A Front Door Redo

I'm back. I'm not in school. By week two, I re-evaluated and thought I was nuts for trying to get a Masters. I already have a great job and would have to give a four year commitment in order to finish the Master's program in SW and get certified. Instead of school, I've been working on projects, working hard at my job, spending time with my children, and living life. I'll try and catch you up on things. I saw this when I was out shopping with the girls. Cute idea. Use your ginger bread man cookie cutter to make an easy Halloween mummy. I just might give that one a try. Yes, I did get that black urn and those Halloween socks. I'll share what I did with them later. I did want to show you the before and after of my front door. Here is the before.
Here is the during. Three hours of sanding with an electric sander. I didn't know I had so many layers of paint.
So, here's the scoop about the door. I shopped at Lowes Friday night buying 3 cans of primer, and three cans of red gloss paint, etc. Anyway, I got up early to start on the job but no one else was up to help me get the door off the hinges and I couldn't do it by myself. Eli drew the short straw since he was the next one up.

I sanded for an hour before my DH came out to lend a hand for another hour. Good thing we had two sanders. ;) We thought we had it nice and smooth until we started painting and then you could see that it wasn't nearly as smooth as we thought. It also took longer to dry than I thought it would. Come on...it's spray paint, outside, on a nice warm day. (And yes, we did use all 6 cans of paint.)

Now comes the really big problem. I bought a new handle and lock set, plus new kick plate. (The last one was in bad shape making it hard to open the door. Plus, it looked awful.) Who knew that those things aren't universal? Why does the new kick plate have holes in different places than the old one? And why don't the holes for the old handle fit the new handle? It was a nightmare! My husband was none too happy with me since we couldn't put the door back on and have it lock before the BYU football game started which we had tickets to.

I ended up staying home until my niece came to skype the football game for her dad who is living in Spain. They stayed to guard the house while we were at the game. My DH ended up going to the hardware store and buying a new drill bit, redrilling holes, and securing the house before going to bed at 1 am. I think it turned out pretty well if you don't look to close. My husband still says he loves me...but he kind of rolls his eyes when he says that.
A friend of Candices' cut some vinyl letters/number for me. It was hard to get them in the right place since they were individual and not on a transfer mechanism. I've fixed the 3 since I took these pictures.
What do you think?

So now I'm gearing up for Halloween. The Halloween bomb has gone off in my house and I think I am now finished decorating. I'm also having a Halloween party in two weeks...theme...pirates. Think "The Black Pearl" from Pirates of the Carribean. I have my treasure display and my table all set. (My husband's students are coming for dinner this week. I'm using it as a trial run for my party.) I'll try and take pictures tomorrow.

A week ago I was in Texas with Candice. She just moved from NYC. I came to help her decorate her family room. We were girls on a mission and worked hard to get everything completed in a week. I did lots of sewing. (Four drapery panels sewn into black and white stripes 19 feet long plus 2 pillows. She has a 24 foot ceiling. They do say that everything is bigger in Texas.)

She promises to give me pictures of the "befores" and "afters" but it might be awhile because she doesn't want the "after" pictures to have Halloween decorations in the pictures. We had a blast and my DH flew in later in the week so we could see Mark's first play he directed as new professor. It was a great week that went by way too quickly. I don't like being so far away from all my babies. Good thing at least Steph and family live close by.

Monday we are working on a "Max" costume from "Where The Wild Things Are." Eli says that he wants one too. I thought that was hilarious.

What else am I doing? I have picked up knitting again and am knitting a purse to felt. I'm trying to finish up a Halloween quilt...although I have no idea where I will hang it. I made a new valance for my studio space. And, who knows what else I've been doing...hmmm, this morning I watch the faculty play the students in softball. They didn't get enough faculty to play so recruited from local alumni. The faculty won. Who would have guessed that would happen? My DH even made a bunch of runs and didn't get hurt. It was fun to watch.

I went on a great motorcycle ride with my husband up the canyon this afternoon. The colors were beautiful. We stopped at Sundance on the way down and decided to have dinner in the grill. It was a great date. We decided to make it a yearly tradition.

So, life is busy but good. I feel blessed!

Amy Butler Purses

OK, this isn't an Amy Butler purse but I finished this apple core quilt a few weeks ago and thought I'd show you that I added another project to the "done" pile. I don't even know when I started this one. I'm just glad it is done. I used to love, love, love, woven plaids. Can you tell? Now I have bins of this fabric I'm not too excited to use in anything. Just goes to show that you should use it up while you love it.
Steph came over Friday and we made this Amy Butler bag together. (She had picked out the fabric on a previous shopping trip. I was going to make up my own pattern but thought I'd make life easier and broke down to spend $13 for the pattern. Yikes!)

I had fun playing with Creed. He loved bouncing on my exercise ball and was a great sport to run some errands with us. (I applied for a booth at Swiss Days in Sept. I had to get a cashier's check, pick up the pictures of our booth and jewelry, and mail it off with the application. I'll find out in March if we got in.)
Here's bag number two I made yesterday. They are pretty big. I can see why one of the quilt stores reduced the pattern by 30%. Marissa, this one is for you if you like the fabrics. Candice, what color do you want? The hardest part is to try and find fabrics I think each of you would like. I told Steph that this bag would be as big as you Candice but she thought it would come in handy for carrying shopping purchases and traveling on the train. What do you think?