Not quite a complete project

For my birthday this year, my wonderful husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I sat and thought about it and decided I wanted one day to do absolutely whatever I wanted. No chores, no diapers, no calming a fussy baby. I just wanted to spend the day crafting.

So for this fantastic opportunity I took the day off work, Alex took Liam to the babysitter, and I got to sleep in and then get to crafting.

A craft I was sure wouldn't take too long was recovering my desk chair (which I am sad to say is still unfinished). Here is what I started with:

So it was in pretty bad shape, the back of the chair was torn to pieces by Diego and the legs were chewed up by a teething Chow Chow several years ago.

First step is to pop out all of the covers over the screws

All done with that part...on to unscrewing everything

Multiple screw drivers and tools later I had to resort to more drastic measures

With this I managed to get one arm completely off of the chair and the other was held on by one very very frustrating screw...

So to take a break from fighting with that, I decided to cover the seat. For this I used a staple gun (my first time using one, I was never allowed to play with my mom's when I was a kid)

I stretched the fabric around the seat and stapled it, then attached the arm that wasn't still attached to the back of the seat.

Before that I had to be sure to cut holes for the screws to go through

Still unable to get that screw out I took a cake break and had some triple layer lemon cake that Alex had made the day before for my birthday.

While eating my cake Diego showed up, wanting to help

Here you can see where I wrapped the legs of the chair with a soft bright yarn just to make the legs more comfortable to rest my feet on.

Diego decided to camp out on the chair that was turned on its side.

Alex was able to get the screw out and the arm detached. So at this point, the chair is still sitting sadly in pieces on my craft room floor. Still left to do is to separate the back into two pieces and cover them. Then stick them back together and assemble the chair.

Hopefully that won't take too long since I can't sit down at my desk until I do so. 

Here is some cuteness to end the day, Liam on his first snow day:

A Not So Crafty Christmas

While I had really high hopes and really unrealistic plans for Christmas 2013, I didn't end up getting to craft quite as much as I was hoping to. I only ended up with two handmade gifts. One was for my brother Wil and the other for my mom (and which I didn't even remember to photograph). The one for my brother I am super proud of and may end up making a baby sized one for Liam.

With my brother I have made him an assortment of hats throughout the years, from a hat that looked like Chain Chomp, to simple hats, I found one I was super excited about and actually finished in November...Here he is trying it on....

I am pretty darn proud of that I must say :).

For my mom I made her a string art of South Carolina with a heart around Sumter. Not my original plan, but still fun (the original plan is being postponed to birthday time). I learned something new with that project. First is that most nails have some sort of coating on them, so after hammering in all of them, everything I touched had dark smudges. Second is that when doing the state, don't use cardstock....it is really, really hard to get out from under the nails. I wish I had gotten a picture but I will get one when I go home to visit.

I did have some very successful baking. The first were some Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies from a Martha Stewart recipe. They went over well when Alex took them to work for a Yankee swap (they looked like lumps of coal...) and the other is Vanilla Shortbread Cookies. The only thing I would recommend with the shortbread is to be sure not to roll them too thin. They fall apart in a heart beat.

Just because I didn't get all my crafting done this christmas, my mom did. She gave Liam an amazing knit teddy bear:

Seen with 4 month old Liam for a size reference. The bear is also borrowing one of Liam's sweaters (also made by Grandma).

Some crafting this year is better than no crafting I suppose. Alex asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I sat and thought about it...I have decided I want a day entirely devoted to crafting. I will stop to feed the baby but no diapers, no cooking, just a day to craft. Alex seemed to like the idea so January 27th I will be crafting till my hands stop working.

Finally a cute pic to end the day: