I’ve been in the mood to create lately. Fortunately for me, I am not lacking in projects to tackle. I’ve got whole rooms that haven’t been painted (or really unpacked properly) yet! On top of that, there are quite a few babies expected among our family and friends in the next few months, and I’m very much hoping that we’ll be expecting again soon, so I’ve been having a lot of fun surfing the web for adorable baby related DIY ideas. I’ve started an Evernote Notebook to collect the tutorials that I find and am, of course, having as much fun planning what I’ll do and organizing my collection as I’m sure I will when I’m actually creating.
I tackled a couple of simple projects today. I sewed a grocery bag keeper and a tissue box cover.
Grocery Bag Holder
Tissue Box Cover
I’m really just learning the whole sewing thing, so neither of these projects came out perfectly. The seams on the grocery bag holder don’t line up, which annoys me, and the corners of my tissue box cover are sloppy and not right, but I’m still pretty impressed with my efforts. My encounter with the corners today reinforced my suspicion that I’m only going to get so far on the whole self-teaching thing, so I think I’m going to look into sewing classes. I would like to just work with someone to get some of the basics down so that I could feel more confident in tackling new projects and trying to make some things for gifts.
I think the next thing I’ll tackle will be the window treatments in the family room. We haven’t decided on a color for that room yet, so I think picking out some awesome fabric for window treatments would be a great place to start out. The family room is such a low-pressure room to decorate, too, so I think I can get away with some really funky fun fabric. I’d love some sort of aqua and orange combination. I’m sure Alex will nix it, but he’s going to be away for most of the next few months so he won’t have much of a chance to prevent it!
I love this! I HATE the paper roll shades that we have in our living room and dining room, but don’t like to leave them unrolled at night because I like my privacy (especially with all of the foot traffic around our house due to it being right on the park). I also pretty much despise the mini blinds that are in the family room. Our window treatment budget is, oh, zero dollars, though. I am totally going to try making Roman Shades out of the mini blinds in the family room and if they work out for me, I’ll go find cheap mini blinds for the windows in the living/dining room and transform them into Roman Shades. Super exciting!
Shades can often cost you an arm and a leg (especially custom fabric shades).
a way to repurpose the old {ugly} mini blinds
Here are the basic instructions. If you need more details, feel free to comment or email.
–Supplies– Tape measure Scissors Fabritac (or comparable fabric glue – NOT HOT GLUE!) Mini blinds (like the $3 Target mini blinds) Fabric (yardage depends on the size of your window)
So, after about 10 years of my dentist telling me that I have to get my wisdom teeth out, I finally decided to do it. I decided, like, two weeks ago that I should do it and I should do it soon as Alex is potentially going to be changing jobs – and therefore insurance – pretty soon. His current insurance plan covers 90% of wisdom teeth removal, which is pretty phenomenal from what I remember the last time I looked into it (like 5 years ago), so I figured that our coverage probably wouldn’t get better (and could possibly get worse) on a new plan so I might as well pull the trigger. That, and since I’m no longer pregnant but hoping to get pregnant again as soon as we can, I figured I should just get it done now. Also, my one tooth has started to come in on the front of my jaw and causes pain when I open my mouth really wide. I was prepared to ignore that (I mean, how often does one open their mouth really wide?), but then I saw the 90% coverage thing and I realized that I still had like $300 left in my flex spending account from last year (and my company gives me a grace period through March 15th to use it – rock!)… so the stars pretty much aligned for me having it done.
So yeah, I’m having my wisdom teeth ripped out of my head the day after tomorrow. I’m pretty much dreading this.
I mean, when you talk to people who’ve had their wisdom teeth out, they pretty much never have a happy story to share with you. It’s always, “I woke up!” or “I threw up for days!” or “I got dry socket and had to spray the holes in my mouth with saline!” What the hell, ew! By the way, “dry socket” is a combination of words that makes me immediately gag. EW.
I’m completely unprepared for this. I had to go to the dentist on Monday to get a panoramic xray and ended up getting a cleaning and a regular xray… which meant that they couldn’t do the pano-x-ray like I needed because insurance wouldn’t pay for 2 different kinds of x-rays done on the same day. Argh! What was annoying about that was I told the hygienist first thing that I needed the pano-x-ray and she then advised me to get the regular x-rays done because I was overdue and then at the end of the appointment she was the one that pointed out that the insurance wouldn’t pay for both done on one visit. Um… obnoxious. So now I have to go back to the dentist tomorrow and get a tiny filling done (uuuugh) and get the pano-x-ray. It’s kind of snowing hardcore right now and probably through the night, so I’m going to have to drive in snow on my lunch break to get this done tomorrow, which is super obnoxious. Hopefully the office won’t be closed because I need that x-ray, or I’m screwed. Oh, and also, it didn’t occur to me until today that I don’t have soft foods here for me to eat after the surgery is done and I really don’t want to have to run to Price Chopper in the snow. Yep, I’m screwed.