Random Round Up: The Land Of AZ, Revisited

Surprise, I'm alive!

We took a week off last week and headed for the Arizona desert: Palm trees, sun, and wonderful friends. What could be better?

A delayed flight made for a later-than-planned arrival, but still managed some pool time!

Have you heard of Top Golf? There are quite a few, but make it a must-do in Scottsdale.

New Adventures: A first-time visit to the Grand Canyon for all four of us!

Frost Gelato - Delicious and we even dined with a semi-celebrity one night!

My vacation souvenir? A horrendous cold. Pho and cold meds have me on the mend.

I'm healing up and getting back into the swing of things - More to come on the trip later in the week. Have a great one!

Edit: See the whole recap of the trip right here.

Quick Craft: Crew Neck to Cardigan

In spite of my ongoing goal not to cave in to buying throwaway fashion, there are times when I just get the urge to haunt the Forever21.com sale section. Where else can you find an ill-fitting dress for $4?! Anyway, a couple years back I picked up a lace crewneck pullover. I liked the idea of wearing a camisole under it, and it was a fun, interesting shade of minty-jade green (a color nearly impossible to capture in photos, as it turns out. NONE of the coming pics really do it justice).

Shocker: It didn't fit. The arms were fine, the body was fine, but the length was just way too short for a girl of 5'8" like m'self. So, into the scrap fabric bin it went. ...For two years. Suddenly a weekend or so ago, inspiration struck when I was rifling through the bin. If I simply sliced this pullover up the middle, it would be a pretty cute cropped cardigan!

The shoulder at the top of the image almost shows the actual color...
No option of light I could find allowed the camera to actually capture it.

I got to work.

Measure twice+ to determine the center, then snip away.

Hemming the cut line will prevent raveling.
As for thread, when you don't have a perfect match, a little lighter is always better than darker.

I hand-stitched my two pin lines, mostly because my machine is on the fritz and I don't trust it on anything out side of basic cotton. As this was both a synthetic and stretchy, I wasn't willing to risk it having a mechanical tantrum and forcing me to scrap the whole thing.

Et voila! A slice, a stitch, and a new addition to my wardrobe. Two bucks well spent.

Random Round Up: Blue Sky Blooms

It was a stunner of a weekend and I couldn't get enough.

How cute are these burp cloth cakes? One of my bosses made one for each of two
girls in my work group who are expecting.

Full bloom backyard!

No enhancement necessary on our front yard cherry tree.

Happy Monday - I promise this time, the sewing project promised last week is actually going to be posted this week!

Random Round Up: Springtime and Stupidity

Such glorious weekend weather. Perfect for a little early-in-the-season yard wrangling, beach walking, and general drinking in of vitamin D.

It's March, true, but it still feels way too early for spring to be showing itself.

Bonehead move of the week: Forgot the rotisserie chicken was in the oven to
stay warm... Turned the oven to 400 to roast potatoes..... d'oh!

Cherry blossoms in the moonlight.

Oh what a beautiful mooorn-iiiiing...
(you guys know to click linked words like this for extra fun, right?)

The Boeing Dreamlifter - Doesn't it look prehistoric? Such a beast.

Have a great week - Little sewing project coming your way later in the week!

Ikea Hack: Functional Filing, Finally!

There may be no Random Round Up this week (I've been seriously slacking in the photo taking department), but I do have something: My very own Ikea hack.

Ikea hacks (any hack, really) are always so fascinating to me. I love the idea of taking something you already have and turning it into something better, more useful, or prettier. The really great ones always give me a little pang of jealously too; Why couldn't I come up with that?!

Well, my time has come. Enter an old Ikea three-drawer cabinet on casters. I always referred to it as 'the file cabinet', but that's where the functionality stops. I've had it for about 10 years, and every time a piece of paper came through that was deemed important, in it went. In a pile. In a drawer.

Those ten years of crap had added up - evidenced by the archeological dig-like cleaning process - and it was time to make this guy actually useful. First, determining how to deal with the too-shallow-to-hold-files drawers (why?! why make a file cabinet that can't hold files?!).

Not even as tall as a standard Sharpie.

I easily popped out the bottom of the middle drawer, making it
a single drawer twice as deep when used in tandem with the bottom drawer.

Then an unplanned for problem: The files were too narrow for the drawers. News flash: If something requires me leaving my house, I'll pretty much try anything to make that not happen. So what's a girl to do? Why, bust out the handsaw on the kitchen floor and tear apart that old drawer bottom I knocked out.

Way too narrow for the drawer width - Nothing for the files to hang from!

I measured the space I needed to fill and sliced off two pieces of the drawer bottom.

A few small nails in each side, and my drawer was now the perfect file width.

What I didn't show was the last step: Affixing a small bracket (similar to this) on the inside of the two drawers so they both pull out simultaneously. The cabinet still looks exactly the same from the outside - A simple three-drawer cabinet. But inside, oh the functionality!

Presto! The files now hang down into the bottom drawer. Plenty of space!

Pre-bracket adding: Now the two drawer fronts line up with eachother
and pull out and push in with just a tug of the center drawer handle.

The entire project took under an hour, and the bulk of my time was spent wrangling that dang hand saw. If you had something electric or scrap wood that was the already right size (or, ahem, files that fit because you measured first like a smartypants), you could get this done in 20 minutes or less.

I never thought I'd use 'file cabinet' and 'magical' in the same context, but it really has been a pretty wonderful experience to be able to give some paper piles a home. I'm almost looking forward to next tax season so I can smugly go pull all our documents at once from their neat little stash. Almost.

Random Round Up: Slow

I was internet silent last week, and that feels strange. Not even a Monday Random Round Up! The truth is, last week was crazy, and this week is shaping up to be no better. And I'm sure you can relate to this: When I get home from work lately, I'm tired.

There are studies out there that show the more bored you are, the more creative you get. Welp, I'm the furthest thing from bored in recent weeks, and it's really affecting my creative juices. I feel like a broken record saying I'm waiting for inspiration to strike, but, well, that's just the way it is right now.

Here are a few pretty pictures for the waiting room, at least:

New phone means new case, and I made another studded version. DIY tutorial here.
This floral case is by fashion designer Anna Sui.

A cereal bar potluck at work. Brilliant, right?

People are calling it "Februly" around here - My camellia is in full bloom.

Someone is enjoying the sun making an early appearance.

A birthday lunch date for the men in my life took us to a spot with a gorgeous view.

The goal is simple this week: Make it through without face-planting into my keyboard at work. Have a good one, guys!

Random Round Up: Hangover

It seems like the whole state of Washington is hung over today. Not in the drank-too-much way (although, I'm sure there's plenty of that too), but more like the post-emotional-roller-coaster, we-came-so-close kind of way. People are just... melancholy. A Seahawks Superbowl loss will apparently do that to folks.

Tuck was less than impressed with the whole thing.

Those mint cookie-brownie bars from my last post were a big hit!

Pre-game - Happy and hopeful!

How I watched the fourth quarter.

This shirt was the only thing that seemed appropriate to wear today.

I know I'm probably supposed to be wallowing with the masses, but I'm pretty focused on the stellar season, the come-back win two weeks ago to even make it into the Superbowl in the first place, and a team that brings a state together like none other. Looking forward to next season - Thanks Hawks!