Kitchen table makeover

Our kitchen table and chairs were a few of the pieces of furniture that we brought with us when we moved from Arkansas back to Sweden. Though I really liked the look of the table it was an odd size. It was square and quite large for 4 people, but really too small to fit 2 on each side. Any time we had company, it was a squeeze. I had been on a look out for a used table that would better fit our needs. Since we weren't planning to keep our current table, I wasn't motivated to refinish it, even though it was getting really scratched up.

When I finally found the table I wanted it was from the same series from IKEA as our current table. With the same finish, but rectangular and expandable.

The table top had some minor wear, but it also had some (super-)glue stains that weren't coming off, so I decided to sand it down and refinish it.

I bought a sander and spent forever on getting it sanded down to bare wood.

Then i stained it with a black stain from IKEA called Behandla.

Then I finished it 3 times with water based Polyurethane.

The middle board (only used when expanded) turned out slightly lighter for some reason, but I don't mind. I had stained it in the basement and the rest of the table in our kitchen. 

I finished it just in time for some family visiting and now we can fit 8 people, no problem!

String art World map

As I was looking for a gift for my brother's PhD graduation I came across an awesome piece of String art World map on Etsy. I wanted the gift to be personal and commemorate his years as a PhD student, as well as something that would take him in to the future of his career. I realized that I could add nails to the many places he had been presenting at conferences, teaching and visiting for his research. This was perfect!

String Art World Map - by HOAGARD

Since I love crafts projects, I got more and more excited about making a string art world map myself. I had never made any string art before, but how hard could it be? I had 3 weeks. I asked my brother for a list of cities he had visited for his PhD and realized it included North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. I went and got all the supplies and started looking for a globe to print out and use as a template. I found a really cool site (Rotate the World) where you can rotate the world any which way. All I had to do was to find the angle that showed North America, Europe, Asia and Australia at the same time. Say what? Not possible! But that string art I had found on Etsy had them all... hmmm... obviously it was not very realistic. Change of plans; though I loved the square format with the globe, I would have to settle for a rectangular projection of the world map. Another trip to the store got me the correct piece of wood (50 cm x 80 cm) and I found a great simplified world map to divide up and print out onto 6 pieces of A4 paper.

I painted the wood grey and got to work on nailing and stringing.

When I ran out of nails about halfway through, I went back to the store for more. They only had one more box of 330 nails, so I was hoping that I wouldn't run out. There was 2 nails left when I finished!

The final result:

String Art World Map - made by Me

I added brass nails to the 11 cities that my brother had been to as well as one to Luleå, Sweden where he was getting his PhD at the Luleå University of Technology. The brass nails are very subtle and can not be seen from a distance, but up close they show up nicely.

After finishing the string art, I had to package it securely for it to survive being checked in on my flight up north.

I was relieved to see it had survived. My brother did great presenting and defending his dissertation and at the graduation dinner I gave him the art piece after quoting Dr. Seuss's All the places you'll go!.

He was amazed and really grateful and I also got quite a few questions about it from the other guests.

As a final touch I gave him extra brass nails to add to places he visits in the future in a special little box ☺

All in all the project execution went smoothly, but I did learn a few things along the way. Maybe I will share some lessons learned in a later post.

Reviving the blog

I realize it's been over 8 years since my last post. Much has happened since then, including a move to a different continent and birth of my second child. During periods of these 8+ years I have been too busy or burnt out to be creative. But there also has been quite a few projects started and completed that I could share here on my blog. I will share one of my favorites in my next post.

Cheers

The big kitchen remodel - Painting walls

Last night the big kitchen remodel started. This will be done in several stages. First up is painting the walls. This is what the kitchen looked like before we started:

 

And here is a preliminary list of all the things we plan to do:

I am guessing this will be a big project, I really hope we can pull it off. Wish us luck!

Designed onesies

Here are a couple of the onesies that I've designed recently:

No more weekly challenge

If you are a follower, you've probably noticed that I haven't been keeping my promise to do weekly projects and blogging about them. I've been a bit too busy with other stuff. So no more weekly challenge - just plain old projects! You will probably see a lot of house projects this spring. Here is a picture of our white board to give you an idea:

I will still blog to keep you updated on our progress.

Week 8 project - One more birthday girl hat

So my niece Ella's birthday is next Saturday. Sorry guys, but it's another hat.

I am hoping to be able to share pictures of the birthday sisters in their new hats soon.

Weeks 6 and 7 projects - Hats for birthday sisters

The last 2 weeks I've made hats for our friends Anna and Emma who both have February birthdays. Anna just turned 3 and Emma will be 1 in a week. This is just a sneak peak, I don't want to ruin the surprise.

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I also have to confess that I am struggling to keep up this weekly challenge. For some reason it seems like 672 quarter hours a week are not enough... We will see how this goes.

Week 5 Project - William's First Year Photo Book

William's First Year
We've been getting warnings about our start-up disk being full on our Macbook for a while. And last Sunday when I was trying to login to Skype for my weekly video call with my parents, it wouldn't let me, cause there wasn't even enough room to create the required logfile for Skype. Needless to say, something had to be done. So, this week I've been busy backing up pictures from our laptop to the external hard-drive (plus another backup on CDs, to be able to delete the oldest ones off the Mac). Once there was enough space, I finally started William's First Year Photo Book, and finished it today. It is 160 pages!!! And obviously, that is just selecting our favorite pictures. I used blurb for the photo book. They are by far the best book-making site I've tried, and I've tried several. The software is very user-friendly and super flexible. The quality is top of the line. And the pricing is not too bad either. Check them out if you haven't already! Here is a link to William's book: William's First Year There is a preview of a few of the pages that anyone can access, so check it out and please send me a line and let me know what you think.

I have an entire storage bench full of well organized photo albums at my parents' house, but since we moved to the US, I haven't kept up with making albums. I've made a few photo books from trips, but I still have tons more I need to make, so I will probably use several weeks' worth of projects to make them. 

Week 4 Project - "Mini-me"

After two nights' work, I have made William a pair of sweat-pants and a t-shirt out of my old "rags". This was my first "reuse" project - but probably not my last. It was also the first ever baby/toddler clothes that I've sewn. I don't sew much with stretchy fabrics, since I don't have an overlock machine (serger). I have been wanting to get one, I am just not sure how much I would use it, given my already busy life. For these pants and t-shirt I used my sewing machine's "fake-overlock" seam and it actually worked really well.

 

I love this style of pants for William, with wide leg cuffs and waist. They are not that easy to find here in the States, so I have a feeling I will be making more of these "mudd-byxor". I mainly improvised the patterns from William's existing ward-robe. I got sewing instructions help for the pants here, and they were really easy to make. For the t-shirt I just drew the pattern from another shirt and sewed it together.

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!

Week 4 Project - Reuse #1

Everyone that knows me, know that I am quite passionate about recycling and the environment in general. Recycling is such an easy thing to do, and it makes such a big difference to planet Earth. This week's challenge is the middle one of the 3Rs - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. As I was cleaning out my closet a few weeks ago, I decided to keep a few of the tops and pants that I was going to bring to Salvation Army, and remake them into clothes for the baby. Since we are already 3 days into this week (plus Chris and I are going out tomorrow night), I know I won't have much time for this weeks challenge. That being said, I hope to make 3 pieces of clothing for William. A pair of pants, a shirt and a hat. Here is a sneak peak of what I have to work with:

Week 3 Project - sweater finally DONE!

OK, I admit, I finished the "not so Pippi-sweater" a day late. Here it is:

I love how it turned out! Now, I gotta get ready for work.

Week 2 Project - DONE!

I did it! I knitted the body of the sweater in 1 week. I decided on raglan sleeves.

Check back next week for the finished sweater.

Week 2 Project - "Not so Pippi sweater" (stage 1: body)

I bet every Swede out there knows the Pippi sweater, but I doubt many people elsewhere have any idea what this sweater looks like. You may not even know who Pippi (Longstocking) is, nor that she is Swedish.

When I decided to knit a sweater for William in the very thin Organic Cotton baby yarn, I told the hubby "this might be the end of my knitting career". I can handle knitting/crocheting hats, botties, socks and mittens but I am not very good at large (you may not think a toddler sweater is large... but it is still considerably larger than my comfort zone) knitting projects. I usually run out of motivation half way through and drag and drag to finish it. Thanks to the challenge and the accountability to my dear (imaginary?) readers, I will HAVE TO finish it.

So week 2's challenge is stage 1 of a sweater for William. I plan to knit the body of it this week and then do the sleeves and assembly next week. The sweater will have some resemblance to a Pippi sweater - but it will not be so Pippi after all. Actually it is only the split neck opening with the strings that will be Pippi about it. And maybe the fact that it has stripes... That's it! William's "not so Pippi sweater" will be brown and green... Here is a sneak peak:

   
Check back later for the finished body of the sweater, and next week for the sleeves and the complete sweater.

Week 1 Project - DONE!

Okay, the first project can be called successfully completed! Now all three of us have matching hats.