Crocheting for a cause

Today I am crocheting for a cause.  

Look for an Etsy shop to appear soon!

Mirror, mirror...made out of toilet paper rolls

In my new home, aka my parent's house, we have two rooms: our blue bedroom and our yellow living room/the guest bedroom that no longer houses a bed.  Our little yellow living room is crammed with our love seat, a chair, a few bookshelves, Buddy's crate, and our TV.  It's cozy.  We painted it yellow about three weeks ago and I've been trying to figure out how to make it homey without too much effort or special projects since everything is temporary and we didn't unpack most of our belongings.  When it's all finished I'll share more pictures but for now, here's a taste of my current inspiration from Pinterest.

I'm slightly obsessed with that mirror and really wanted it to go over our couch.  I love that it's a) a little bit gaudy, b) red, and c) oval, since most of our yellow room is boxy with lots of 90-degree angles.

So I looked and looked and looked for a mirror that would cost me $10 and look like this.  You might be surprised to learn that I did not find it.  Shocking.  But I did remember something that I pinned a few weeks back.

You know what?  I was right.  It does make an awesome frame for a mirror.  The original tutorial is found here but I'll show you my spin on it.

First, living with five adults and three bathrooms, it only took about 5 hours to accumulate enough toilet paper rolls for the project.  I may have dug through a few trash cans.  I don't remember how many rolls I used, I just kept cutting until I had enough circles.

First, you cut each toilet paper roll into small circles of varying sizes, they don't have to be the same width.  The cardboard gets a bit squished but it's okay, you just smoosh it back into shape.

I got a mirror from Hobby Lobby in the candle/centerpiece section.  It was originally $7.99 but at 50% off I got it for about $4.  Yay!  I started by laying out the toilet paper roll circles around the mirror to get and idea if this was going to work (and it did, whew).  Then a little bit of hot glue between each circle holds the thing together.

Around and around and around until I had three layers.

I fully intended to include the little curly cues like my inspiration wreath but I kind of liked the cleaner look and figured I can add them later if I want to.  Plus, I was out of toilet paper rolls.

Then I just lifted the whole thing off (it wasn't attached to the mirror yet!) and took it outside to spray paint it "Colonial Red."

After it looked like something horrible had happened in the backyard or like Dexter had shown up and the first side was dry, I turned the whole thing over and spray painted the other side.  Toilet paper rolls really suck up spray paint!

To hang the mirror I used 3M picture hangers, the kind of the clicking plastic things.  I thought I took a picture but....I can't seem to find it.  I stuck three on the back of the mirror and followed the instructions to hang.

After everything dried, I used a little bit of hot glue at a few points around the new frame to attach to the mirror and then *CLICK* attached it to the wall.

Ta-da!  It's a bit smaller than I thought it would be and since the toilet paper rolls are really only chunky from the side it doesn't have the red showpiece effect that I was hoping for but it was only $4 + $3.77 for spray paint so if I do find that awesome oval mirror, no biggie.  In the meantime, it's adding some curve appeal (harhar) to our tiny yellow living room.

I have more things to spray paint for our yellow space but today it's raining so I guess it'll have to wait.

Now that I am fully aware of the abundance of toilet paper rolls, any other suggestions for how these little tubes might enhance our home?

Happy (Belated) Anniversary to us!

Our 3-year anniversary was July 19th, right in the middle of the moving madness.  Instead of trying to sneak in a alone time celebration, we postponed it until this last weekend. 

It's no secret that this has been a rough year for us with lots of challenges in our individual lives and our marriage.  My dream was to take a tropical romantic vacation and renew our vows, just the two of us.  However, budgets prevailed and instead we stayed in OKC.  But I think we did it right with an afternoon at the art museum, a room at the Skirvin Hotel where we spent our wedding night, and an amazing dinner at our favorite OKC restaurant, Deep Fork.

We did include a little vow renewal on the steps of the church where we got married.  I want to share the gift that I got S but I don't have a picture so I'll tell you about it later!

And the cherry on the sundae?  We had a coupon for dinner and because of a yapping dog who apparently had lots of opinions and needed to bark for three hours straight, our hotel room was comped.  Anniversary score!  The barking dog not so much, but the accommodating hotel staff, yes!

Year three was a doozy but we're ready for year four.  Bring it on, life!

You can cure cancer!

Last year I walked 60 miles for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure in Atlanta.  It was amazing!  I wrote about it here.  I had really bad blisters but I walked all 60 miles with my friend Leanne.  Then I told my whole family about it.  And they signed up to walk in Dallas in 2011.

Yay!

Except now we all have to raise $2300 - each.  That's $13,800 total.  Eek!

And life got in the way for several of us.  Big time.

So now we're three months from the event and way behind on our fundraising.  We're in serious need of donations but we're also in serious need of fundraising ideas!  Do you have any tried and true ideas?  Anything that might help us raise $13,800 for cancer research including the research that's being done on our family (yes, my family is the subject of a cancer study)?

We're also behind on our training.  I blame it on the 110 degrees and the fact that we all moved within the past month.  So, it's time to get going!  We have three months to make it happen! 

If you're interested in donating, you can do that here.  Or send the link to your friends!

Blu-ue room, you saw me standing alone...

Or, The Moody Blues.

Last week if you were walking down the hall to our bedroom, you would see a plain room with plain (pink) walls.

Before that you would have seen an empty room with blue carpet and then you would have seen the demo.

But now you see a beautiful dark blue room with moody blue walls.

I am obsessed with my cozy blue room.  I told S that is feels like a hug.  Who would have thought it would be so comforting to wake up in a dark room?

The small room feels bigger with the rich color and the white curtains and linens look so crisp!

And, bonus, a look back at the pink bathroom.

Eek!  This was right after we moved in.  After adding a black and white rug that my parents brought with them, our white shower curtain, some white towels, and a little bit of art, it looks a bit more glamorous.

We're going to paint the cabinets a glossy lacquered black and add silver hardware to spruce it up until the time comes for my parents to demo that bathroom and make it what they want.  In the meantime, the pink is really growing on me!

Treasure!

One of the positive effects of my parents moving back into their house and not having access to all of their closets and cabinets (because we're using them) is that it is forcing them (and me) to go through boxes of old keepsakes and miscellany and take loads of stuff to Goodwill.  Yesterday I went through a box of random stuff from bathroom cabinets and I discovered treasure from the 1990s!

First, my old Caboodle!

Aren't I am awesome photographer?  Look at those vibrant yellow-y colors!

But seriously, my Caboodle!  But what could be inside?

Wait for it....

MY CRIMPER!!!  AHHHHH!!!

Let me clarify, my hot pink Sizzle crimper.  Sizzle?  No one would call a heated styling tool "sizzle" in 2011.  Luckily we learned that sizzling is not exactly the key to healthy hair. 

As much as I wanted to keep these artifacts for my future museum of 90s memorabilia, they have been donated to an Oklahoma City Goodwill.  If you're in the area and in the market for a vintage crimper or Caboodle storage system, I can point you in the direction of a clutch find.

Off the face of the earth

I feel a little bit like I've fallen off the face of the earth.  I'm not really answering phone calls and we don't have internet at the house yet so it's hard to get online.  Why am I not answering phone calls?  Because right now I am Debbie Downer and realized my conversations were going like this:

Friend: How's the job hunting going?
Me: Eh, it's not, it's really frustrating, I don't know what to do.
Friend: How's the house going?
Me: Eh, we painted but we had to put all our stuff in storage and we don't have much space and it's also frustrating.
Friend: Did your parents move in?
Me: Yeah, it's crowded, I don't know....sigh...

See?  Total bummer.  I work REALLY hard at having a good attitude but it takes a lot of energy and while I can have a good attitude, I can't pretend that it's AMAZING! 

It is not amazing.  We live in a house with my entire family.  We don't have our things.  We don't have much privacy.  It's hot.  I can't find a dream job.  Even though it's temporary, it feels like forever and like I am completely sucking at life.

See why I don't answer the phone unless I am in a genuinely good mood?

Some things have happened.  I got a job.  And then I quit the job before I started.  Why, you might ask, did I do such a thing?  It was a decent job with low pay sitting at a desk all day surrounded by people who already know me.  So a fine place holder but not exactly something to propel me into the future.  So I quit.  And almost instantly starting making new connections. 

What, you ask?

I met with  a professor for whom I am going to be doing to volunteer research assisting and who encouraged me to start taking classes now.

I got another interview for a part-time job with an arts organization.

I met with a principal of a small school for students in substance abuse recovery and I am going to help them develop a music program.

More exciting than office work, right?  Right.

And S loves his job which makes me really, really happy.

Maybe I'll return to earth soon.