Welcome!

Our entry door is at the top of the stairs and while it’s fully covered Florida rain still gets in and pools outside our door. (don’t even get me started on the numnuts who redid the concrete and forgot about a proper slope!) So with all that rain all summer long our door mats get a beating and don’t last very long.

So when they recently painted the building, and the stupid painters just tossed our mat on the ground at the bottom of the step I looked at the sad bristles and decided it was time for a new one. But this time I didn’t want to shell out another $40 for one that wasn’t going to last. So I recruited my favorite handy man to make one for me based on some I’ve seen.

We went to the Depot one Friday night and purchased 2x2 wolmanized posts (for railing) @ .95 a piece and had them cut down to size.  Then we found some threaded rod, nuts and acorns and washers.  Lastly we picked out a stain. (In hindsight now I wish I would have remembered that they just painted the concrete dark brown-it used to be light gray)

Adam Drilled three holes in each piece of wood.

Stained them over the course of a few days.

Then we began assembling the door mat.

Even Charlie got to help! She LOVES her tool box and can now properly identify hammer and wrench. She also thinks her nails are hammers.

After all the pieces were on Adam cut the rods down to size and capped them off with the acorn bolts.

I love it! I think it will be great and hopefully last a  long time! Dirt can fall through and so can rain. And when there is a puddle there this will lift us up 2” so that we’re not always standing in a pool of water before we enter the house.

In total I‘d guess the project cost us around $30 and I’d love to do another one (when we have more doors) and play with stain/paint/pattern. Hmmm maybe this would be a nice gift…let’s see…who just bought a house

“Shirt” Dress

A while back I came across this “How to” picture on Pinterest.

And of course it just sat there in my “Make It” folder.

Fast forward to last spring when I was cleaning out a few things in my closet. I had a newish shirt from Lands’ End that was too short for me so it made the pile. And that pile of discards has sat by the back door all summer waiting for a ride to the donation bin.

Then I saw that Pinterest picture again and pulled out my blue shirt. I thought…I can do this. So, Saturday night, I did. It was the easiest and quickest dress I’ve ever made. (and cheapest!)

I used one of Charlie’s existing dress to figure out the length then I cut my two pieces and started to sew them up.

The top piece:The Skirt:

Sew the two together:

For the straps I used some lace trim that I had bought last spring at an up-cycle store.

I think it turned out really cute and I’m dying to make another one to improve on my design. So if anyone has an extra button up shirt lying around, send it my way!P.S. Forgive my model…she is against standing still.

Friday Fun-Graphic Design

I haven’t done a “Friday Fun” post in FOREVER! So I thought it would be fun to share some of the graphic design work I’ve done for friends since I just got back from McKenzie’s Bachelorette weekend and am doing a bunch of stuff for her wedding.

I love doing this type of design and luckily I am able to do some at my work too. I think it makes me a more valuable employee especially when my boss is always coming to me when he doesn’t like what a marketing firm does and says…”You can do better”

But I’m not going to share my work stuff with you since I don’t “own” it and I wouldn’t want to jeopardize anything with a project.

So here are some of the fun things I’ve designed for various events…which all started with my wedding!

Then I did Felicia's wedding. My sister-in-law is ridiculously talented and drew the orchids for both her save the dates and wedding invite!

The same year I was also maid of honor in Tara’s wedding! So I planned her shower:

Most years I do postcards for Christmas, it’s cheaper (like $12 for 100) and less postage than tradition cards!

I helped out mom with Joe and Jen’s wedding. (Jen did a fabulous job on all her DIY stuff-but then again she’s a textile designer for TARGET!!)

Then along came Ms. Charlie!

And now I’m working on my friend McKenzie’s wedding! I did the save the date, shower invite, party game, guest book and am working on the programs!

I have so much fun doing these and LOVE it when people ask me to do them! It’s a fun hobby and I love helping out!

We've got a wine problem...

Problem isn't that we don't have wine.
Problem is that we don't have any place to put all our wine!

What you can't see are the two cases under the desk on the other side or the full wine rack (10 bottles) in the living room or the new case that was recently added....sheesh!

I won't go into WHY we have all this wine...but don't worry, we're not alcoholics...but we do have it and we're both sick of tripping over it!

So in true Adam&Stephanie fashion in order to solve our storage problem we've designed a new piece of furniture to hold SOME of this wine and liquor.  It was also very important to build it soon as it will replace a very tippy shelf that holds a lot of glassware that will become a hazard in a couple months when someone decides she's sick of lying on her back in one spot :)
 
Like all the pieces we've designed, first and foremost, we wanted something functional. I'm a firm believe in the form follows function philosophy. (opening up a can of architectural worms!) We also wanted it to be in similar style to what we already have.  In the end I chose to follow the design of our end tables…

 

…over that of our Ikea Hutch.
Anyway…here is what we’ve come up with.

The lower portion is a cabinet, that will have a door on the back side as well, to hold liquor and glasses and..well more stuff! Don’t worry, it will definitely be lockable!

 
The idea with the two doors is that it is a 4-sided piece. That way when we move, we won’t be stuck putting it only one way in a room. It could be used perpendicular to a wall (as a room divider) or on the left or right side of a room.

I don’t know when Adam will get to building it (he’s hoping soon) but we’ll definitely share the finished product with you.  We’re happy with the way it’s shaping up and look forward to getting the majority of those bottles off our floor!