SOPA, Snow, and A Small Project

Okay, so anyone who's been on the internet today has probably already seen the whole thing that's going on with SOPA and PIPA. But in case you haven't, here's a really, really quick explanation: SOPA and PIPA are two bills that are going before Congress with the aim to stop online piracy. However, these bills are doing much less of that and much more CENSORSHIP instead. It's a scary proposition for anyone who values free speech and as a result much of the internet is going on strike today (even Google and Wikipedia are in on it). Now, I've done my part to sign the petitions and add my name to the list of protesters, but...well, this might make me a bad American and a worse writer, but....a girl's gotta write when she's got the chance, and since today was a snow day, I've got a little free time on my hands. So...uh, do as I say and not as I preach. Resist SOPA and PIPA! Oh, and in case you aren't taking my word for it, here's a link containing more information. Now....onto the blogging!

As you can see, we got a whole whopping 7 inches of snow between yesterday and today! And, honestly, it was probably more than that considering I didn't even get out my very old NFC ruler until it'd already settled and even rained a little bit. But, I digress. SNOW. Lots of it (for Seattle, at least). Which of course prompted me to make....

A snowgirl! However, she ended up being considerably less cute than my normal snow creations and a little more, uh...creepy Kewpie-ish. See what I mean?

Yeah. Not my fave. 

However, that didn't stop me from getting down there and having my picture taken with the ol' girl. After all, she's the first snowman (I mean, snowgirl) at our new house. Now, let's see...we've covered SOPA, snow, and...oh, yeah! A very small project! Well, here's how it started.

See this scabby looking cork board? It'd recently been rescued from a previous life as a school project (mine, of course). But, alas, life as a school project is hard work and it had many war-wounds to show for it.

See all those bare spots? That's where I'd taped things to it and then attempted to...um, un-tape things. It didn't work.

So I decided to cover up it's multitude of blemished with some pretty fabric. I laid the fabric down, laid the board down, then snipped carefully around the edges, leaving enough room to staple them down.

Next, I ironed the fabric to give it a smooth appearance...

Then simply began stapling that puppy together! I didn't do anything special except to make sure that it was pulled taut on all the sides. 

And then, of course, to make the corners look as nice as I could.

Ta-daaaaah! Mission Staple Fabric complete. 

I hung it up (using my new best friend the two-foot level)...

And there it is! Much less ugly and still fully functional. Oh, and you probably haven't seen this yet, have you? This is my studio as it slowly gets more moved-into. See that desk? It was a kick-A deal (aka: free from my Mom's work). I haven't had much of a chance to use it yet since we just finished it a couple days ago, but I already love how I have tons of little cubbies to store my knick-knacks in. Oh, and what's that hanging from the ceiling, you ask?

Why, my pink Rockstar light. Don't you have one? I guess not, since it's a one-of-a-kind original made by my Mummy for me for Christmas. I love it. Not only is it funky and PINK, but it also casts light into that otherwise dark corner. And speaking of corners...

Here's the other end of the studio. Yeah, it's less neat and organized. Well, I guess that's not necessarily true, since it's actually very organized. It's just less pleasing to the eye, I suppose. There's all kinds of stuff huddled over there as you can see, including a lot of things that you can't. Like a box of paper flowers, two containers of yarn, half a dozen dried gourds, some un-assembled Adirondack chairs, and...oy. I could go on. But I won't.


Anyway, if you've made it through this long, rambling post: I thank you. I promise I'll get a little more cohesive as I get back into the swing of things. But until then, damn....it just feels good to be writing again.

Where does a platypus learn a word like 'hodgepodge' anyway?

Sorry the title of this post is so random (it's from an old commercial, I believe), but this post is going to be equally random. For example...

Here is the wreath that I made for my Mummy last week! It's very similar to mine, except it obviously has a different color scheme. And it's double-wrapped, since the main wreath body was green and one layer of white yarn resulted in some pretty nasty show-through. Just another fun project to share with you guys. Oh, and this...

A more complete photo of the fence, as promised...what, like last Monday? Kind of late, but better than never, I suppose! It was taken from the window of Denny's office, right over the roof-line of the garage. I got lazy and took it from inside since it was raining so hard that day. :)


AND, last but not least, a little poll for my small readership.






See, I want to move this blog over to WordPress, which has (in my opinion) a better format for blog-writing and inserting images. However, I don't want to move it if you all won't come along with it...so...be honest. Answer the question. You won't hurt my feelings either way.


And that concludes the most random jumbly post I have ever written! Looking forward to hearing from you!

The Return of Privacy

So, as promised, here is the long-awaited update of our fence-rebuilding project! As of yesterday morning, this is what our fence (and our giant pile of dismantled-shed/fence/trash) looked like...

As you can see, we had three posts up and set in concrete, as well as four panels in place. Since we knew that we had a busy day ahead of us, we got up early and dove right into working to get the rest of those posts up. In no time at all, we had that fourth post set, but since we needed one more to finish our line, off to Home Depot we went-- where we accidentally bought a too-short post. Which we didn't find out until we put it up temporarily to measure the spacing and (in the words of Homer), "DOH!"

See? 10' post...10' post...8' post. Fail.


So back to the Depot we went to buy the right one. We exchanged the 8-footer, but were barely able to get it into the ground and concreted (is that a verb? oh, well-- it is now!) before we had to leave the house. Thus ended our fence-building for the day.


Today was another early morning, not to mention a freakin' cold one! Seriously, when we got up this morning to continue working on the fence, the ground was frozen solid, the panels were covered in tiny ice crystals, and my body instantly began arguing with my mind, telling me that this was just plain stupid and we should go back to bed immediately. Luckily, though, was able to ignore those words (of wisdom) and I dove right in to helping Denny, who'd already been up for a half hour and was busy loading up our borrowed trailer with shed and fence debris. 

After a couple of trips to the transfer station, our pile went from unwieldy and hideous to manageable and...well, still kind of hideous, but on a much smaller scale. :) In fact, it was so manageable that we were able to pop up another panel before I even had a chance to take an "after" picture of the mess. Aaah! To be rid of that garbage!


So our next step on this Odyssey-of-a-project was to finish that last little gap at the end. Now, this may seem like no big deal, but let me just say this: 1) the gap was an odd length (not an even 8 feet, but closer to 10 feet long), 2) we had no desire to shorten the line of fence (it would have put it at odd angles with the line of the house), and 3) they don't make 2 foot fence panels. All of this combined to make A Challenge To Overcome. Our solution (by which I mean, Denny's creative and utterly-genius solution) was to buy a small "gate" panel and to modify it to fit the gap between our last full-size panel and the final post. We elected not to put in another post between the full-size and the modified panel since they're super sturdy and were going to go on level ground, next to a large, solid end-post anyway.


First, Denny took some very precise measurements, and then to be safe, he measured again. And then one more time.

Next, he made some initial cuts at the structural points, then flipped it and repeated the cuts (since the circular saw wouldn't go all the way through the first time), then he finished the rest of the line and popped the gate panel into two pieces. In order to finish off the newly-cut side, we simply took a matching piece of red cedar 2"x4" and screwed it to the side, then cut the extra length off. Easy as pie.


After a few minor adjustments, we put up the full-size panel and then fit the modified one into place.

As you can see, the daylight was fading fast (thanks, stupid winter hours...) but we managed to get it in. Voila! The gap is gone. We officially have Privacy. 

Of course, there's still a bit left to do. Those posts? Yeah, they're not always going to be that tall. And they still need "hats," as Denny calls them. We also still need to fill in the holes around the fence posts with dirt and tamp them. But at least until then, we won't have to look at the houses across the street the whole time and they won't have to look at our pile of whatever-else-we-decide-on-a-whim-to-demolish. Like I said, good fences = good neighbors.


PS: Yeah, I know there aren't any pictures of the full-length, semi-completed fence. What can I say? It got dark fast. So, the third (and hopefully final) installment of this story will just have to wait until I can get some daylight hours for picture-taking. Say...Wednesday? Alright, it's a date! See you then! -Ash

No Boundaries...Around Our House

Okay, so you know how we recently tore down the shed? And I didn't actually give you guys a photo of the end result? Did you notice that? Well, that's because immediately after tearing down the shed, we started on this little project...

Look at that leaning, wobbly, gonna-fall-down-at-any-second crap. Not pretty. So it should be no surprise that the instant we got a decent stretch of sunshine we --you guessed it-- demolished it.

We started out by prying out the worst of the panels. 

It began with one...

And quickly turned into three...

Then all of a sudden (it seemed), there was a huge gap in the fence and our backyard looked like this. Which just won't do. As you all probably all know, we're very much in the Northeastern opinion that "good fences make good neighbors" (oh, Robert Frost, you smart, smart man), so we did what any sane person would do: we immediately began rebuilding. In short, we rented a truck, bought $400 worth of panels, some posts, some hardware, a stud gun that could shoot nails into concrete...huh. Not that short. Nevermind. Moving on.

Yay! One panel up! But then...

Insert four-letter expletives here. Yeah. That's &%$@ing concrete. And despite our best attempts to mount post hardware into it (which usually works), all we succeeded in doing was chipping that...blasted concrete foundation to...heck. (See that amazing restraint?)

So what did we do? And what's that thing Denny is holding, you ask? That, my blogosphere friends, is a mini-jackhammer. Yeah. We keep one on hand for just such occasions (uh, not really; it was rented, just like our panel-hauling truck).

Denny decided that the best thing to do would be to simply blast away the concrete wall where we needed to put posts, then pour new concrete to secure them. Not only will the posts be guaranteed to not rust at the bottom (what happened to the last posts), but they'll also be sturdier. And if you're gonna build a fence, you might as well do it right the first time.


So that's what we did last weekend. A lot of demolishing the concrete wall at eight foot intervals, a lot of picking out the giant chunks, a lot of digging away smaller chunks...Basically Sunday was a bust (haha). The good news is that now that we have all that done with, we can move on to more exciting things, like rebuilding our lovely wall of privacy (which I will fully document and then put on the internet...just doesn't make much sense, when you think of it like that...huh...).

An Early-November Yarn

Do you ever wake up in the morning and think: "I'm going to make a wreath today!!!" (With multiple exclamation points, just like that?) Just me? Fine. Be that way. Regardless of whether that may or may not have been a weird thing to be thinking about first thing upon waking, it's what I thought and therefor, it's what I did today. I started out by raiding my yarn collection. Oh, yes. I have a yarn collection. Some might even call it a Yarn Collection, given its insane size and range. Wait, "why yarn" you ask? Well, if you've spent any time at all on Pinterest, the answer should be fairly obvious, and if you don't happen to be acquainted with Pinterest, you'll soon be acquainted with the Ashley-version of a yarn wreath. Hold tight and watch...

First, I made a trip to Joann's for a wreath form, some different colors of felt, and some millinery berries (which are actually more copper than brass, despite this picture). Once I got home, I got out my hot glue gun and began wrapping my yarn around my wreath form. Like so...

Turns out that multi-color yarn = stripes! No one (meaning Pinterest) told me about this phenomenon and so I'm telling YOU. So, listen: Multi-color yarn = STRIPES. In this case, camo-stripes (although my mummy may object to me labeling the color palette as such-- Sorry, Mom). Once I'd finished wrapping my wreath in yarn (gluing every couple of inches to keep it in place), I started thinking about decorations. I drew inspiration from the Etsy shop Itz Fitz! and made up some felt flowers ala Design Dump to add to my own handcrafted (aka cut from felt and snipped from a bunch) leaves and copper berries. Here's the in-progress shot...

Followed by a finished detail shot...

Followed by a brief interruption about how to hang said yarn wreath. You're familiar with these, right?

Command Strips basically hold the world together at this point, so it shouldn't be that big of a surprise that they also hold my wreath in place. In this case, though, they're given a solid 180 degree turn and, ta-DAH!, transformed from a Command hook to a...uh...upside-down Command hook. Ok. That was a little anti-climactic. Anyway. Moving on!

However, my hooks were a little long, so I was forced to call in reinforcements.

My reinforcements in this case were...Myself! And a chisel! And a hammer! And a utility knife! Did you hear me? I Did It Myself. I DIY-ed, for real. Using said tools, I chopped off the extra length and voila! A fitting upside-down Command hook I had, yes. (Excuse me while I channel Yoda...There is no try! Only do or do not!...ahem)

The result, when strung up on some sparkly sheer ribbon, is this. You like? I like. And, for a little perspective, here is the wide shot...

So that is what came of my (somewhat-)early-morning brainstorm. An elegant camo-meets-crafty-meets-festive wreath! Now, if only all my brainstorms ended so successfully...(I won't remind you of all the ones that didn't...it would be too embarrassing). Instead, let us dwell on my small and momentary success! Hurrah!

WWTGS (aka: What Would Tim Gunn Say?)

Last weekend, I decided to tackle my plain-Jane curtains. So while Denny was doing this,

I was turning the lower living room curtains into something slightly more impressive than they were. Which was this:

As I said before, I had this idea of putting some kind of ribbon border along the edge and fancifying it up (like that word?—yeah, I just thought of it now). So I went to Joann’s and came home with several different spools of ribbon, ranging from an extra-wide, white “lattice” pattern to thin, old-fashioned, pale-teal ribbon with a loop border. In the end, though, I decided on a ½” bold teal. It contrasted nicely with the color of the curtains and wasn’t too…quaint? Is that the word I’m looking for? I suppose. The ½” teal was the only one that didn’t look too countrified (a word which I decidedly did not make up but which fits the situation perfectly). So, on it went!

I began by laying out my curtains on the floor in front of the TV with You’ve Got Mail playing (is anyone surprised?) and used some double-sided “Peel’n’Stick” to start laying down the ribbon along the seam at the bottom. I simply took the tape, cut it in half, and pressed it along the ribbon, being careful not to get any outside the edges. However, once I got it finished with the first row, I realized that it needed a little something more, so I got out the 2” painters tape left over from the cabinets and used it to create an even spacer along the entire first ribbon.

The next step is exactly like the first step, except…well, I used double-sided Scotch tape on the ribbon. This is due to the fact that I had to cut the other stuff with scissors to get it to the right width (it was about a ¼” too wide) and therefore gummed up two sets of scissors by the end of the first curtain. However, for the second curtain, I was a little more innovative. Instead of using double-sided tape or trying to cut the “Peel’n’Stick” adhesive with scissors, I got out a box cutter and cut it directly on the roll to the size I wanted. Easy-peasy.

Next, I continued to carefully lay out the ribbon in straight lines with the Peel’n’Stick (which I recommend over the Scotch tape), then finished off the rows neatly. To make it look less like…well, taped-on ribbon, I made sure to line up the edges of the ribbon with the hem lines and also made sure the edges were carefully cut and not frayed. Now that I think of it, I should go back and add some non-fray glue to the ends…

And there you have it! A chic, simple addition to plain-Jane curtains! Of course, I didn’t stop there, though. After hearing about Mom’s new curtains, which have tab backs and thereby a nice pleated look, I decided to create a similar effect on my own curtains. I decided to be resourceful (aka: cheap) and use the extra Peel’n’Stick and ribbon to create hanging tabs on the back of the curtains (thanks for the inspiration, Mummy!).

Again, out came the blue painters tape (I love that it gives me a consistent and removable guideline). Next, I Peel’n’Stick-ed a bunch of four inch cuts of ribbon along the edge of the tape, using a piece of cardboard as a space measure.

I then laid out my curtain rod along the ribbon tabs and used more “permanent” P’n’S to attach the other end of the ribbon (those quotations are sarcastic by the way—can you see where this is going?).

Simple, right? But right away, there were problems, because although the top looked mighty spiffy…

…the hem was just a wee bit shorter than I liked.

And it got worse, because by the end of Sunday night, the whole thing looked like this:

Yeah, “permanent,” my butt. Oh, well. I guess that’s what you get for going the lazy route and trying to tape your curtains up. So, now they look like this:

And, while that is still an improvement over the ribbon-less curtains of a few weeks ago, I just can’t get the memory of those nice pleats out of my mind. Sewing isn’t an option (because I don’t know how to sew them on in such a way that the seams won’t show through the front side) and it’s clear that adhesive simply won’t do the trick. Oh, well. I guess that leaves me two options: either get over it, or get my Project-Runway on and “Make it work.” Which leaves me to wonder, what would Tim say about the tape fiasco? No doubt he’d give me the chin-holding-elbow-propped-stare-down, then shake his head in disappointment. I can just see it now…(and you can, too, right around second 22 of this clip!)