Ok, So What's Our Plan, Guys?

In a moment of spontaneous inspiration, my wife came up with this brilliant idea. We should paint the panels of our pantry door! When she told me, I just stared at her remembered how much she fought for the white kitchen cabinets, enough that she allowed me my 50" TV. I couldn't believe she was suggesting painting some of them.

When she told me about her plan, I smiled and the next day it was done.



By itself, the black panels surrounded by white borders looks really nice. The magic in this project lies in the fact that this is actually chalkboard paint. That's right. We used to same paint we used in Wally's Room.

The smaller door on the top we will use to post Abby quotes. The middle door will be our shopping list. And the bottom is for Abby and, eventually Wally to decorate as they please.

Pretty cool idea, huh?

Good night. Sleep tight.

Jess and I decided to each make Abby a present for Christmas this year. After seeing this bed at Ikea and utilizing a little of my brilliant reverse engineering, I came up with a design. Here I have ripped some poplar planks into the widths I needed, then used my miter saw to cut them to length.

My scroll saw made quick work of the bed posts giving me the rounded top I wanted. I clamped them all together before using my sander so they would all come out nice and even.

I have a really cool table saw that lets me mount my router, basically converting it into a router table. I was able to pass each board through the router to give every piece a nice rounded edge. I have all the pieces ready to go. Now on to assembly.

Just for fun I decided use a biscuit joiner to assemble everything. I have never used one before and couldn't think of a better project for it. Borrowing the saw itself from my Dad, it made cutting the biscuit holes themselves very easy.

A little glue, a couple clamps, a few hours to dry and I had myself a headboard.

I found a sheet of 1/8" finished wood in my shop left over from remodelling our kitchen so I ran it through my table saw a couple of times to make myself a bottom for the bed. Nice and easy, just a few brads from my brad gun.

As luck would have it, Abby got a doll of Madeline from her favorite books from Santa. Throw in a quilt and pillows from Great Grandma Betty and Abby has herself a bed.

The Manly Art of Crocheting

In an effort to maintain my reputation as Jack of All Trades, I like to throw in an unusual "project" every once in a while.

As it turns out, my wife is a huge fan of the Twilight series. She has read all the books, seen all the movies, etc. I came across this pattern for a hat from Jess's friend Kelly. Apparantly, it is based on a hat worn by the main character of the movies, I think her name is Bella, or something like that.

This is not the greatest picture taken from my iPhone but you can see I have it well under way here.



Here is the final product. It took me about an hour and a half. As it turns out, crocheting is significantly faster than knitting. I actually kind of like the design and even the color Jess picked out.



And there it is. I know, I had trouble taking my eyes off my beautiful wife to look at the hat too, but it's there.



When Abigail saw her Mama's knew hat she insisted on one for her Madeline doll. As it happens, I had extra year so I used a thinner needle and modified the pattern a little and half an hour later, there you go.

There's Something Fishy Going On...

I recently heard a rumor that Halloween is over and gone. I don't know if I necessarily believe that but, just in case, decided to post pictures of Abigail's 2009 Halloween Costume.

Needing to top the legendary Strawberry of '08, I started brainstorming. Jessica and I decided to try doing a fish, since Abigail's fishing skills began their development this year at Orcas with Grandpa French.

After an extensive design process and many lunch hours spent cutting pieces, I was ready to begin assembling. I still had hours before Abby needed the costume for preschool so I wasn't worried.

Here you can see the basic body piece and one row of scales. At this point I was a little nervous. Would the image I had in my head match the actual coming together before me?



And then I finished attaching the scales and smiled. It was even better than I had imagined. I overlapped and staggered the scales which gave it an almost gradiant look and the type of material shimmered in the light every time it moved. I got really excited.



The fins and tail I sort of made up as I went along. I had the basic design planned but added the interior lines at the last minute and thought it looked really cool. You can see how the top of the fins are actually sleeves.



The hood/head was the trickiest part but everything came together really well. The lips went on and the plastic eyes really brought it alive. Unfortunately, I had to go to work so I didn't get to see it one her until the next night, after she had worn it to school. It made me thankful I woke her up at 2am to try it on her real quick to position the arm and leg holes.



And would you look at that. Strawberry? What strawberry?