Waterbottle Sling

This is going to have to be a mini-post, because this project was done in a hasty fit of panic and no photos were taken of the process.

I realized about two days before I was to leave for Peru that I would likely need some kind of water-bottle-holding-apparatus. By this time, however, I was at the point where I refused to purchase ANYTHING ELSE and so was fashioning supplies out of whatever I could find.

After a few hours cursing at my pathetic sewing machine, I had come up with this:

The sleeve is made from some leftover quilted fabric from my housebook cover and the strap is, fantastically enough, scrapped together from my old Applebee's uniform polo shirt.

If they make you buy it, it damn well better be useful post-TequilaLimeChicken, that's all I'm sayin'.

Anyway, I doubled over the already quilted fabric so that it would be extra cushioned so I didn't end up with a Kleen Kanteen shaped bruise on my hip. Then I just wrapped it around the bottle, made note of the size (plus a little bit of give) and sewed it closed.

After that, I didn't have a strip of polo shirt that was long enough, so, instead, I just cut a bunch of large sections out, doubled them over for strength and sewed them all together, patchwork style. I attached the strap all the way to the bottom of the sling's sleeve so that it was less likely to rip apart from stress.

It's not pretty, but, man, it worked well.

Better Late than Never...Right?

Sooo...we really didn't intend for it to be this long. We have been doing projects and documenting them and...not posting them. Oops. Mike was supposed to blog while Mary was in Peru, but he didn't. Although he did refinish 3 pieces of furniture, make 2 mirrors and complete countless other unexpected chores. So we will forgive him.

Anyway, we will be playing a little catch-up now. Here's something fun we did in July:

We tie-dyed!

Mary pretended that it was because we had a lot of stained white clothing that we didn't want to go to waste. So it was a practical project. But, really, it just sounded like fun. Like summer camp or something.

First, we chose our colors and got our materials together. We considered the natural way, with fruits and vegetables...but we weren't in the mood to learn something new.

Each dye bath required 2 gallons of boiled water for each package of color.

And, for the all-important "ties", we cut some strips from one of Mike's old college bedsheets.

After dissolving the powdered dyes according to the package instructions, we added them to the tubs...

(Whew! Look at that beautiful Arizona lawn!)

...and prepared our linen victims (the post-it's you see are our predecided color schemes for each garment. We're big nerds.).

We tied our designs...Mike being very careful and specific about his, Mary--not so much.

And let them soak for about 10 minutes in each color.

Then we rinsed them...

...and soaked up the extra color with an old towel...

...And hung those suckers up to dry!

We also tried a technique involving salt to make designs that Mary had learned in a costume design class...that apparently only works on delicate fabrics. Failure.


And look how nice the ties turned out! Ha!

Hooray for projects that make you feel 10 years old again! As should they all!

Beer Brewing & Bottling

About two years ago Mary had been nice enough to get me a gift certificate to a brewing store for our anniversary and it only took me until about a month and a half ago to actually brew my own beer. For my first beer I decided to go with the easiest recipe I could to cut back on the possibilities of me screwing it up. The beer I chose to make was the Dry Heat Wheat from our local home brew store. (http://www.brewersconnection.com/recipes/DryHeatWheat.htm)

Sorry for so few photos. Mary was busy with finals and was unable to help me brew and take photos. I promise a better collection on the next beer brewing excursion.

The first thing I had to do before I even started was to clean and disinfect all of my beer brewing material.

Once I finally got everything clean enough to eat off of it was time to start boiling the water with the wheat malt and hops.

Once I finished with all of my boiling I dumped everything in a bucket and stuck it in the bathtub for about 4 days. After the 4 days I transferred the beer from the bucket into a big glass carboy but not without creating a huge mess. I learned all the wonders of siphoning beer.

After another 4 days it was time to bottle the beer. In order to clean all of my bottles I employed the use of our handy bottle washing machine.

Look how pretty they look.

Here's the big glass carboy full of beer right before it went into all of those shiny clean bottles.

After a more successful bout of siphoning and then capping I had all of my beer bottled.

After another week of waiting we were able to break into the first bottle. It was kind of wheaty and fruity (banana-ey?) and over all pretty good for a first shot.

The Smelly Kids.

I'm so very glad this is the first post since husband has made our weblog public (well, public-er). Because it's about our armpits.

Since I was 6 (yeah, 6. Oh, genetics) I have tried just about every deodorant and deodorant alternative ever invented. Nothing has ever been deemed foolproof and plenty have just straight up failed. Since I suddenly give a damn about poisoning my body, the past couple of years I have been experimenting with those natural deodorants...Most didn't work and one burnt my skin like acid. Which was way fun. Then Mike noticed that one of his shirts had been dyed hot pink by his deodorant and he started to get nervous too.

So when I found this homemade deodorant recipe from angrychicken (with whom I am obsessed) I figured what the hell...can't hurt to try.

All it really took was cornstarch, baking soda (which I had on hand), shea butter, cocoa butter, vitamin E oil and the essential oil of my choice (I chose Clove Bud--because it's "motivating").

(Don't you think I maybe have a future career in gelcap photography?)

...A woman I work with told me that she thinks I have great time management skills, since I have time to make my own deodorant. A) she obviously doesn't know me that well B) I was supposed to be doing something more important and C) this seriously took me 5 minutes of actual work. I microwaved, stirred and refrigerated. That's it.

I chose poorly as far as my receptacle. I would pick a wider, shallower jar next time. We really have to dig at this one.

But yeah, we just use about a pea sized amount, as recommended by the originator, on each side and, seriously, we've been using it for about 4 weeks now and one application leaves us both stink-free all day long. In the desert, no less. We still sweat, obviously, but that's kind of an important bodily function. And I sweat like a freak regardless, so I don't really notice a difference.

I should have added a whole lot more Clove Bud oil, though, since the cocoa butter is REALLY cocoa-ey and we just kind of smell like chocolate all of the time. Sweaty, sweaty chocolate.

p.s. we're aware that our page design clashes. we're also, for the moment, having trouble caring. :)

Accidents: Both Happy & Fixed

So we were unintentionally growing sunflowers in our yard. It's mostly because Szechaun really likes to watch birds. See, we thought if we sprinkled some sunflower seeds on the back patio, it would make for a more interesting show.

It didn't work. Stupid birds.

Anyway, in the progression of this experiment, some of the seeds inadvertantly got into the yard (see also: swept there out of laziness) and, soon, began to sprout like crazy. We scooped some sprouts up back in March and stuck them in a pot and waited.

A couple of months later, we got this:

Hooray! Hopefully they don't get burnt to a crisp by the Arizona sun. Mike's dad tried planting some while he was here and they, well, they're no longer with us. But if these go south, it's really okay:

They just keep on sprouting in the yard randomly. We keep the seeds in the birdbath now. Szechaun's got good eyes. She can handle it.

Oh! And as for the "Fixed Accident": You can now comment. Apparently, when we were setting this thing up, we accidentally put on a privacy setting.

Sorry about that.

What's Old is New Again.

At long last all of the bedroom furniture has been refinished and stained to match. It took 3 days but the dresser is finally finished.

This is a part of a bedroom set that has belonged to Mary's great-gandmother, grandmother, aunt & mother. Because of the finish it was considered pretty poor quality and because of many generations of chain-smokers with unruly children it was in pretty poor shape. But we dug under the surface to find something great.

I sanded off all of the old yellowed varnish, polished and sealed the old brass pulls, stained the wood a nice dark cherry red, and polyurethaned it all for a satin finish.

Here is the dresser at the start of this project. It's not as dusty as it looks.

Under the first piece I took off I found fingerprints in the dust from the past.


I then continued to take all of the pieces apart until I was just left with the skeleton of the dresser.

Underneath all that yellowing lay a nice reddish piece of wood. See below for a piece before and after sanding.

Once all the pieces had been sanded it was time to line up all the pieces in the garage to begin staining.

And then the final product.

The 7 Year Swivel Chair Project

About seven years ago, Mary spotted an old beaten up swivel chair near one of the dumpsters at K-State. The chair's seat was torn up, one of its wheels had come off, and it was generally worn but Mary saw potential in it. We took the chair home. We then broke the chair down and placed it in a box. In that box it sat for years and years until I finally decided to do something with it this past Memorial Day weekend.

I forgot to take photos of the chair before I started but you can see some of the original pieces in the photo below.

I repainted the brown metal parts, sanded and stained all the wood pieces, re-upholstered the chair and shined up all the shiny metal pieces. Now here's a bunch of it all coming together:

Who needs a rubber mallet?

Szechaun likes it!