A Day of Celebration

IT IS FINISHED!  THE BATTLE IS OVER!!!!!!

Today, I graduated from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill!!!!

I could not be more excited!  After 4 long years of papers, exams, and more readings than I knew what to do with, I am finally finished.  In that time, I have lived in 4 different homes, 3 different cities, gone to 2 different universities, and walked away with 1 Bachelor's degree in Global Studies (and a minor in Arabic).  It was certainly a challenge, and I certainly enjoyed a lot of it, but I am very happy to finally finish that chapter of life.  I'm not sure where the future will take us, but I look forward to seeing what God has in store for us!  I also look forward to a lot more reading for pleasure, no more exams, learning for the fun of it...

Since I was not in Chapel Hill for graduation, we had a little graduation ceremony of our own here in Texas.  My in-laws all came to celebrate, and my nieces and nephews all got to be my classmates - they walked, received their diplomas, turned their tassels, and threw their caps!  On Saturday, I made construction paper caps for the kids, and a cardstock cap for myself.  They had yarn tassels, and the kids decorated the caps with stickers.  I also made little diplomas for each of them.  Jeff's brother-in-law also made this great Italian Cream Cake with blue icing - it was four layers of rich deliciousness!  Perfect with a cuppa tea :)

Before the ceremony this afternoon, we had a special lunch with diploma sandwiches (turkey and cheese rolled in a tortilla), and lots of fruits and veggies.  Then it was time for the ceremony!  We played "Pomp and Circumstance" (of course!) while my father-in-law (the acting Dean of Students) called out each name and presented each person with their diploma.  After we all got our diplomas, we turned our tassels and threw our caps in a fit of glee!  Then we got special graduation snacks - fruit roll up diplomas for the kids, and graduation cap chocolates (from Pinterest) for the grown-ups :)  My parents and sisters FaceTimed in to watch the ceremony, so even though they couldn't be there in person, they still got to celebrate with us.   And the super fun thing - my dress!  I just finished making it this week!  I'll post more about that later...

Today is also Mother's Day, which means I got to celebrate my wonderful mother.  Unfortunately, I couldn't be there to celebrate with her in person, so I sent her a gift instead and was FaceTimed in for the big reveal.  I made her a Grateful Jar, which is a jar filled with thank you notes so whenever she's feeling sad or unappreciated or missing her baby #2, she can pull one out and be reminded of how much I love her.  She loved it :)  I also got to celebrate my mother-in-law and my two sisters-in-law, all of them fantastic mothers who work tirelessly and selflessly for their families.

To be honest, this Mother's Day was bittersweet.  Sweet, because I got to celebrate all the wonderful mothers in my life (especially my own!) who have been such an encouragement to me.  Bitter, because I was painfully reminded that my first child would never be able to celebrate this day with me.  I would've been 22 weeks along today, over half way through. I read a blog post from Deeply Rooted magazine this week, and Allie Rasmussen wrote it beautifully:

We grieve deeply, but not “as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). We have hope to press on because we see His good gifts to us, even in our pain: our salvation, family members, His Body surrounding and comforting us. We have hope in knowing that this life never has the last word. Think of what awaits us that we do not yet see: God himself, along with the precious itty-bitty babies that we never got to hold or know. We have babies to miss but to rejoice in meeting someday, with the One who saved us from our sin and promises all will be made right and new. Author Timothy Keller writes, “If the death of Jesus Christ happened for us and he bore our hopelessness so that now we can have hope—and if the resurrection of Jesus Christ happened—then even the worst things will turn into the best things, and the greatest are yet to come.”

So today, I'm celebrating.  Celebrating the end of college, celebrating precious time with family, celebrating the women who pour out their lives to raise us and care for us, and I'm celebrating the hope I have in Christ that all will be made new.

The Yoga Skirt

A couple Sundays ago, I was up really early before church and couldn't decide what to wear.  I remembered that I had just recently acquired some blue and white striped knit fabric, and thought it would make a nice skirt.  So I jumped online, found a blog post about easy knit skirts I had pinned a while back on Pinterest, and got to work.  The blogger called it a yoga skirt - after similar skirts that were being sold at Old Navy.  The knit makes it stretchy and comfortable.  The waistband is what makes it neat - it doesn't need elastic or a zipper, since the knit is stretchy, but still snug.

First, I took some quick measurements to figure out how wide I wanted the waistband and the length of the skirt.  Then I grabbed some tissue paper and drew myself a pattern.

Next, I had to line up all the stripes on the fabric so the edges would match up.

Then I cut out the three pieces (front of the skirt, back of the skirt, waistband), sewed the waistband together, then the two sides together.   I attached the waistband, stretching the top of the skirt as I went to match up with the waistband.  I had to use a zig zag stitch for most of it to make sure the fabric would still be able to stretch without popping a stitch.  Finally, I hemmed the bottom of the skirt.

The whole process, pattern to wearing it, took me two hours.  It's the fastest I've ever completed a sewing project!  I wore the skirt to church that morning :)  I really like this skirt - it's lightweight, and comfortable, and really easy to make.  I had never sewn with a knit before, so I was kind of nervous, but it wasn't too difficult.  I'll definitely be on the look-out for more knit fabrics so I can make more of these in the future.

Building a Coffee Table

Almost a year ago, I was browsing the craft section of Pinterest and came across this really cool looking coffee table.  The couple had found this old door, cleaned it up a bit, attached some legs and voila! A really cool vintage coffee table.  I immediately fell in love with it, and decided to do it myself.  So I spent the next month or so scouring thrift shops and Habitat for Humanity's Restore in order to find the perfect door.  I finally found it one day in the back of Restore, and promptly bought it for $21.  It was old, and made out of solid wood.  This project would be done almost entirely at my parents' house, since they have the space and all the fun power tools a girl could ever want.

I started off by stripping most of the paint off of the top of the door.  Sections of it were peeling and cracking off, and I didn't want to worry about possible lead paint chips coming off later down the line.  I decided to leave some of the old paint (that didn't come off with the first two rounds of paint stripping) around the edges so when I distressed the new paint, the old paint (which is a different color) would show through and give it some depth.

Then we loaded the door into my dad's car and drove it to a friend's to use their table saw to cut the door down to a better size.

After cutting it down, we had to secure the top piece of wood to make sure the rest of the door, which was fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, wouldn't fall apart.  We did this using an awesome tool called a Kreg jig.  It lets you drill a hole at a specific angle to secure two pieces of wood together - it's a really strong joint, and the holes are easily hidden.

testing out the new Kreg jig

preparing to drill the hole for the screw

power tools are lots of fun :)

After the pieces were secure, I got some crackle medium to put on the panels.  I wanted the new paint to crack, so it would look older and show the old paint or wood underneath.  Crackle medium is the easiest way to do it.  Once it dried, I re-painted the door.

After the paint dried, I began to distress it.  This part was a lot of fun - I dropped a hammer on the door, hit it was a crowbar, scratched it up, and basically just enjoyed beating the wood up to give it more texture.  Then I used a little wood stain to darken some of the edges and fill some of the new dents in the door.  After that, I sealed it with 3 coats of polyurethane.

all ready for polyurethane!

All of this had been done over about 4 months of various weekends at my parents'.  After I finished the top coat of polyurethane, the door sat in my parents garage until this summer.  I had sidetracked by other things in life, and I was stuck on what to do for table legs.  I had found some affordable options online, but nothing I saw really struck me as being right.  On spare days this summer, I went back to me parents to finish up with the polyurethane - I had to do several coats on the back of the door to make sure the old paint on that side wouldn't chip off.  Then the past couple weeks, I finally made a decision on the frame and got to work.  My dad and I bought some lumber from Lowe's - the wood was the same size as some of the more expensive table legs, but unfinished (meaning not sanded or stained), and about twice as long.  We bought two of these and cut them in half, which only cost us $10.

Building the frame was so much fun!  My mom wisely suggested that we miter the corners of the frame, to give it a finished edge.

lining up the frame

securing the legs

We used the Kreg jig for the frame.  The outer frame is there to provide stability for the legs.  We quickly discovered some warp in the wood, which meant we had to get a little creative with attaching the legs.  We used shims (slim, angled slices of wood) in between some of the legs and the frame to make sure that all the legs were straight and level when attached.

Once the frame was built, I did 3 coats of wood stain, followed by 2 coats of polyurethane to seal the stain.  The polyurethane took a long time to dry since it's so humid here.  After it was dry, we brought it back inside, placed it on top of the door, marked the frame's position, then drilled holes in the frame where it would be screwed to the door.  We were lucky - the frame sat level on the door, so we didn't have use any more shims.  We clamped the frame onto the door and screwed it in.  For a final touch, we put felt pads on to the bottoms of the legs.

And here's the final result: the coffee table in its new home :)

Valentine's Day

This year was our first Valentine's day as a married couple :)  Since we're not big on buying each other gifts, it wasn't the stereotypical chocolate and flowers kind of holiday for us.  Also, I was leaving that afternoon to drive to Kentucky, so no date night either...

Instead, we celebrated on the 13th!  Jeff had been in New Orleans the week before, so he surprised me by bringing back some coffee and chicory from Cafe du Monde.  Clearly he knows me and my coffee-loving ways too well :)  I haven't tried it yet, since I still haven't finished my other open bag of coffee, but I'm really looking forward to it!

And my gift in return was this tiny little painted canvas.  I saw this Etsy seller on Pinterest who sold these as bigger wall hangings, and thought they were so cute!  I was also looking for an idea of something small I could make for Jeff for his office to brighten it up a bit, which is when I came up with this idea.  All it took was a mini canvas, some yellow paint, a pencil, and a sharpie!

(small enough to fit in my hand...)

It was a pretty simple project, took about an hour overall to sketch the letters, paint around the letters, and then outline them.  Overall, a sweet Valentine's day for us!

Avocado Egg Salad

I'll admit it, I'm slightly completely obsessed with avocado right now.  I want it all the time.  I'm frequently looking for new ways to incorporate it into my meals.  I was so excited to find out that I could add guacamole to my bacon burgers at Burger King for 60 cents...

Anyways.  I was wasting some time on Pinterest a while back, and I found this recipe for avocado egg salad.  It looked yummy, so I pinned it for later.  Now, I'm not usually a big egg salad fan.  I think it's the mayonnaise... But since I've been craving avocado so much recently, I decided to give it a try.  Unfortunately, there are no pictures of my attempts at this recipe, because I inhaled it.

Here is the original recipe (you have to scroll down past the family photos).  I tweaked it a little bit since a) I didn't have the right spices and b) because I like to tweak recipes.  Instead of the curry or fenugreek powder, I used spicy Dijon mustard.  I also used a little less than 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise because the mustard was liquidy and I didn't want the whole thing to turn to mush.

Result: avocado egg salad for the win!  I didn't put it in a wrap because, well, I ate it too fast.  I couldn't wait long enough to mess with spooning it into the wrap.  It was delicious!  I have a feeling that this will become a regular snack for me...

(this is Ashley's picture from her blog post [link above] - it is most definitely as tasty as it looks!)

The Circle Skirt

Ever since I decided that sewing was fun again, I've been on a skirt kick.  I've found a ton of different ideas for making skirts on Pinterest, and slowly I've begun to start making them.  The circle skirt was one of the first ones I pinned, and it looked pretty simple.  No seams - just cut it out, sew in elastic, and hem it.  So I took my measurements, drew a pattern, and then cut it out.

The fabric was actually a fitted sheet that was given to me by my pastor's wife after they moved into a new house.  I bought some elastic from Wal-Mart, sewed a casing around it, and then did my first-ever rolled hem!  At first I thought I'd sew a regular hem, but when I pinned it, it made the skirt look stiff, so I decided to go with a rolled hem, even though I didn't have the special hemming foot for my machine.

Overall, I think it turned out pretty great!

Pinterest Projects

Just about every girl I know spends time on Pinterest these days.  It's a pretty neat site - I found lots of fun ideas for the wedding there!  Nowadays, I like looking through the DIY category for fun, new ideas for making clothing, decorating/organizing the house, and especially for food recipes.  I had some down time yesterday (my last day of summer vacation...), so I thought I'd do a Pinterest project!  It was a simple one - using a coffee can as a way to store all those plastic grocery bags.  It took less than an hour.  Here's how it went down:

I started with a big ol' coffee can from Walmart and stripped the label off. 

Grabbed some white acrylic paint and a paintbrush

2 coats of paint...

The Pinterest post used sticker letters, but I like painting... so teal paint for the lettering!

cut a hole in the lid

ta-da!  finished project!