Jewelry Box...or Board

Is it worth crediting Pinterest for inspiring ideas when I have no idea who the original post came from? Probably not, but nonetheless, my wife got this idea from someone on Pinterest. It's basically a jewelry board for easy access to her most frequently used jewelry. She decided to make one for her necklaces and bracelets, and another for her earrings.

Both boards use picture frames that have been tucked away for awhile. But of course, she wanted them the same color and she wanted them turquoise. For the larger board, she took an old packing box and used the cardboard to place behind the frame. Before putting the cardboard in, she wrapped it in some simple fabric she already had on hand. Then she stuck some fat pins into the cardboard to hang her bracelets on.

My wife has a thing for knobs. I have a feeling it's not just my wife, but she can't resist purchasing a unique or especially pretty knob when she comes across one. The knobs are placed through six holes she drilled into the bottom of the picture frame. Here are the six she chose to use.

And here's a close-up of the smaller frame for earrings. She used cardboard and a canvas-like fabric for the back, and then added some little screw-in hooks and wire from a picture hanging kit for the earrings to hang on.

Of course now she'll need to figure out where to put the myriad of expensive jewelry and diamonds I bestow upon her regularly. :)

Baby Boots & Shoes

Now, I just want to be clear that the purpose of this blog is to shamelessly brag about how my wife is awesome and does fun and creative stuff. You may see something and think, "I wish I knew how she did that," or "Why didn't he include any instructions?"

The reason I don't include any instructions is two-fold: 

1. Like I said, I'm just bragging.

2. I have no idea how she did some of this stuff, and to my knowledge, my wife still doesn't know that I'm blogging about her coolness.

With that said, the Mrs. started learning how to really sew about 2-3 years ago, soon after my daughter was born. To be honest, she wasn't very good. However, she started with simple projects that came with simple patterns (and she would call her mother for help translating sewing patterns into plain English). Once she figured out how to follow a pattern, she started experimenting with more complex projects. 

Her first "major" sewing project was making these babies.

She found a pattern online for $15 and went to town. If I were to guess, I would say these boots probably took her at least 10 hours of work over a week or more. I can remember a couple of times when she would think she was almost done with a section before she realized she had sewn something on backwards or missed a step.

But she kept with it and finally finished. She was obviously satisfied enough with the results that she tried a few more.

And after she figured the boots out, she decided to try shoes.

I think she found the pattern to these shoes online for free, but I can't be sure. Eventually she was able to whip up a pair of baby boots or shoes in two hours (a far cry from the original 10+ hours), and she decided she would start selling them on Etsy and at local farmer's markets and make a little business out of it. However, it only took a few weeks before she realized that, at least for her, making these boots and shoes for money made it lose its intrinsic value, or the inherent enjoyment she got from doing the project. What used to be an enjoyable creative outlet was now a job.

So she stopped.

Well, she stopped selling them anyway. Now she just makes boots and shoes for the occasional baby shower.

If you're really interested in knowing more about the pattern she used for these, I can probably look through her sewing stuff and find more information. Otherwise, it would probably be more effective to google it. :)

Non-toxic (and cute) Cleaning Supplies

Neither of us ever really put much thought into what we were using to clean our house until we had baby #1. Now that we're on baby #2, I'm the only one who doesn't put much thought into what we are using to clean our house. My wife, on the other hand, started experimenting with more kid-friendly cleaning supplies.

Her first love in this regard was the Method brand of cleaning products. Their products were non-toxic, seemed to work very well, and they smelled great (a big bonus for my wife). While I'm sure she's still a fan, she stopped buying method when she began experimenting with cleaning supplies you can prepare at home using simple and inexpensive ingredients. Oh, and then of course she wanted them to look pretty, so she made her own labels.

The laundry detergent is simply Borax (a self proclaimed "laundry booster"), washing soda (Arm & Hammer) and a Fels Naptha soap bar grated over a cheese grater. I believe she gets all of these in the laundry section of Wal-Mart.

The "recipes" for some of the other home-made products she uses the most are listed below.

All-purpose cleaner:

• 2 Cups hot water
• 1/2 Tbs Mrs. Meyer's All-Purpose Cleaner (not completely organic, but the ingredients are 98% naturally derived)
• 1 Tbs Borax

Carpet Cleaner: 

• 1 Tbs Borax
• 2/3 Cup warm water

Stain Remover:

• 1 Cup Hydrogen Peroxide
• 1 Tbs Dawn dish soap

Glass Cleaner: 

• 1 Cup water
• 1 Cup vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon Mrs. Meyer's 

The thing I admire about my wife with regard to this posting is that she has learned to take monotonous and undesirable tasks (aka, cleaning/laundry) and make it at least a little more positive. She gets satisfaction out of the fact that she's keeping our home environment a little safer, saving a little money, and being a little creative in the process. 

27 Birthdays

There is no limit to my wife's creativity when it comes to special occasions, especially birthdays. Not only does she take the time to do things that let us know that our birthday is important to her, but she also thinks of creative things that demonstrate just how much thought she has put into making our birthdays special.

For my 27th birthday (a work day, unfortunately), I woke up to my three favorite breakfast foods: french toast, sausage, and whipped cream.

Peaches are also my favorite fruit, but I don't consider them a breakfast food. :) I think she used her Cricut cutter machine to cut out the "27" and then sprinkled powdered sugar over the top.

When I went back upstairs to get ready for work, I couldn't very well get to the sink to do much.

In the backpack that I take to work, I found two different treats. First, a couple of bags with 27 of my two favorite candies.

and second, 27 chocolate chip cookies (you guessed it, my favorite).

Midway through my workday, I walked up to my desk to find the following envelope (delivered to my desk by a mutual friend that works for the same company I do):

27 love notes. Some were thoughtful. Some were funny. Some were drawings from my 2 year-old. All were sincere, and all meant a great deal to me because she took the time to express her love in a way that required a little more time and effort than just saying the words...although she did that, too. :)

2012 Homemade Planner

My wife is easily the most organized person I know. She thinks it's normal and that it's easy, but I've actually heard somebody ask her if they could hire her to help them organize their house. Over the years, she has tried multiple variations of day planners to help her plan and organize her life. The problem is that she has never found a planner that had what she wanted, and over time she has developed criteria for a planner that has yet to be satisfied by anything off the shelf.

So, she made her own.

Upon looking at this first picture, I can imagine you might have thought, "Wow, that's big." Well, that is intentional. One of the criteria she has developed for a planner is enough space to consolidate many things in one place. For example, when you flip to the first page of her new planner, you see this.

Birthdays. We're horrible at remembering birthdays. My family is huge, so that doesn't help.  She wanted to have a page where she could put everybody's birthday in one, accessible place. Oh, but there's so much more she wanted in a planner. Flip to the next page, where the monthly planning begins, and you'll see this.

Goals and notes. It's really important to both of us to have spiritual goals and everyday goals to motivate us to live a meaningful life. I don't track my goals...I just like to think they happen over time. :) She wants to be able to set goals and gain the satisfaction of meeting them (hence the weekly checklists). You'll notice that there are only enough check boxes for one week. That's because directly below this page is the following:

The week. When building her template for the weekly page, she typed in only the things that she knew were constant every week. Everything else, including the dates, she hand writes in when she gets to that week. Each weekly view that you see here is accompanied by the monthly goals and notes page above. So, at the beginning of every week, she is forced to go back to the week before to review what her monthly goals are in order to write them down for the next week. Brilliant!

This planner was the result of many purchased planners that didn't satisfy her requirements for good organization and planning. She created these four pages using Microsoft Word and printed them all at home -- 54 pages total (52 weeks in the year, plus the birthdays page and the cover page). Then she took her pages to Office Depot to get them bound together with a simple plastic cover.

In the end, I believe it costed her less than $10 total (not counting the cost of ink from our own printer...not sure how much that would amount to), and she got exactly what she wanted. :)