Keeping My Busy

I've got the sew-bug again. I don't know what causes it. But there are just times when all I want to do is stitch something up. (This part is now irrelevant...There are pictures to go with this post, but they are currently trapped in my camera. So, I'll free them later.)



This weekend I remembered that I received a book from Newgen and Andrea for Christmas last year, The Tudor Tailor. So I decided I'd make something from it and see how it went. Well, I made the top to a fitted Elizabethan gown with paned sleeves. It was a lot of work, but looks awesome. The size of the patterns as-is is a tad bit small on me, but pretty darn close. I didn't make the skirt, because originally I was just playing around. But it came our really good and now I want to make the bottom skirt part for it. However, I don't have enough of the fabric, so I'll need to use something else. That something else won't be free.

I also found a pattern that could work really well for Rhonda's dress. So, I'll have to try that out and see what she thinks.

Plus I finished my stained glass piece for when work releases the new version of our software. Kind of a gift to our company, I suppose.


Oh, and I finished painting my Halfling BloodBowl team, 12 little guys and a treeman. Sweet. However, during the paint-scapades I spilt a good amount of red paint on our carpet. OMG, that sucked! Shannon and I spent a good 30 minutes scrubbing it out. Now you really can't tell, and it was bad! The secret, Spray 'n Wash Dual Power. Just be sure to get it all out of the carpet. Also, we recently purchased our first bottle of carpet cleaner.

The Last Weekend of April 2009 is Gone

What did I do on the Last Weekend of April 2009?

• Made 9 more Standard Normal Plushies for my Etsy store
  
• Mowed the lawn and weeded the back yard
  
• Played more BloodBowl
  
• Painted the "hall bath **itter" (as the top of the door to the room so explicitly described)
• Made and ate some awesome Gyro burgers, with a few changes
• Looked for laser printer transfer paper at stores, with no luck
  

Khardon North Skull

Shannon and I recently finished a BloodBowl league. We haven't played in years and we thought it sounded fun. So, after finishing a league, we painted some for it. Shannon completed his Dwarf team and I finished my Chaos team. All I had left to do was paint the 5 Chaos Warriors. I'd painted the Beastmen (below) in the summer of 2006.


In addition to models, I finally finished the BloodBowl board that I started, probably around summer 2006, maybe even earlier. It was always destined to be our Chaos field and now it's done.


It's made of 1" pink inlusation foam with indentations for the squares. It's glued down to some hard board and flocked with the same stuff I put on my Chaos bases.


I made the dugouts simlpy by cutting wholes in the foam. Then I lined the sides with popsicle sticks to look like wood retaining walls. The two black boxes are for storage and dice rolling.


To keep track of things, I made these wooden score boards from random balsa and bass wood pieces. They look a little more Orc-y than Chaos-y, but they still work. One side uses blue, the other endzone used red.


Also, to get the lines on the field, I watered down some Fortress Gray paint and just painted with a regular brush right over the flock. It was the last thing I did.

I may go back and paint a logo in the middle of the field, but Shannon and I need to design one first. So for now, it a Chaos field and it looks better than I thought it would. Now I just need to finish painting my Amazon team so we can play another season of BloodBowl.

Happy First Monday of Spring

This weekend was a special one. The last two weekends we've had guests here, which is awesome. I love having people come over on weekends. The weekend before that we helped Jay and Charles move, so that means we were out of town. The next 3 weekends Shannon and I will be gone. So this weekend will be the only one in 7 that Shannon and I are home and can do stuff around the house. So we did (and we played a lot of Blood Bowl too).

We started on Saturday by trying to fix our yard. It is mostly weeds and those evil baby trees. We raked and then on Sunday sprayed the entire yard (front and back) with weed killer. I fear we may have to take more extreme measures though. We will see. Here is a picture from before we raked.


And this is after. It looks like more of a difference in real life. I really hope the weed killer works!


The other thing we did was to paint our second bathroom. Yay! I know, I know. Everyone whose seen the previous wall paper (below) is thrilled. Try to contain yourself. We aren't done with that room yet.


We still plan to replace the carpet with some pretty tile. We also will change the lights, add some pretty decorations, and maybe even new faucets. We'll see what we find (and how much Mom wants to do!)

Yay! It's so nice getting things done around the house.

A Little Elbow Paint

This weekend Mom and Rhonda came to T-town to help around the house.


It all started in the kitchen. Shannon and I already removed the border, now it was just a matter of deciding on paint colors and painting the room. We ended up painting the walls in the dining area green and the walls in the kitchen brown. The ceiling we painted a lighter brown in both rooms. It matches the floor really well and the blue/gray in the hall really well too.


Since we finished that on Saturday, we made plans to hang the light in the dining room and put in a dimmer switch on Sunday. The other thing we did on Saturday was the only thing that we said we had to get done this weekend.

About two weeks ago our garbage disposal just pooped out on us and quit. So Shannon and decided we'd just buy a new one and install it while our moms where here. So we told the moms about it Friday (when they got it) and they said that our home-owners warranty would cover it. Well that was a lot cheaper. 75$ for them to do it all instead of 200+$ for us to have to do it. Yay. Then on Saturday, after we painted and were admiring our work, Rhonda got to talking with Shannon about the garbage disposal. They did some things involving an allen wrench and pushing really hard. They plugged it back it and turned it on and it worked! Rhonda knew how to fix our garbage disposal for free!


On Sunday, we headed out to Lowe's go get what we needed for the dimmer switch and ended up buying paint for our master bathroom. When we got back to the house, Mom and I put up the new dining room light and installed a dimmer switch while Rhonda and Shannon removed all the wallpaper from the master bath. It came down so easy and fast, it was awesome.


So we puttied, sanded, taped, primed, and painted that room too! A-w-e-s-o-m-e.


We treated Mom and Rhonda to a yummy Japanese dinner for all their help. There is no way we would have done all of that this weekend had they not been there. Thanks guys!

Productivity on the Home Side

This weekend I made a little creature to give to my cousin with the blanket for her baby that I finished. I also finished painting some Escher models to make up a Vega's gang for Shannon and I. I painted about 12 movement trays. I also puttied the holes in the wall in the kitchen. I would have started to tape things off, but we have no painters tape! So I will do that later. I also started an apron made from some old jeans from Gary.

Between getting all that done (plus laundry and usual cleaning) and having my PIFF team do well, it was a very good weekend!

Making in Mine

This last weekend was great, it was missing a Maria and the major purchase of a washer and dryer, but still great. Mom, Jayme, and Nikki came down on Saturday and we started two large projects. Here are before pictures of our projects, or kind of during for the fence. It started with a broken pole and 12 feet of fence laying on our grass.


The fence was falling when we looked at the house in May and my June, it was down. So Mom, Shannon, and I replaced one post, reinforced another, and put the planks back on. It's far from perfect, but its standing which means the grass isn't being killed by the 12 feet of fence laying on it. We left some 2x4's there to support the fence while the cement cured all the way. They will come down. The post we bought was about 18" too tall, so we had to cut it. But Shannon and I don't own anything more than a 6"blade hack-saw. No way we're cutting a pressure treated 4x4 post with that. So Mom and I went to Lowe's (much better than Home Depot) and she bought us a table saw! Neat!


This is the half-bath in the hallway. It had this crazy wallpaper (as do the other bathrooms in the house, one room at a time...) that reminded me of an old fabric my mom had for crafts and reminded Rhonda of what used to be on the walls in her bathroom in Garden. Either way, we knew it would have to go. Shannon and I came back after talking with our neighbors about the fence and found Mom, Jayme, and Nikki peeling wallpaper. :) The room isn't quite done, it still need a toilet paper holder and a towel holder and a picture or two for the walls. It's an awesome color, called Brick Wall. I like it a bunch. We got a nice new light and a really fun faucet (thanks mom). Now we just have to get Mom to come back some weekend and tile the floor!


It was a great weekend, spending time with Mom and Jayme and Nikki and getting stuff done. Maria was going to come, but had to work (boo). Maybe next time. Hopefully next time. Oh, and Nikki, freaking adorable! Check out this cute video of her on Shannon's blog. (Charles is Jayme's male friend.)

Square in the Fun Target

I've had a short break from working on my masters report recently. Ever since I've been willing to admit that I won't be presenting on the 7th, I've relaxed a little and had some nights at home. I don't sit in front of my lap top and Shannon's watching the log window of SAS hoping that nothing red pops up. The simulations ran for 11 hours on my computer and 20 on Shannon's. But that step is over and now I just have to finish writting it all up.


In other news. I painted some black orcs! They go along with my lil' goblins. I started them a while ago and finally finished them this weekend. Next up, some new grave guard.

Dark Elf Tower

Shannon and I have been creating these tiny 100 point armies for Warhammer. My first one was a Dark Elf army. I painted the models a while ago, and then decided to make some scenery to match. I started this tower and am in the process of painting it. It's about 10" tall.

Spankin' New Naps

I finished painting some models recently. I said I'd show you and here they are. These 4 Wood Elf Glade Guard finish off my unit of an odd 17 (not sure of my logic behind that) (Here's the first 3).

The 6 Chaos Warriors are really old. The models are Shannon's from before I even knew him. I am slowly working on making the unit larger. But they match my previous Warriors (these guys) rather well.