Thursday, March 25, 2010

To start my own business or not....

Well, to say "start a business" is a bit of an exageration. It's more like, sell things that I do as a hobby. My co-workers have been telling me for a while that I should get a booth at the holiday bazaar on-campus... especially every time I bring a new purse into the office. This has inspired me and is making me think harder about actually selling the products that I create. I have also had several complements on a tie purse that I made a few months back, even from complete strangers.

Since some of the people that are telling me to open up a booth are typical flea-market/craft fair perusers, I take this as a complement.

I do admit that I usually go to the holiday bazaar to "scope out" the competition and see what is in-style. I have also created an etsy account to sell my wares, but the $.10 per item price has detered me... why? I do not know.

The only problem with me opening an online store is the fact that there are not really any good fabric/craft stores around where I live. The closest one is an hour away. Another reason is that it will take some startup money to get me going. Usually, I just buy for one project, not one project x 4 items. One more factor is time. I am working a full-time job and going to school.... okay. the last reason is just an excuse. There is plenty of time for me to make stuff. Supplies are the main reason.

Does anyone out there in blogger land have an idea about start an etsy shop or a booth?

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Nightstand

I have been living with a TV table as my nightstand for the past 2.5 years. You would think that I would have one, but since I slept on the top bunk in college and had a computer desk right next to my head in my first apartment, I have never really had a need for a nightstand. My eyes were finally opened once I saw this:

I realized that I needed a nightstand, preferably one that matched the one that matched the one that Christopher had. That's one good thing about getting married- you inherit a lot of furniture.


I didn't want to spend the $80 to get a replacement nightstand. I also wanted to clear out some clutter in my apartment as well-by using the MDF from an old entertainment center.


I took the measurements of Christopher's nightstand and began to cut out the appropriate pieces. I then put them together and painted them with some sample paint that I had purchased at Lowes. I thought I had bought the appropriate color, unfortunately, I was a few shades off.




I could really realize it after I put it together and put it by my bed. I didn't like the yellow color.


While at work, I found out that they make a brush that can paint woodstain onto furniture. I had to try it out. I was really impressed with how it turned out. It would have looked more like woodstain if I hadn't used a mixture of polyurethane and stain. If you use just stain, it will look better.

I was really impressed with how it turned out. When I get some extra spending money, I may invest in drawer slides for the drawer. Right now, the drawer is sitting on two boards. The drawer works, but is always at risk of falling out if you open it too far.
I think it looks pretty close to Chris's nightstand.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The new planter

Well, I built something, but it wasn't what was proposed earlier in the blog.

I went to Lowe's to buy the lumber and... well.... 12 foot boards won't really fit in the car. Because they do not sell car-stretchers at Lowes, I decided to rethink my planter box and make something simpler. (smaller). Lowe's sells 6 foot boards that fit nicely into the car.

I changed the plan to be something simpler that would only require 8 1x6x6's. I had one 2x4x10 on-hand to build the supports for the planter.

I also was needing boards with straight-cut lines.... I have a tendency to cut not-so-straight lines. I finally talked myself into buying a skil-saw. It worked wonderfully.

The next chapter in the planter saga was the fact that I needed dirt. Do you know how hard it is to find dirt if you want to just dig it up? I had to scratch my head and try to find a place that wouldn't arrest me for digging.

I tried to get dirt from a remote spot near my apartment, but wet clay is heavier than it looks. It took me FOREVER to drag back a bucket of dirt to the apartment... and I didn't even do all of the dragging. I wimped out half-way to the apartment and had to get my husband to drag it back. He ended up pulling a muscle in his arm and gave up after getting the dirt back to the house.

I then decided to look for a better spot for dirt. I settled on getting dirt from the ditches around my apartment. This way, I would be doing a favor by cleaning out the ditches and getting dirt for my box.

After filling my box with old potting soil and clay, I decided that it was time to go to walmart and buy some potting soil to fill up the rest of the box. Did you know Walmart sells dirt for less than $1.50 a bag? That doesn't seem like a bad price, considering all of the sore muscles that I still have after hauling tons of dirt all Sunday evening.

I planted all of my flowers on one side (my daylilies, irises, azalea bush, and cedar tree). The other half of my planter will be leaf lettuce (bought from walmart) and bell pepper seeds (that I had saved from a bell pepper-I just hope they sprout). If the bell peppers don't work, I may either plant the canteloupe seeds that I had saved from a canteloupe last summer or maybe plant a cucumber plant.




I will have to post pictures later.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Updated plans

I have posted plans to build the planter box. I will warn you that the image is not to scale and I have not built it yet (but I plan to buy the stuff tonight... Yay! roadtrip to Lowe's).

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Spring is here

Spring has arrived on campus. The daffodils are in bloom and the tulip trees are in full-force. I also noticed that my daylilies are starting to sprout new leaves in preperation of the new summer blooming season.



Chris described my front porch as cluttered, which I thought was a very nice compliment, considering that I thought it looked terrible. He and I both agree that it would be nice to have a new way to plant the plants. Thus, I have designed a planter, based on a design that I found on the internet.

It is approximately 7 feet wide and 20 inches tall. The two bins on the ends will be for storage.