Scanned Kid Pics

It's funny I've been saving up, and planning a post with scanned kid pics, and then Elizabeth over on the wonderful Delightfully Tacky beat me to it!  She has some totally cute kid pics, and perfectly awkward preteen/teen photos, you should definitely check it out!  So I took that as a sign not to put off this post any longer, and what a perfect pairing for my Saturday Blogger Love.  

1.  I'm the baby in the middle, and those are my two cute older brothers.  This is Kris' (the one on the left) sixth birthday, which makes me only 18 days old in this photo!

2.  Easter with my hair in foam rollers.  I loved that pair of stuffed chicks.  I still have the mamma bird!

3.  I loved getting my picture taken at this age.  I even went through a phase where I thought I wanted to be just like Shirley Temple.  

4.  This is a Christmas present photo.  You can see how much purple my mom used to make me sport at that age.  Purple is my mom's favorite color.  I loved those shoes too, I still think about how awesome they were. :)

1.  This is the same Christmas as number four in the last set.  That umbrella, heart purse, and heart sunglasses rocked.  If they were in teal I'd totally still wear those sunglasses.  

2.  This is just a classic Santa photo.  I think I'm almost five in this photo.   My birthday is five days after Christmas.  

3.  I loved this outfit.  You'll definitely see me in it again.  Another pair of fantastic shoes.  Even though I've never been much of a girlie-girl, I've always had a thing for shoes!

You didn't have to wait long to see the black and white outfit again!  Not sure the date is correct on these.  I don't think I would be wearing  long sleeves and pants in August.  I love the photo of me on the right.  I'm definitely rocking a mullet.  I'm pretty sure my grandmom gave me that hair cut.  

1.  This is from my third grade graduation.  That's my mom with me, as you can see she is wearing purple from top to bottom.  

2.  This dress is classic -- shoulder pads and a crazy floral print!  I loved getting my hair curled.  This Christmas my mom gave me rag curls. 

3.  This is from a trip to Atlantic City with my grandparent's.  I loved that jumper.  I wore it every other day that summer!  

1.  This is just after a perm.  I used to get a lot of perms, professionally and at home.  My mom thought that perming my thin hair would make it thicker and fuller.  I'm also sporting a Girl Scout DIY t-shirt.  The bottom is cut into a fringe with plastic beads tied on.  I wore those railroad pants a lot.

2.  This is the end of eighth grade.  At this age I started wearing Kris' hand-me-downs.  With the changes puberty brought I used my brother's boy cut clothing to cover myself up.  

3.  This is a photo from eleventh grade.  I'm wearing another hand-me-down sweater from Kris.  

Obviously this my graduation photo from high school.  I cut off all the hair I had in the last photo and donated it to locks for love.  I've kept my hair short up until recently.  I'll show some photos from college, and bring ya'll up to the present day sometime in the future.    Until tomorrow, Happy DIYing, chris!

Friendship Bracelet

Happy Friday!  For this Friday Flashback I wanted to make a friendship bracelet.  I used to make bracelets with embroidery floss and hemp all the time when I was a pre-teen.  When I bought my supplies for my owl elbow patches, I found a great deal on embroidery thread.  Which was a big reason I wanted to make a friendship bracelet, all those colors were calling my name.  I checked on the internet for a tutorial on how to make friendship bracelets, it's been ages!  After checking this out, I was good to go.  

Start by laying all your strings out in the order you want the colors to stack.  The strings on the left will stay on the left, and the strings on the right will stay on the right.  

It was a little rough in the beginning, but it's starting to look pretty cool.  Always start with the outside string, and move to the middle, and keep the colors divided in half the whole time.  Tie two knots on each string.  When tying knots on the left always have the tail going to the left, and do the opposite for the right side.  

In the middle tie one knot to the right, and then another knot to the left.  Now you can move back to the most outside string on the left, and start your next color.  

After I got going I realized I've used similar colors in tons of previous projects.  These were more or less the colors I used in my wedding.  As seen in the handmade paper spiral flowers I used as part of my center pieces.  

This how I painted my bedroom at my parent's house back in 2003.  I still love the way that room turned out, as you can tell by the above photo.  I'll be sad on the day I have to paint it back to white.  

Well, that's all I have for you today.  Have a great weekend, and happy DIYing!  I'll be back tomorrow with my Saturday Blogger Love post, chris.

Owlbow Patches and an Outfit Post

This past fall I noticed elbow patches were coming back in style.  Urban Outfitters has a cute yellow sweater with yellow patches, and ModCloth has a casual grey cardigan with faux leather elbow patches.  Then around Valentine's Day I noticed these heart elbow patches going around the internet, and they got me thinking ...  I want some elbow patches! 

BUT I wanted something different from what I was seeing out there.  I had this little idea in my head so I googled it "owl elbow patches", and the first hit I got was The DIY Mommy's elbow patches for a little boy's cardigan.  Cute, but not exactly what I was looking for.  Then I dug a little deeper into the interwubs, and found Bugs and Fishes' stuffed Felt Owl.  Though I didn't want to make a stuffed owl, I loved the way she designed her owl.  She has a great printout template, but I made my own instead.  I changed the nose up a little, but otherwise I kept him the same.  

I love how they turned out!  You can definitely tell my embroidery skills improved with the second owlbow patch.  Ha!  To see my beginnings you can click here.  I had a little trouble getting the first one in the right spot.  Which I didn't realize until I was just about finished stitching him in place.  On the second one I had a little trouble with bunching, but this didn't require me to remove as many stitches.  Aren't they cute?

What I'm Wearing:

*necklace from American Eagle (one of my favorite lady pal's gave this to me!)

*top sweater (with elbow patches) from Boscov's (it's a local department store, I bought the sweater for work.  The flower is covering up my work's logo)

*bottom sweater and dress from H and M (and you can't see, but I have a tank top on from them as well)

*slip is vintage

*I have two pairs of stockings on, and I'm not sure where either of them are from.

*boots from Bed Bath and Beyond (crazy, huh?)

*white flower pin is from Claire's, it also doubles as a hair clip.  I love it when I own something that has dual purposes!   

Happy DIYing, chris!

Seedling Progress

Hey ya'll just checking in with a seedling update today.  When I planted those seedlings back in February, I planted either two or three seedlings of each variety.  Today I picked the best seedling for each type of veggie, and then I planted them in slightly larger containers than their little paper cups.  Aaron is in charge of making the garden decisions in this family, I just enjoy playing in the dirt!  

Since I didn't want to move my little guys around too much I used a large plastic tote to transplant them in.  If you are noticing that I used cacti/citrus soil, it's not something I did intentionally or would suggest, I'm just cheap and didn't feel like buying more soil.  :)   I wish we had a compost pile to use, but that is something we are working on.  This bag of soil was left over from my cacti project from a while back.  I transplanted the seedlings into small plastic containers from the dollar store.  We bought them about three years ago for this purpose.  We just grabbed whatever container we could find, and popped a hole through the bottom when we got them home.  

I filled the container with soil, and then made a small well or bowl in the middle for the seedling.  I then carefully peeled the paper off of the seedling.  

Then, I placed the seedling in the well I made in the soil, and added some soil to the top to fill in the edges.  

When I was finished with my first set I watered everyone, and placed them back under their grow light. 

I'm getting sleepy, and I still have more work I'd like to get done.  I also wanted to welcome all the new comers to 365 DIY, and thank you for coming by!  To all of those who are here on a return visit, thanks a ton for checking back in!  Hope ya'll enjoyed, and happy DIYing, chris!    

Spring Cleaning

To celebrate spring, I did what any good neat freak would do -- made some cleaning supplies!  I had run out of glass cleaner and all purpose, because I use those most.  I did my internet research, and mixed together some different recipe ideas, and this is what I came up with.  

For both of the spray bottles I recycled the containers I had just run out of.  The salmon top is 32 oz., and the white top is 18 oz.  To cover the labels, I cut out scrapbook paper, glued it down, and then painted some clear varnish over the label.  I did this after I filled the spray bottles with their new cleaning agents.  

Glass Spray:

Fill halfway with warm water, add two tablespoons of lemon juice, and fill with distilled white vinegar.  I tried it on my bathroom mirror, and it worked well.  No streaks, it didn't reek of vinegar, and it removed the damage I've left behind from flossing.  I always have these ingredients in the house, so I'm thrilled this works!  I've also read recipes where they use just vinegar, or distilled water instead of tap water.  

All Purpose Cleaner:

Fill the spray bottle halfway with hot water (approximately 2 cups), add 1/2 teaspoon of washing soda, then two tablespoons of borax, and one teaspoon of orange extract, and now fill the rest of the way with water (another two cups about).  Shake, and you are ready to clean!  After cooking tonight's dinner I tested it out on the counter, and it was fantastic!  Perfect amount of orange smell too!  

Again, these are all things I have in the house.  You can replace the washing soda with baking soda for a slightly less abrasive cleaning solution.  I know not everyone has washing soda in the house, but it is a great addition to your cleaning supplies, so is borax.  They are both super fantastic as powders with a little water mixed in.  They make a paste that can tackle the hardest grease, mold, or stain.  

Hope ya'll enjoyed, happy spring, and happy DIYing, chris.

BLT Grilled Cheese

Aaron and I hung out with our good friends Kristen & James last night, and they had a magazine with 50 different grilled cheese recipes.  I woke up this morning salivating with grilled cheese ideas.  So I HAD to make some for this edition of Nom Nom Mondays!  After eating some breakfast, we headed over to this fantastic local farmer's market called Highland Orchards.  We bought some tasty fresh bread, farmer's cheese, a tomato, romaine lettuce, spinach, and some organic bacon.  

Aaron also picked out some broccoli and kohlrabi.  We started our broccoli a bit late, and only two of them came up.  Boo-hoo.  These look lovely though, so yay for local farmers!

We shared lunch with my mom, so I enlisted her help with slicing the bread.  My mom is dang skilled at slicing bread thinly and neatly by hand.  My slices always end up thick and uneven.  

Aaron slowly cooked up some bacon on medium/low heat.  We like our bacon crispy, so this was the longest step.  When the bacon was done we moved it to a plate with some paper towels, and we used the bacon grease to cook the sandwiches in.  Oh man, that was a key step there, that bread tasted phenomenal.  

We placed the bread in the bacon juices, and then layered on the farmer's cheese, tomato, bacon, and the other bread slice.   After about two minutes we flipped the sandwich.  

Once the bread was browned to our liking and the cheese was the perfect meltiness (that is definitely a real word), we sliced them in half and commenced eating!  

Perfect sandwich!  We will definitely be making these again.  Before packing it all in, I opened it up and slipped some of that lovely romaine in there too.  The bread and cheese and bacon and lettuce were all so prefect together, mmmmm.  I can't wait until we have some of our own tomatoes and lettuces to put on the sandwiches!

Here's Cricket Chicken wishing you a happy Nom Nom Monday, and happy DIYing!  Hope to see you tomorrow, chris.

Planting A 4x4 In A Sea of English Ivy

This sunday Aaron and I  focused on getting our 4x4 garden put together.  We have an easement behind our property that we've been using for gardening for the past two years.  However, last year most of our crop got eaten by some wild animals, so this year we decided to move the garden in the fence.  

We are currently living with my parents, and they have a TON of english ivy in their yard.   I'll show you how we were able to plant right in the ivy, and without too much back breaking effort.  

First you will need to put together your frame for the 4x4.  We used two pieces of 2x8x8 wood, and cut each down to four feet.  Then we attached each corner with three 2.5" deck screws.  

Once you have your frame made, and in place you can use a rounded tip shovel to dig up the ivy.  I really needed my husband's strength and weight to get through this thick bed of ivy!  Normally I'm all about girl empowerment, and  'girls can do it too!', and we're just as strong as dudes, but I can't deny my weakness on this one.  Try to cut through the ivy around the perimeter of the 4x4, and try to turn some of the dirt into the ivy mess.  If you need to get down on your hands and knees, and with gloved hands pull the ivy out that works great to!

Now layer cardboard over the ivy.  We tucked the edges of the cardboard under the 4x4 frame.  Don't let any of the ivy poke through or show above the cardboard.  

One layer of cardboard should be sufficient.  Don't layer too much cardboard on top of the ivy though, because then whatever you plant in the 4x4 will have a really hard time growing their roots past the cardboard.  

 We also reinforced the corners with cardboard.  All we did was fold them to size, and rest them in place.  We were going to staple them into place, but I couldn't find the staple gun!

Now start filling with whatever dirt/compost mix you like to use.  We had a lot of containers with soil in them left from last year's container garden, so we used a lot of those to fill this.  Plus we had some bags of manure, soil, and perlite to add to the mixture.  We used a rake and shovel to mix it all together and level it out.  Be careful not to shovel through your cardboard, you don't want to create a hole the ivy could grow through.  

We're going to need to add more soil, but this is what it looks like right now.  You'll want the soil to fill right to the top of the wood, because over time the soil will compact down, and once you have plants in there you can't add more soil!

We finished the project off by adding a ton of water.  It kind of turned into this dirty soup mixture, but it'll dry out over time.  We'll probably be adding more soil to it sometime this week.    Maybe next weekend we'll be putting some seedlings in there!  Which by the way, all my paper pulp cups are working out wonderfully for our seedlings!  

Hope ya'll had a great weekend, happy DIYing, chris!