Craftyminx

A small update

Over a month has passed and it feels like yesterday since I wrote that last post. I haven’t been blogging because there’s really nothing to blog about except for post-fire updates and that just seems really boring so I haven’t bothered and to tell you the truth, I haven’t really missed it one bit. I have had a packed schedule lately because on top of longer work days I had to throw in three, two hour sessions of physical therapy every week for my ankles. Anyway I feel like I need to put something here, at least to document this process for me personally if anything.

So far things have been moving really slowly with the house. We’re ready, insurance sent a nice fat check weeks ago, and the contractor is ready but I’ve had issues with our lender. There was a ton of paperwork for us and the contractor to fill out before they would agree to release funds from the insurance check for us. I mailed it all off two weeks ago and then I called and they said they didn’t get two of the documents (which were in the envelope!!!) so it’s going to be even longer. I’m hoping that construction can start in the next two weeks. I’m tired of being away from home. It’s getting to the point of frustration that if anyone asks how the house is coming along I kind of feel like a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy and someone says “when are you due? You look like you’re about to pop!”

We’re in a furnished apartment until repairs are finished. The big perks here are the walk-in closet (even though we barely have any clothes to hang in it), the garden bathtub which I use a lot thanks to supplying myself with tons of LUSH bath bombs, cable T.V. (sooo spoiled here -- I’m watching TLC pretty much non-stop), and the pool. I’ve never been one to hang out at the pool all summer, but this summer I’ve been taking advantage of having one a few feet away from our apartment. The worst thing about the apartment is having the dogs in a rental. Dash has already ruined the carpet and we’re constantly worried that they are making too much noise.

I got the crafting itch the other day so I’ve started a little tunisian crochet project. I’m working on a pillow that I will be cross stitching awesomeness onto later. I’ve also been dreaming of our “new” home. This is a new start for us. The house will be fresh with everything clean and ready for something different. I have big plans for maximizing organization and minimizing the stuff that we let come back into the house.

That’s where we are right now-- Living, waiting, and dreaming.

Life Right Now

Our lives were turned upside down the morning of June 31st. It all started with a call from my alarm company while I was driving to work. They said that the alarm had alerted them to a forced entry and that they had dispatched the police, but they were notified that a fire was at our house and she would transfer me over to the fire chief. Driving while talking to a fire chief about my house being on fire is not the way I would have wanted to start my day. I ran in to work, told them I had to leave, called Sheldon to tell him what was going on and that I would meet him at the house as soon as I could get there. Of course while on the phone with them, they didn't tell me how bad the fire was, just that it was in the attic, they had put it out, and that both of the dogs were perfectly safe.

I got home and was told that the house was hit by lightning during the storm before and the room smouldered until the next morning where it caught some oxygen and started the fire. A neighbor called the fire department and told them we had dogs which pretty much saved our house and our pups since no one was home. We were given a tour of the property. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. Our house didn't burn down, but it was really hard to see any part of our home in shambles.

 The craft room got the most damage. The photo above was right after the fire department left. By the next day the whole ceiling had caved in.

The dining room ceiling fell about 5 hours after the fire department left. The pictures are crappy iPhone photos. I only took a few because my asthma didn't really allow me to spend much time in the house after the incident.

The next 24 hours were a blur of information and phone calls. Everytime I turned around I had someone else's business card in my hand. Thankfully everyone we have encountered so far from the fire chief to the cleaning crew our insurance agent brought in has been amazing. Homeowners' insurance is a great thing. We haven't really had to do anything yet, which is good because I was in shock for days afterwards.

It has been two weeks now and things are going OK. Our house has been completely emptied for cleaning. When there is a fire where most of the house only gets smoke damage a restoration company will inventory every thing, box it up and take it to their facilities to be cleaned and stored until the house is habitable again. I'm getting flash backs of our robbery experience because we are learning so much about things we have never had to deal with before. Everything in the house had either been damaged from water or smoke, so we only had the clothes on our back and a few things that were in our cars. We have some amazing friends that have housed us while we were waiting to hear from the adjuster. Our local adjuster got us set up with a temporary housing company that set us up in a nice hotel while we waited for our temporary apartment. Again, we haven't had to pay for anything or do anything on our own for which we are really very lucky!

We moved in to our furnished apartment this morning and now I feel much better. I'm not living in insurance limbo and we have a place to call home for the next couple of months. We have a contractor and our house will soon be on the mend. Now that we're settled and have consistent internet I will probably start blogging some again. It's weird to be living with so little, but also refreshing. It makes me ready to get rid of a lot of the useless stuff that was in our house and start anew. I mean after all of this we're basically going to have a new home to move in to and why would we want to just bring in a whole bunch of stuff to trash it?

DIY Iced White Mochas

I am a white mocha fanatic. They are definitely my guilty pleasure of choice. Now that I work more and drive a lot I find myself often stopping at Starbucks for this guilty pleasure more than I probably should. I started trying to figure out how to make my favorite beverage at home to save money and calories about a month ago and I thought I'd teach you all how to do it make it today.

First things first, you're going to need an espresso machine. You can try to do this with a regular coffee maker but I guarantee it won't taste the same. Second... the ever elusive white chocolate syrup. You can buy it online if you want (it took me forever to find a somewhat inexpensive place to find it), but I'm going to teach you how to make it yourself. 

You will need:

• Espresso roast coffee beans (Starbucks if you want the same taste)
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 8 oz. White chocolate (I'm using fancy chocolate but you can use the white chocolate chips or bakers chocolate)
• Vanilla 
• Light corn syrup (not pictured and optional)
• Milk
• Ice
• Whipped cream if you want it.
• a jar and pretty straw make it taste better I promise ;)

To make the chocolate syrup:

Chop and measure your chocolate and place in a bowl for later.  At this point I should add that this will not make a super sweet syrup (I am trying to lose weight so I don't use the corn syrup) so if you want the really sweet stuff, pour about a quarter cup of light corn syrup over the white chocolate and follow the rest of the directions as written. 

Heat the whipping cream over low heat until it starts to boil.

Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and cover it with plastic wrap. 

Let it set for 5 minutes... ding!

Stir the mixture together with a whisk until it is nice and smooth.

Cool the mixture by stirring over an ice bath until it has cooled down. Once it is cool you can add a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. I omitted it from this batch because my white chocolate bars had vanilla beans in them. 

Pour the cooled syrup into a pourable container. I filled up two syrup jars like this, if you don't have a lot of room you might want to halve the recipe.

Now for the iced white mocha:

Make your two shots of espresso. When I'm making this in the morning I'll make the espresso as soon as I get up so it can cool down while I'm getting ready and doesn't melt all my ice. 

Pour your espresso in the glass and add a few tablespoons of your white chocolate syrup. 

Fill your glass up with ice and top it all off with milk and give it a stir.

Top with whipped cream if you want and enjoy! 

Printable Recipe

It has been forever since I have been able to blog. Time has been extra precious lately so I haven't even been thinking about blogging. I hope you all understand. For the time being posts will still be sporadic. We're getting ready for summer reading at work so most of the summer will probably be me passing out as soon as I get home because I'm running around with a bunch of kids and teenagers at the library. I seriously couldn't be happier right now but it's hard to believe that I could possibly be more busy either. The more I get used to my new job the more time I will have to think about blogging. 

House Purge 2012!

 

My thrifting closet.

 

Hello Everyone!! I know it has been forever since I have posted and this is why. I have been whipping our house into shape. I have been going through every nook and cranny in our home to get ready for a huge garage sale! While there will be a few things (ahem vintage sheets!) that I will put in an online garage sale later, most of the stuff will go into a local garage sale I will be having this Saturday. 

For more info and address I made a facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/303539849726415/

I will be adding sneak peek photos to the facebook page as I price items. 

The last couple of months I have felt like I'm drowning in stuff. So I decided to do something about it. While it is really hard to sell my "treasures," it is time to start with a clear slate. The thought of not living in clutter is very exciting! I might even share an updated home tour after all of this. I have been organizing while I'm purging and the house just looks SO much better :) Once the sale is over and the leftovers are taken to goodwill I will feel like a new woman! And hopefully I'll have some free time to actually blog again. 

Spring Cleaning

Yesterday was my day off. One of the best things about my new work schedule is that I have to work occasional weekends. You would think this would be a downside to the job but I have found it to be a very unanticipated perk. You see, when we have to work a Saturday or Sunday we get a day off during the week to make up for the weekend day we are scheduled to work. While this does occasionally cause a problem for weekend plans, we are usually able to work around our work schedules since we get those a month in advance and the weekends I work are pretty standard.

library books. We have so many at any given time they now get their own place.

When I say I had a day off yesterday that means I’m working this Saturday. I see this as a perk because I have found that  I am more productive during these middle of the week days off than I ever am on weekends. This is usually because we are really lazy on weekends. We lay around with the dogs watching movies or TV show episodes on Netflix, only leaving the house to spend money we don’t need to spend or hang out with friends. We have a lot of fun spending time with each other, but we are rarely productive. When I get a day off in the middle of the week I am usually alone because Sheldon is working so he is not there to distract me and I know I only have one day instead of the customary two in a row and my brain clicks into productivity mode.

I brought this school desk into the living room from the studio. I will eventually ask my dad to cut a hole in the metal base for the wires to go through the back. Unfortunately the wires must remain in the living room because it houses the only phone jack for internet.

So yesterday I started spring cleaning. Our house was in DIRE need of this yearly deep cleaning. I could immediately tell that our house suffered a lot during my depression. I think next time I get that depressed I am calling a housekeeping service to come in weekly because not only does the house need it, but I’m sure I would benefit from a clean house during such a trying time as well.

To prove how bad it was I should tell you I only got through the living room  -- 1 down, 7 to go. I cleaned every nook and cranny disinfecting, polishing, dusting, vacuuming, rearranging, and organizing. I noticed a few big issues. First, our windows need to be replaced. I knew this but I was hoping we’d be moving before we ever had to make this update. Now I think we’ll need to do this as soon as we possibly can.  They are looking really bad, and I’m afraid some paint just isn’t going to help at this point. Second, we have way too much stuff. Again, something I knew but am definitely going to try to live by better standards for what we keep in our house. If we don’t love it and can’t find a place for it in our current home and standard of living we need to get rid of it (or even better, don’t buy it in the first place!). Third, our wood floors need to be refinished.  This is a fact I have been ignoring for far too long knowing that it would mean either moving out everything we own to do it all in one go, or going room by room shifting furniture as we go. This is not a task I am looking forward to.

Updated vignette I removed the items that I didn't LOVE. Bella's ashes now have her embroidered portrait with them to serve as a little memorial.

Recently, I’ve been really unhappy with our house. I’m ready to move and have been for a long time but I still have the urge to make our house the best it can be. I bought this little house because of its potential and I hate to give up on it. So I’m determined to stay here and do what we can with our limited funds until we have to move because of a growing family,  I’m not able to deal with my 40 minute commute any longer, or Sheldon finally gives up on our tiny kitchen. I think we’ve decided to keep the house as rental property so I see every improvement as an investment instead of something we shouldn’t spend money on when we won’t get any return on it through selling in our neighborhood.  Like I said, we’re working on the back yard right now. I’ll do a full post on this process alone, but I’m excited to get started on it. We had to wait a week to install the back door because of severe weather last weekend, but this weekend it’s happening!

Sorting. Many things are moving their way out of our home.

Tonight I’m starting the studio - the second worse room but of most importance since it is the room getting the door and it needs to be cleared out to make space for my dad and Sheldon to do their work.  FYI local people who love crafts and vintage get ready, because come May (maybe the weekend of the 11th) we’re going to have a huge and very awesome garage sale! I’m tired of the unused stuff taking over our home!

Great Spring Cleaning Resources:

• Martha’s Spring Cleaning Checklist 
• http://www.rightathome.com/Cleaning/Articles/Pages/SpringCleaningRoombyRoom.aspx
• Smead organics house cleaning checklist  (great for weekly cleaning)
• Some more helpful house cleaning schedules

Have you started your spring cleaning? What things do you make sure to do?

Librarian Wears... and other random life things.

I don't know how often I'll do this, but I decided my first weeks on the job as a librarian I would take a photo every morning of my outfit. They're not the greatest since my remote decided to stop working. But here you have it... What I wear to work.

It's funny how different my wardrobe is now that I'm not working at a desk all the time. I wore skirts all the time at my old job and now I've only worn a dress twice. It's hard to work in the stacks when you are wearing a skirt. 

Another big change is tattoo coverage. We don't have a policy against tattoos at our library, but I did move from working in an office to working with the public so I try to keep my tattoos covered for the most part so people don't judge me before they get to know me. I'd rather be known as a great librarian than the girl at the desk with the tattoos. I haven't had any problems with them, but I do sometimes notice people staring.

Also something that I randomly notice in these photos are how needy my dogs are. We're needy dog enablers. 

You may have noticed how quiet it has been around the blog lately.  I am truly loving my new job, but it is taking up a lot of my creative energy. It also takes up more time than my old job. I used to spend 9 hours a day getting ready for work going to work and coming home. Now that my commute is longer I spend about 10.5 to 11 hours a day on those things. So I basically live out of my car and spend all my spare time cooking, spending time with friends, and sitting on my couch with my feet elevated. It's a glamorous life I lead friends! 

We're currently working on our back yard makeover which is really exciting! We're getting a back door installed and will start working on a patio area, landscaping, and building a fence. It will be so nice to have another area to use for entertaining. 

I'm finally starting to miss blogging so hopefully I'll be able to find more time for crafty projects and blogging this month! 

Craft Supply Challenge Winners!!!

Drum roll please.... The winners of the challenge are as follows:

Week 1:

Robbie's awesome mod podged yarn vase

Week 2:

Robbie had the most votes again, but since he won week 1, Sarah's cute Sparkle Shoes win week two. 

Week 3:

Shary's cute friendship bracelet

Week 4:

 

Diane's really cool wooden glitter candles

A big thank you to everyone who played along and to those of you who voted! Robbie, Sarah, Shary, and Diane e-mail me (dana at craftyminx dot com) and we'll arrange your month of free ad space on the blog! 

I'm loving my job!! I thought I would have some time to blog this weekend but my mom was in town for her birthday and we did a lot of yard work. I didn't even have time to get on the computer. I went thrifting for the first time in months today. It was so much fun and I found some really cute stuff. I'll try to check in this week :)

Shop Update

Just a quick little update on the shop. I have added international shipping. I'm shipping out the first shipment this morning and then I'll ship again on Saturday morning.  While I was looking for my shipping supplies I found a box of more stock to sell so I'll be adding pom pom garlands and some embroidered items and vintage sheet burp clothes this weekend.