Epic fail

Subway art.  It's everywhere, and I've been hankering for a little bit of subway in our new house. (Hah!  You didn't even know we'd moved again, didja?  I figured I'd bored you enough with my previous tales of packing and unpacking ---sorry for the WKRP reference; I'm a child of the '70s---and this time my sainted husband did the hard part while the kiddos and I were at camp.  Thanks, Jess!)
  Right, so I read the tutorial, I drooled over the pins on Pinterest, and I purchased my spray paint and vinyl sticker-letters.  I trakced down some old shelves to upcycle, and I listed all of the places we've lived since Jess and I got married back in 1994.  Four rentals, four of our own homes, from Miami to Rochester, to Des Moines, and now to Milwaukee.  I primed, I measured, I stuck-on, I sprayed, and I peeled.  And I realized I'd forgotten to include a residence.  And that one of the addresses I'd listed was---well, not someplace we'd lived.  There were fuzzy spots where the stickers hadn't adhered entirely.  (Did I mention that I was doing this whole shindig after hours, whilst the wee folk slumbered?  That's my excuse du jour, and I'm stickin' to it.)  I attempted to repair my strokes of idiocy, and blundered once more---the spray paints I'd chosen were flat, and the acrylic "repair-paints" glossy.  So I scrapped it, and started from scratch.

Those of you who know me well realize that I must have really wanted this subway art.  Because I am not a "try, try, again" kind of girl; I'm more of a "what-ever---let's go have some chocolate," kind of girl.  This time, though, I re-primed, re-measured, re-cut,  re-stuck, and re-painted.  (There was a little re-swearing in there, too, but as I said, the wee ones slumbered.)  My diligence was rewarded.

You think I'm going to make this into some kind of cheesy story about how you can always achieve what you put your mind to, don't you?  Or, perhaps, a cautionary tale about the evils of mixing concentrated spray paint fumes with Excedrin and late nights?  Nah, it's just me again, too cheap to shell out cash for something I really, really wanted.  And it's going on the mantel before I unpack my first suitcase.  So there.

DI Why?

I'm the world's biggest proponent of doing most things on a low-budget and ratcheting up the elbow grease to accommodate my frugality.  Until last week, when I'd spent days painting clever quotes on the art room walls like this:
Step one:  Print quote in desired font.

Step two:  Turn printed quote over and scribble madly (and heavily) on the back with a pencil, making sure to cover the entire letter on each sheet.

Step three:  Tape each sheet, penciled side to the wall, against the surface to be decorated.

Step four:  Trace the outline (on the front of the page, which should be facing out) darkly with pencil.
  Voila!  Like magic, a hazy, fuzzy image of your letter--perhaps missing small details, like serifs and such--has been transferred to your wall!

So after a couple of days of incessant pencil sharpening, I had myself a little revelation.
Carbon paper.

I'm amazed I didn't get a speeding ticket on the way to Office Depot.  And I hesitated not fraction of a moment when it  came time to fork over my hard-earned cash for that $18 package of black gold, knowing the amount of work it would save me.

I was right.  The quotes are going up chock-a-block now, and my investment was one of my better ones.

When is DIY less than wise for you?  Do you feel compelled to Do It All, or do you take the cheat's way out, like me, on occasion?

In other news, I hung The Most Wonderful Pegboard In The World this week. 
And made hairclips out of water bottles.