SOLD!

That lovely hard to find Palomino pop up camper that I longed to have, we sold it down the road.

My camper/camping needs have evolved into something beyond my initial firm stance that camping should be done only in a tent, should be rustic, one with the Earth. Although I still values these ideals behind our camping adventures, we have upgraded from tent, to pop-up camper, to a new to us “tin can” style camper (more on that later).

The initial purpose of trading the tent in for a camper was to get us off the ground and provide a little more safety from “wild” animals. (more on the reasons and original purchase here).

We did a little work on our Palomino, the water tank had not been properly winterized and so there was a spot where the tank burst, because these tanks are aluminum it was a little more of a challenge to find someone who could weld it for us. Thankfully my uncle knew someone welded it for free!!! Thank you!!!

Second, the water tank storage tank had also not been properly treated so we had to clean that to remove mold and build up, mostly Clorox lots of water and patience.

So all in all we were not out much, and enjoyed 3 camping trips in this pop-up another bonus was that we were able to store it in the 3rd stall of our garage during the winter

It sold in less than a week after listing it on Craigslist.

I am so excited about our new camper and will post photos soon, but here are the last photos I took after some of the minor work we did on the 1995 Palomino Hard Side pop up camper that a wonderful family of 7 is now hopefully enjoying!!!

Shreddin’

Posted by Patchwork Reality

Really it could go either way….slopes or crafting right??!
We are actually doing quite a bit of both around here. It is cooold still and school continues to be cancelled on random weekdays due to the cold, we were off yesterday and today for temps that were in the -30’s with the wind-chill! Luckliy every Friday the mercury climbs up to perfect temps for hitting the slopes, in MN we have great hills no actual mountains, but we don’t mind!
So we are bumming and skiing/snowboarding, it is polar (ha ha) opposite of the California version of boarding and bumming since we aren’t getting tan, but I could not have planned it better myself.
Mostly we are spending times off the slopes inside, so I am trying to keep a balance between reading, eating, bickering, and screen time…not all that easy!
Here is the project we did yesterday, inspired by this pin on pinterest.

This seemed like the perfect cold day craft….we have cardboard boxes and magazines laying around so we set to work.

I was not sure that I would be able to free hand draw a large shape that would resemble anything better than an amoeba, so I got our the overhead projector that comes in handy at the most wonderfully random times, I posted about it before here!

The kids got out their large bin of “figurines and animals” and chose the one that they wanted. It worked best to lay the object on its side, and then we adjusted the projection to fit on the cardboard which was propped against the wall and then the kids traced the shape onto the cardboard in pencil.

At first we were going to just rip the paper or cut it into thin strips, however with small hands it was looking chunky and not as uniform as we wanted.

So we employed the help of a paper shredder (which only momma was in charge of!), we borrowed from a kind neighbor, and shredded up old magazine pages.

The kids spent truly spent 2-3 hours gluing down the strips onto their shape…I mean quiet craft time is like silent gold am I right?!?!

At some point we ditched the white glue bottle and got out modge podge which is why some spots on the finished project are shiny…I would recommend this, it seemed to secure the paper better, and not leaves any loose spots that may tear off.

Ta da!

A Goat (by our 11 year old, completely independently):

An elephant ( by our 9 year old again independently) I just love the hair-do:

A panda bear (by our 6 year old, mostly independently, she needed a little help gluing and staying on task at one point, but you can see she came back with vengeance and a black crayon for the background):

And who else? Pocahontas (by our 4 year old, she may have had some momma help;)):

Really an easy craft with what materials most of us have around the house, if you do not have a projector you can certainly free hand a shape, I am sure most of you out there have better art skills than I!

And just one more…proof that the sun does shine on MN hills!

Teacher gift workshop.

Posted by Patchwork Reality

I saw this block calendar project on another site and was smitten , that’s a great winter time word isn’t it. My mind instantly thought “we can do that”.
So we set to work, I even asked the amazing man at Home Depot to cut a 4 x 4 post into squares for me…. There are about 30 in a post. THANK YOU!!

I have tons of paper scrapbook supplies from when I had time to encapsule photographic memories and notations on expensive paper to archive into even more expensive “books”, and a jar of modge podge. So we set to work:

Finished late on the last night before the last day of school for 2013. I hope her teacher likes it. Because we do.

These photos are from my phone and may not be the best, but I am thinking we will make this project again very soon and I will post a tutorial with some better photos and instructions. The kids really liked making this.

A Nook that does not hold books and some that do.

Posted by Patchwork Reality

I know that not everyone is on Pinterest and maybe you are and don’t “get” the big deal, but for me when it comes to projects and inspiration I am like a ~~crack~~ Oreo addict to that site.

We have a number of closets in our home, I am sure most of you do….but it seems like wherever the builder of this house had extra space he added a door and some shelving. Great right…well some of these spaces are awkward and honestly putting a door in some places just seems to take up more space than you are saving.

My point? I have 2 closet spaces that I am thinking would be great turned into more of a nook space:

1. One of the closets in our sons room.

2. The entryway closet.

What does this have to do with pinterest?

I have been pinning “nook” like spaces for at least a year…here are some of my tops for our sons room:

houzz.com

His “nook” will definitely hold books and also serve as a desk space.

readingglssesshopper.com

Love the hanging organization in this desk nook.

littlehellraiser.com

This is amazing and would have been perfect for my not-so-little-anymore bookworm, but now that he is in middle school he needs a desk space.

4.bp.blogspot.com

Last but not least, I love the clean lines of this and the shelving for books.

For the entryway I need a place that has bins and shelves but also still has hanger potential, without detracting from what might work for others if we sold the house. This has to be a nook without books. I have some ideas how this will work in our space, and here are some photos that I am drawing ideas from:

housetweaking.com

Love this with the bench and hooks, plus those baskets for mittens or hats or shoes, but there are 6 of us and that might not cut it in MN winters.

cultivate.com

hello storage!!!

Last one, again love the bench hooks and storage underneath.

Anyone else turned a closet into a nook space and LOVE it?

I am hoping to share some exciting changes around here soon!

No Tricks all Treats

Posted by Patchwork Reality

By far the best Halloween costumes we have had so far in all 11 years of child raising.

Every year we ask the kids what they would like to be for Halloween, it usually starts with the delivery of the Chasing fireflies Halloween costume edition and from then on at story time we are leafing through the mag hearing about all the options and how we could all go as pirates, or momma you could be this and poppa could be that….or I bet Farley would be a cute yoda.

Now if you get this magazine like me you probably wonder how these prices are legal, I mean don’t get me wrong they are cute as can be and resale (for an eBay lover like me) is totally worth it, but I Like the kids to put more into the costumes than pointing a finger and saying “that one”.

So he is what the final choice was for everyone:

Solomon: scary clown.

Raiven : exterminator (bugs, and such)

Santanna: Viking princess warrior conquerer (not a football Viking)

Avalon: Pocahontas

As we wrap up the Halloween weekend I thought I would share their costume since I was literally still sewing a few parts on them as the sun was going down and porch lights were turning on Thursday, I will be happy to go tinot maore detail on any of the parts if any one is interested.

Solomon…no real inspiration photo just what /he/we came up with:

We thrifted the green coveralls from Savers , they are a size 44 Long…..huge on this guy, so we cut the bottoms of the legs off. I found the Leroy patch in the sewing box I shared a while back, the mask we found at savers as well, shoes are from goodwill and glow in the dark (he did not trick or treat in these) flower that squirts water we found at party city.

How many 9-year-old girls wanted to be an exterminator this year? 1?….mine? We looked at the Ghostbusters costume and that was NOT it, so here is our version of an exterminator:

Hand held “fogger” I am not sure what it is called but I found it in the garage and it fit in the clear tube that I had attached to her “chemicals” on her back pack.

The clothes are her brothers that were too small, and we patched the hole with more goodies from this sewing treasure box I found. The boots were also a hand me down. the hat is just a ball cap with skull duct taped on over the words, we did this on the hoodie as well.

We took 2-2 liter bottles and Raiven mixed and swirled paint in them to make her desired color, then I attached them to a small, purse size backpack with more of that skull duct tape. We found the mask at a local Halloween shop.

Santanna: this is the costume she wanted:

Chasing Fireflies

Here is what we created:

Santanna LOVED it, and it was really warm. Head to toe, Viking helmet is from party city, so are the leg cuffs, we cut them off a little since they were meant for adults, so we sued a scrap as hair under the helmet also meant for adults…perfect! she has on a gray tiered dress from The children’s Place that was handed down from big sis, brown leggings, Primigi boots and a long sleeve layer shirt. The sword was also from party city. Instead of a shield she had her trick or treat bag in her other hand. I sewed the cape, and added a hood.

She picked out the fabric and had to have some color so we added this little blue streak in the hood. Jon called her Helga and others commented that she looked like a character from how to train your dragon.

Last but not least, Pocahontas, Avalon is probably her biggest (smallest) fan:

This is a very warm fleece costume and headpiece from Old navy that was sold about 7 years ago, I have found it on eBay for a few years in a row and bought the 5T this year, once she outgrows this I am not sure what we will do, Disney does not make a winter version of Pocahontas dress up, which is a must in MN. Boots are Minnetonka triple fringe boots, we had tights and the bow (with missing arrow) was from a local Halloween store. The belt was a fifty cent thrift years ago.

Those are the spookables I went trick or treating with this year. You can pin these as ideas for next year

Upcycled Rustic Initial Carved Headboard

Posted by Patchwork Reality

When we redid some of our garden space we had some leftover 1 X 8 boards.

Santanna’s bed does not have a frame and these boards have been sitting under the deck for almost 2 years, giving them a great distressed patina.

As Jon and I were talking about how to cut up…or not…the boards and how we attend to arrange them to go over her full size bed I fell more in love with the look.

I decided instead, they would go in our room…over our king sized bed.

We had taken off an outdated headboard and have also been discussing how to upcycle that one.

Headboards are apparently a big deal at our house..who knew.

I wanted to headboard to go past the bed a little so that when the bed is made the headboard would extend at least the length of the bed + bedding, the headboard is a total of 96 inches and goes about 6 inches past the bed/bedding.

The back of this headboard has 3 1 X 4 boards placed so the end 2 can attach to the metal be frame and one in the middle for support, you could use 2 X 4 or even 4 X 4 board for the “legs” if you want to change the look, I wanted a sleek profile, plus we had all the boars for this in the garage making it FREE.

When I was dreaming up Santanna’s headboard I had some thoughts about drawing some sort of graphic on it, she still might get a headboard so I won’t spill those thoughts yet.

I thought a saying that might fit, but honestly there was not one that I LOVED, so I thought how about a carving?

Aha! Initials in a tree….Awwww..right?!?

SO I used our generic Dremel tool, which I think I killed while doing this and carve d our initials, First name and Middle initial, per Hubby’s request.

It looks rustic which is great, this was not as easy as I thought it would be, hence some minor imperfections, but I do love the way it turned out.

I did not carve the heart; I painted and sanded all of the heart and initials to give it an aged look.

On the other side I added the year we were married in paint, I did many different layers and wanted that too look aged as well, I am not sure that it is exactly how I pictured it in my mind, but I can’t say how often my vision and the end product correspond.

Plus it is more discreet then the carving.

I have to say we are loving this, and that is was FREE from some repurposed garden boards makes it feel special.

DIY Oak Hardwoord Floors.

Posted by Patchwork Reality

I shared the pretty; now the nitty gritty.

Here is how is went down…almost literaly.

We let our wood acclimate to the house for a little more than 2 weeks, more than recommended but with all our crazy weather and rain we wanted to make sure it was not too humind, which can lead to gaps in flooring later.

We tore out the carpet. And by we , I mean Jon, Solomon and Avalon had it up when I brought the other 2 kiddos home from an activity one evening, I came home to them pulling up the tack strips, that held the carpet down, they rolled up the carpet and then rolled up the pad, the bottoms of both had some staining from juice and other spills, reaffirming our choice to go wood.

This is the sandy stuff that was right at the seam of where the carpet had met our existing hardwood floors, I am thinking it is a combination of, well dirt and sand 😉 and the backing of the carpet that just sort of falls apart over time. Ick!

We cleaned the sub floor which was in excellent shape, it is only 7 years old, by vacuuming and a small warm water/soap spot clean where needed.

Then we laid down tar paper, as a sound and protection barrier between the sub floor and the oak.

Since we were installing this up to existing hardwood flooring we knew it was going to be fairly level but we double checked to make sure that the new pieces going in were level. We also had to face nail in the first boards since there was a small trim piece that we had taken out and the tongue part of the connecting board was not there. Face nailing means to nail it into place through the top of the board, we did this with small finish or trim nails and then filled the small holes with putty.

Then we set to work staggering our boards to make sure no board ended at the same spot, and nailed them in place.

After about 4 or 5 rows we would cover it with a red builders paper or rosin paper, to protect the unfinished wood.

When we got towards the end of the rows Jon would cut the last piece to fit exactly in place, this is where some real skills come into place, there will be a piece of oak corner round along the wall trim, but you need to make the end floor pieces fit as close to the space as possible.

Below you can see how we staggered the boards and covered them and toward the wall is where you can see boards would need to be cut to fit.

Also if you are taking out carpet to put in hardwood you may and you have a heating/cooling vent you might have to cut down the register if you are putting in wood grated with your flooring, I do not have pictures, but Jon cut our down easily with a sawsall, be careful when cutting the metal for sharp spots!

The last few board of the flooring have to be face nailed again, at least our were since the nail gun would not fit close to the walls.

After all the flooring was in we rented a sander from Menards, and they had 3-2-1 sanding pads for sale that fit the machine, 3 being coarse, 2 less coarse, and 1 the fine and final sand. They did not think I would need the 3 but I brought it home anyway and I am glad I did because there were some spots that the wood was higher/lower and he 3 took care of this quickly, the 2 would have taken a long time.

Once it was all sanded and smooth, we wiped the wood down with lightly damp clean rags, just enough to catch all the dust but not soak into the wood.

We let it dry and then did 4 coats of an oil based polyurethane. The poly we chose was the one we thought best matched the existing floors.

I think we got it right:

Again the before and after:

Tools used for this Oak floor DIY project:

Hammer
Small crowbar
Screwdriver
Sawsall
Rented Orbital Sander
Painting wand and pad
Wood floor Nailer
Putty Knife
Level
Saw

Cost for this DIY Project:

Oak flooring and 2 registers: $814.74
Disposal fee for old carpet and pad: $25.00
Nailgun: Free (borrowed from my Dad)
Nails for the nailer: $25.92
Tar Paper and Rosin Paper: $7.45
Wood putty : Free (again we had this on hand)
Sander rental and 3-2-1 pads: $43.39
Polyurethane and painting pad( we used the handle we already had): $83.05
Tools: Free (we had all of them on hand from other projects)
Labor: Free 🙂

This project totals : $999.55

Just under a G, bids on this were around $2500.!! We saved over 1/2 by DIYing this floor and we LOVE it!!

It did take most of Memeorial weekend, but that included many interruptions from those that are now pitter pattering around on this beautiful floor.

So I think most could be this done in a weekend but each coat of poly needs about 3 hours between them, so if you did more than 4 coats it will add time to the job.

Shiny Happy Floors

Posted by Patchwork Reality

I am going to get right to it…our new floor:

Now if you have been here all along you might also notice that something else changed…

Lets review shall we?

Here is the before of this space, after we moved out our furniture:

Previously we were using this as a living room

But we traded out this:

For this:

And this:

For this:

2013 June 170 copy

We did a living room dining room flip, I love that our new flooring goes throughout the whole space, the carpet always left us feeling like we needed furniture on one side or the other…don’t cross the line!!

This was a complete DIY project, it took us one long rainy plus weekend and it was about 300 square feet. Cost and details are coming.

Plus we built a new Master Bedroom headboard for FREE!

Stay Tuned!

And if you see carpet be gentle, she took the break up hard, but she was good to us for almost 7 years, trustworthy, and loyal, but she had secrets; hid too many things, we needed a smooth shiny new floor, one that wouldn’t hide spills…it was us, not her…you know.

Super Sib Cape – Birthday Gift

Posted by Patchwork Reality

Santanna’s best friend has an older sister, who is battling a brain tumor with all the energy she can muster. I know I have briefly written about this before, and I ran my last marathon for team Ana.

Elsa and Santanna have an extremely special bond. We are a place that E can come and escape some of the burden of chemo and pills and sadness that is detected even when I am sure it is trying not to show itself. She is a “super sib” and has been praised as that in many aspects and events. Not enough in the shadow of cancer, but she knows she is loved and valued.

Santanna and Elsa have know each other since they were 3 and now that they are both just turning 6, that is like forever!

All Elsa wanted for her birthday according to her mom was Santanna.

What do you give as a gift to a girl who adamantly prays for a cure for her sister’s cancer? For normalcy?

I can’t tell you….

But we did make her a super E cape, a reminder that she is amazing and wonderful, and as many other little girls would love…one for her American Girl Doll.

It was really an easy project, and E loved it!!

Here is Tanna modeling it with our own AG doll Lucy:

If you have it in you, whatever your persuasion or belief, even though you do not know their family, will you please take a moment and use your heart to give a beat for Ana. They really are an amazing family. I know they will feel and appreciate it.

Upcycled Jewelery Oraganization

Posted by Patchwork Reality

Is it May already…and almost 1/3 over. I am still pushing foward on the NYR to become more oranginzed.

Organization in our house is a constant battle, a good one, but hard-fought non the less.

With 3 girls, the princess accessories are at an all time high, but I am sure it is just the tip of the iceberg.

At her recent campout birthday party, Raiven received a few new special accessories, she has pierced easr, has been acquiring necklaces and bracelets from relatives and friends, and thrifting. Until this project she was hanging them on a wooden drawing doll, is that what it is called?

I accidentally deleted a whole card full of photos…ugh! So the before shots are none existent..but here is what we did:

I had 2 black picture frames that were thrifted or the glass has brokern out of, I was tired of tripping over them but knew I would find a use from them….eventually.

When I saw this I decided to upcycle the old frames to organize our oldest daughters jewelry.

We spray painted them in Raiven’s color choice.

Then Hubby cut, he is the type A to my relaxed type B, and attached chicken wire to the frame.

He attached them to the wall with hallow all sinkers, since they were not on a stud, we wanted them securely in place.

WE added these hooks to the chicken wire, we crimped the top set closed so they are fixed in place, but we left the others uncrimped so she can move them around as she likes. These are from Menards, but I am sure any hardware store has them.

The other side we did not put any hook on, we left this one for earrings so she can just loop them over the wire.

I made the yellow beautiful art on her wall, inspired by one I saw on Zulily.

She is thrilled with this new addition to her room, and is really lets her showcase all the special jewelery she has, as most of it has been gifts. It also gives her the independence to choose what she wants to wear and gives her the ability to easily care for her special jewelry.