Clover Do-Over

Everyone have a fun St. Patrick's Day yesterday? Happy belated! Hope there's not too much feeling green leftover...

Local pizza place sign.

And I thought this was fun - Found it floating around on Facebook this weekend:

(click image to enlarge)

Erin go bragh!
Till next year, Stumpy McWhiskey

Pretty Little Things

You know what? I don't have it together this week. So enjoy these pretty little things from my Pinterest collections in the meantime while I try to scrape together some semblance of being an adult.

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Hands of a Samboru Tribeswoman - image

Valentino for the New York City Ballet - image

X-ray of a rose - image

Switzerland - image

If you're on board the Pinterest train, feel free to follow me.

Random Round Up: New & Improved

I didn't take a ton of pics this week/end, so mixing it up a little for today's Round Up. Some of this info is newer then the rest, but all will hopefully improve us. Too cryptic? Let me break it down.

We've been suddenly more active outside of the house of late. Nate and I have both been athletes in some form our whole lives, and I've been jealous as he gets to play soccer in a men's league. Lucky for me, I finally broke into a volleyball team in a work-based league! It's not as high of a competition level as I'd ideally enjoy, but it's been great (here we are in week 7 and I've forgotten to mention it thus far) to get my hands on a ball and play with a team again.

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I also finally pulled the trigger and signed up for my first 5k race. It's been a goal of mine for years, but since I loathe running, it took a lot for me to actually think about really, truly, doing it. Nate and I singed up for The Color Run in May, leaving me plenty of time to train. It was my second session of two-runs-per-week this last week, and I hit the two mile mark. It's not a lot, but it's a lot for me!

You can see if it's headed for your city here.

Last and most exciting: Nate has been accepted into a distance civil engineering program through the University of North Dakota! He won't start for about a year, due to timing of the web-based schedule, but it's a huge deal. I think he's so brave for committing to it and going all in. PROUD WIFE!!

Funnily enough my father-in-law graduated from the engineering program at UND as well (he attended in person), so we're keeping it in the family. Go Sioux!

Hacked

It was past time for some serious backyard bushwhacking. You saw us tackle a corner of the front yard recently, and while that's probably better for upping our curb appeal, getting down to business in the backyard is what was necessary.

So you know what? I'm not going to bore you with tales of tearing through 8/10 fingers in my gloves, getting wrapped in sticker bushes, and finding hidden doggy deposits. Nope. I will let the next few pics prove my peace of mind has been accomplished.

Well... For now. Those patches of grass haunt my dreams.

Azaelas. I thought there were 3. There were 5. Oy.

My view from the living room. SO HAPPY to have tamed some jungle.

Make It: Gorman-Inspired Print Hoodie

There's little I love more in my wardrobe than a good hoodie. Zip-up or pullover, lightweight or thick, they all have a use and a place in my heart. So when I saw an amazing triangle-print crew neck floating around Pinterest recently by the Australian brand Gorman, I drooled, I ogled, and I found out it was not only no longer made, but about $150 originally anyway.

Nope.

But it got my wheels turning, and inspiration struck: Sponges. One shopping trip later (Target and Michael's), and I was home with everything I needed.

I played around with paper first, figuring out how large I wanted my triangles to be, then simply traced the pattern onto a sponge, and sliced with a ruler and an X-acto knife. Stamps: Created.

Queued up the Project Runway and Fashion Police on dvr, stuffed my hoodie with an old torn apart shoebox, and away I went.

painter's palette = plate covered w/foil

Slip cardboard inside to protect from paint seepage!

Due to dry time (about an hour+), I ended up finishing the next day in a few spurts: Each side, then the back. My protective cardboard inserts collected any paint seepage, and those were dry by that time too so I could re-use them as I flipped the shirt around from section to section.

Just when I thought I was ready to show off my creation to the world, I realized just how ugly the inside of that hood looked from the paint seeping through. Ack! But easily fixed: A scrap of soft gray waffle knit in my remnant pile was pinned in place, and a couple runs of the sewing machine* was all it took to be problem solved.

The finished product was official:

The Gorman version is oh-so-much chicer and more beautiful in every way (which is as it should be for the price), but I'm pretty stoked with my results. A cozy hoodie that I can throw on and look like I tried - at least a little bit - is what I was going for, and I think I got exactly that. DIY success!

Cost breakdown:
Hoodie: Target men's department, on sale, $8.49 (orginally $12)
Paints: Michael's, $1.99 each ($8 total)
Sponges: Target, pack of 4 for $1.75-ish (and I only used one)
Total Cost: About $18



*I'm happy to break down this hood lining process further if anyone's ever interested. I developed it myself, and it's quite easy and can really change the look of a basic hoodie. I've done it a lot - No pattern-making skills required! Let me know.

Random Round Up: Recharge

Lots of home time this weekend: Crafty-goodness, more yard work (you'll hear about both of those later this week), beach time, and quality puppy snuggles. Recharging the batteries doesn't get much better than that.

Crashed Out Pup

Project Prep

Homemade soup and fresh garlic bread - Perfect comfort food.

And just for something new, a little video I took of some amazing synchronized birds on the beach this weekend:

We were totally fascinated by those guys. Happy first full week of March (can you believe it's March already??)!

Front Yard Side Work

If you've worked in retail, you might call it 'side work'. A restaurant setting: Prep. Whatever name you know it by, it's that running list of to-do's that you fall back on when you don't have anything more pressing to do.

At our house, that means getting out in the yard. We seized a sunny day and the opportunity to borrow some tools from Nate's parents, and attacked.

 The bushes I shaped up with the Hedge Hog last summer are sprouting again, so those were destined for a trim. Plus, the previous homeowners decided hyper-invasive decorative (using that word loosely...) grass was the way to go in any space without a shrub, so we've been working on digging it out pretty much since day one. See it all on the right there?

 

Check out all those roots and bulbs -That's the bottom of the grass. We actually had to roll up big hunks of root-y sod the blades were so tightly packed. Argh, grass!!!

 And would it be our yard if we didn't unearth something? A big piece of pretty slate this time around.

One seriously full yard waste bin.

Grass-Be-Gone!

Can't wait to get some color in that newly minted bed come spring. There's a LONG way to go (do you see that jungle of rhododendrons in that upper right corner?! Yikes.), but it's a pretty great improvement already. And of course it makes us start eyeballing the next project... I'm talking to you, moss-covered raised bed!

Let's call it 'to be continued'...