All kinds of things going on!

Our daughter Jamie is in her 37th week now and was dilated at 3 cm when she went to see her doctor yesterday. This is the girl that had a doctor's appointment when she was pregnant with our grandson Jaedan, went on a shopping spree at Sears before she went to the doctors and then found out she was at 6 cm. The doctor told her to get over to the delivery room immediately. They had barely gotten her in and prepped when she basically just coughed a little and out shot our precious grandson. She didn't have any labor until at the final moments when she had to push. She was later told that she didn't have a biblical delivery, you know where it says there shall be pain in labor, lol. So we're anxiously awaiting the call! We do know this will be our third grandchild, a little girl and that she will be named Brinlee Anne.

I might add that her second delivery of our granddaughter Ashlynn wasn't so easy. She still had very little labor getting to the point of being dilated properly, but Ashlynn hung on to the umbilical cord with great tenacity and fought being expelled into the world for the longest time.

Here are the two showing how well they can get along:



I've now officially lost 80 pounds the old fashioned way - diet and exercise. I've gone down two shirt sizes and at least a pant size. (I carry all my weight between my neck and my waist. If my waist up matched my waist down, I'd be a skinny fellow.) Anyway, I am feeling much better, can do so much more and plan to be around another 30-50 years to see these grandkids grow up!

This is the most recent pic of myself I can find. Another 30-40 pounds off and I'll post the "after" pic.



This was a fun picture. We had a bowling party for Jaedan's birthday and with a little imagination and Adobe Photoshop, the picture was made.

Candlesticks

I bought an old rickety end table/stool that wasn't worth using until I realized I could make some candlesticks out of the legs. I used a prim bowl screwed to the top of the leg on three of them and a metal milk pan for the fourth. Chub candles can be placed in the three with bowls, while a votive would work well in the mustard candlestick.







I really like being able to recycle things that have lost their original usefulness. About the only thing I threw away of the original table/stool was the rotted cloth covering. The wooden top became a sign (I'll post pics of it when I get it back from the vinyl letter lady). The four legs are now candlesticks. The decorative sides that ran from leg to let will become signs as well.

Mustard Hutch

Here is a fraternal twin to the green hutch that Nancy kept. This one is slightly different, doesn't have the doors on the top part of the hutch. I used the same star pattern though since Nancy and I both liked the look.

I couldn't get far enough away from the piece to just take one picture, so the top is pictured, then the bottom of the hutch.







My color palette was mustard and black for this piece. I have one more hutch that needs to be done and will probably be done with the Seattle Red and black colors.

Here are a couple more pieces that were quick and easy to do. A mustard and black plant stand and a blue shelf unit.



This is another plant stand, black and white, and a small night stand/dresser, also black and white.

Chairs and more Chairs

One of the best selling items I've worked on over the past year have been the chairs. These three make the 40-42 chairs completed, with about half a dozen available, all the rest having been sold.

This first chair was made out of half a door and half a twin sized headboard. The slats forming the seat of the chair were made from the boards that the mattress sits on from the twin bed. I need to replace the door knob with an older looking knob. Added a tanglevine wreath and garland to complete the old garden chair look. (Note: not guaranteed to actually hold the weight of a person, intended to hold a potted plant or two). It is also the first piece that I've done using red (Seattle Red, to be exact). Mostly my palette of colors includes antique burgundy, antique white, cavern moss green, black and mustard.



This chair I found at Deseret Industries (a Mormon thrift store). I like using various things to dress up a chair. A garland and the word FAITH in vinyl lettering completed this chair.


And finally, a nice solid oak chair that had a fantastic red covered seat. I like the way that the finished chair looks, after painting it with black primer, then overpainting with antique white, sanding back down to the black and to the wood, then antiquing with dark walnut stain.

Nancy's Pick

Nancy has been a very strong supporter of the furniture projects. She has debated at times about wanting to keep certain pieces, but we only have so much room. However, when I offered this piece to her as a replacement for a "bought off the floor at Shopko" bookcase that was made out of pressboard and laminate, she accepted immediately.



The pressboard and laminate bookcase is now in the dungeon (basement) where we will put it to good use.

Uncle Josh to be a daddy

Our son Josh is one of the "favorite" uncles. Here he is posing with his nephew and niece. Whenever Uncle Josh comes over, he remembers to bring "bug juice" for the kids.



This picture was actually taken by 5 year old Ashlynn. I wonder if being a photog is in her future?



Uncle Josh took this picture of Sissy during the same photo shoot.



I like to think that this apple didn't fall far from the tree. Ha! Josh recently went in to have braces put on. He has been eating more selectively as a result of the braces and is down to about 180 pounds or so.



Josh and his girlfriend are expecting in August. They will find out February 14 if they will be having a boy or girl.

A few more furniture pieces

I know, I know. We're soap makers and I'm not posting about soaps, lol.

Nancy and I will be starting up production before to much longer so I need to work on the furniture while I can. I am currently trying to finish 5-10 pieces each week and feel like I'm not quite keeping up at that level.

This was a small chair already painted white as shown in the first picture.



I distressed it, stained with dark walnut and added a prim garland.



This next piece, with granddaughter Ashlynn posing, was an interesting piece with the slats.



I found a great four line quote that just fit this chair perfectly and after painting it cavern moss green, distressing the piece and antiquing it with dark walnut, applied the quote in vinyl lettering.



"Because I am a Mother
I hold God's greatest prize.
And He expects great things of me
with a task of such a size"
--Grace Atkins

Dyario Bags

Here are some pictures of a few of the Dyario Bags that are hand crafted in Cebu (Philippines).

Jocelin Bag



Joan Bag (available in two sizes)



Evening Bag



Dudz Bag



Cita Bag



Bernie Bag



and the Barbie Bag



Pretty cool aren't they! You can even see words and letters on the bags that are part of the actual newspaper used.

Dyario Bags and dyariobags.com

I've been working to get dyariobags.com done so that we can have a Grand Opening. Dyario is a Philippine word that means newspaper. The Dyario Bags are a means to provide employment to people in the Philippine city of Cebu.



Here are some pictures of some of the bag making process. Sheets of newspaper are rolled from a corner to the opposite corner. Here one of the young adults is selecting a number of the rolled newspaper pages to begin making some bags.




The foreground shows some of the newspapers tubes that have been joined together while this young man is working on another piece.



These next two pictures show the clips that are used to help hold the bag together while the finishing straps and edgings are attached.




The two young adults shown here also help to train others in the process of making these bags.

Some more furniture pieces

Nancy and I both loved the clunky feet on this end table. I took this in to the shop at Black Sheep Gallery and it sold in just two days.



This piece just needed a little distressing and then I put a coat of dark walnut stain on it to give it an older look. You can't see it, but I attached a flat wooden prim star to the top and then painted the bowl to match and attached it on top the star.



I love going to auctions, ever since I was a kid. I was driving home when I saw an auction sign and stopped. After the auction was over, I borrowed my father in law's pickup to haul my treasures home. This piece had sold while I was gone to get the pickup. It had been covered with a lot of stuff and when I saw it, was regretful that I hadn't been around to bid on it.

I asked someone who had bought it and was pointed toward a man who had bid $1.00 for the piece. I asked him if he would sell it and he sold it to me for $4.00. After finishing it in the manner as shown, I sold it for $350.00.



My brother knew someone who was just going to throw this sofa table away. My brother brought the piece to me and all that was wrong with it was that the drawer was missing all the tracking system to keep it aligned and working properly. I couldn't fabricate a tracking system for the drawer, so I just took the front end of the drawer off the drawer and glued and nailed it over the drawer opening to make it a permanent part of the table. I painted it black, then over painted it with antique burgundy. I thought it turned out nicely.

Checkerboard Fun

Nancy thinks I'm having way to much fun with the furniture pieces I work on. Here are a couple of the first of the checkerboard pattern I've done.



and



It has been a lot of fun buying and making the pieces over in some sort of prim style. It combines my love for going to auctions, finding unique pieces, and the doing them in a prim style. Sometimes I know exactly how I'll redo a piece when I first see it. Other times, I tell Nancy, I wait for the piece to tell me what it wants to look like. Either way, its all good!

Our Bah-Humbug soap get's some attention

Every year just before Christmas, at Soapnuts someone hosts the Bah-Humbug Swap. We participated in the 2007 Swap. There were 20 participants so each one sent in 20 items and in return received one of every other participants submissions.

In the Bah-Humbug swap, items ranged from soaps to nail care oils, to sun/dream catchers to christmas ornies.

Our submission was a short tale that went along with a soap in a burlap bag that we called Sac O'Mash. The soap included potato and was scented with anise essential oil.

Anne-Marie at Brambleberry blogged about our entry here.



Thanks to Anne-Marie for the mention and also for allowing us to use the picture she took of our entry.