We went to a get together last night with Dave’s fellow architecture students. It was great to spend the evening outside, around a fire, and starting to make new friends! Along with our skewers for the grill, we brought along these summer cheesecake squares. The recipe comes from Martha Stewart, and can be found here.
Martha decorated hers to look like an American Flag, but for this party I thought that might be a bit over the top. So I just topped my squares with some deliciously sweet and juicy strawberries. This recipe is perfect for summer parties. The lemon zest and almond extract give the cheesecake the most delicious flavor, and it tastes so fresh with fruit on top.
So we have officially settled into life in Eugene, Oregon. I got a job at a nonprofit that certifies inputs for organic farming (i.e. fertilizers, composts, pesticides, livestock feeds, etc.). There’s a lot of chemistry and science to learn, as well as all of the governmental standards that regulate organic food production. But it’s definitely keeping my brain challenged, and I think it’s going to be such an interesting and fulfilling position. I just finished my first full week of work, and definitely need the weekend for the information in my brain to sort itself out a bit! Dave also just finished his first week of architecture school. He built his first site model out of cardboard, and will design a house, guest house, and tower to fit on it in the weeks to come. Whew!
Luckily we finished our living room just in time. Now we have a cozy space to come home and relax in after our new, exciting, and tiring days! When we first walked in the door of this apartment, my heart sank a little. It was musty and dark and ugly. But now that we’ve finally got it in order, I couldn’t be happier with it!
Here are some before and after shots of our place.
Before:
After:
The awesome bookshelves are from IKEA. They’re a perfect fit! You can see my new cat scratcher in the foreground, which I’m proud to announce Cricket has taken to swimmingly. She is using it like a pro these days.
Before:
After:
You can see the finished hall closet in the background. The cool wall lights are from IKEA. The awesome couch is a 1960’s vinyl couch we found on craigslist. The TV stand is temporary/a craft project waiting to happen.
And look at the finished coffee table!!! That’s the one that Dave and my father-in-law built this past spring. Isn’t it beautiful?
And this one doesn’t have a before picture, but you can see the blue accent wall we painted and a peek at our refinished library table in the dining area/kitchen.
We’ve still got to get the bedroom and the office/craft room in order, so our work is not done yet. Until then, though, it’s time to veg out in our cozy living space.
Our cat Cricket still has her front claws, which means that she needs to stretch and sharpen them occasionally. We never really cared that she scratched on the back of our old couch because we didn’t really like the couch anyway. But now that we’re in our new place with new (to us) couches, we are hoping that we can keep her away from the couches. Which meant that she needed a scratching post!
We headed down to BRING Recycling, which is a home reuse store in Eugene to pick up supplies. And here’s a little tutorial to show you how we made our post.
You will need:
Carpet scraps (we used 2 carpet squares)
4×4 post, tall enough for your cat to extend his/her legs up
Baseboard (ours was an old cabinet door in a school)
Nails
4 screws
Small scrap of fabric
Sisal rope
1. Nail the long edge of your carpet scrap to the post.
2. Pull carpet tightly around the post, overlap the ends a bit, and nail to secure. Use a fair number of nails to be sure that it holds tight.
3. Trim carpet to fit your base, and nail to secure.
4. Add a pretty little scrap of fabric to the top. I secured mine with little tacks. Don’t worry about the edges; they will be covered in rope.
5. Tack end of rope to the post right above the carpet with a nail. Then wrap tightly all the way to the top.
6. Secure rope around the top with nails. Tuck in end.
7. Cut a hole in the center of the carpet base so that you will be able to drill holes without the drill getting caught in the carpet.
8. Drill 4 holes in base and in bottom of post.
9. Screw together base and post with 4 screws.
And you’re finished!!
Here’s Cricket right after we introduced her to it. She’s gotten a few claws in it, but I think we still need to do some training.
My wonderful husband just designed this super cute new blog for me!! Isn’t he talented? He loves to design websites (he also designed www.cookingfriend.com and a million other websites). He starts architecture school next week, so I hope he likes designing buildings just as much.
I loved my old blog design, but I hated when I would come across someone else who used the same design. Now my blog can be 100% unique to Annie Get Your Glue Gun! I hope you like the new design as much as I do!
For step 1 of our “apartment cute-ification” process, I made over our ugly hall closet into a built-in bookcase.
This closet wasn’t the ugliest thing in our apartment, but it was definitely not cute. The doors were wobbly and unattractive. And check out that contact paper. Blah!
So we removed the doors and stashed them in the spare bedroom closet. Tore off the contact paper. Painted the back wall blue (the same color as our new living room accent wall!). Painted the shelves white. And then filled with books and games and photos. Sure we lost a space to shove unsightly items, but the finished look adds a bit of personality to the apartment and I just love it!
I’m alive!! We made it safely to Eugene, Oregon after a very long car ride. Our cat was a rockstar and just slept the whole trip, we got to visit some great friends along the route, and we are slowly getting settled into our new place. The new apartment is large, clean, and in a great location. The only problem is that some parts of it are quite ugly. But that’s okay with me, because it’s just one giant craft project for us! You will definitely be seeing lots of posts about my attempts to “cute-ify” the place.
With our move into a new place, I decided to finally practice a bit more of what I preach and start cleaning with a homemade natural cleaner. So instead of buying 409 or Windex, I made my own cleaner with these basic and inexpensive ingredients. Here is the recipe I used:
Natural Surface and Window Cleaner
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
2 cups water
squirt of dishwasher liquid (I use Mrs. Meyers)
Combine all ingredients in a spray bottle. Clean!
Do you know of any other great homemade cleaners? I plan on using the baking soda to clean the sink and appliances. Post your recipes in the comments, and I will give them a try!
When my hometown library was renovated a few years back, they sold all of the old furniture. My mom is a librarian there, so she bought this great table and 5 chairs. It sat in my parents garage covered in boxes and dust for years until Dave and I finally rescued it last year. It was in pretty rough shape – hideous orange color, dirty, bald spots, splinters sticking out, etc. But it is such a cool table that we could see the potential in it.
We decided to strip and refinish them so they could be presentable! We learned that the refinishing process is not easy, not perfect, and definitely not quick. We started the process on the chairs before Thanksgiving 2007, and just finally finished all of the pieces. Whew!! I’m not sure how well the pictures show the drastic change, but we can definitely tell. Now it is a table that we can actually use for our dining table. That is, until we can afford furniture again and it becomes the most awesome craft table ever.
Check out that beautiful wood grain! This was almost completely hidden with the old stain and finish.
If you are looking to start a refinishing project, here are my tips: give yourself LOTS of time, do it in the garage during nice weather months, and don’t expect it to be perfect.
Hooray!!! I’m so happy this project is done! Now I can’t wait to eat our first dinner on it in Oregon. T minus 6 days until we leave.
Dave is finally on the last step of the coffee table – applying finish! He just put on the first coat tonight, then we need to sand it and apply at least one more coat. Even if we’re dirt poor in our new apartment in Oregon, at least we’ll have some super nice stuff!
Today I bought a new toy! There is a store close by that sells letterpress supplies, and they gave us a great deal on this proof press. Okay, I know that we shouldn’t be buying large items when we are moving in 2 weeks, but it was a good price and I’m super excited about it!!
I’m having a sort of quarter life crisis at the moment. Should I continue on with environmental education? Should I go to grad school? Whatever for? What should I do with the rest of my life? Dave thinks the answer is starting up a letterpress shop, but I really don’t think I’m to that point yet. After we move, though, I am going to try to work on letterpressing more and maybe open up an etsy shop. (Annie Get Your Letterpress?)
Until then, though, this is my life. Packing, packing, packing. 2 more weeks until we leave for Oregon.
I won my first blog giveaway! Wooo! The Long Thread had a great series of giveaways for Earth Week, and I was lucky enough to win one! Yesterday I received a yard of fabric and a tote bag from Mod Green Pod (check them out – they have beautiful certified organic cotton fabrics).
It was my niece/god daughter’s 4th birthday party this weekend, so we went home to visit my family for the last time before we move. Look at all of those little girls!
The theme of the party was “hearts,” so I just cut out some heart stencils from wax paper and sprinkled her birthday cake with pink sugar. It was super quick and easy and made for a cute presentation.
See how cute! I made the cake using my absolute favorite chocolate cake and vanilla frosting recipe. Unfortunately for all of you, it is a secret recipe from my best friend Sara’s family, so under no circumstances am I allowed to publish it. (Aren’t you jealous?) But, to make up for it, I will post the most delicious carrot cake recipe ever at the end of this post. It is also a recipe that comes from Sara, and she somehow can always find the best cake recipes in existence. Dave and I made it for my birthday a few weeks ago, and it is delicious!
I made this little lamb for Alicia as part of her birthday gift. She asked for a lamb on her birthday wish list, which I imagine meant she wanted a real lamb as a pet. Since they live in a city and not on a farm, I hope she can love this little stuffed animal just as much. I used a pattern from Tiny Yarn Animals: Amigurumi Friends to Make and Enjoy.
And this has absolutely nothing to do with the birthday party, but I would love to share this with you all. My cousin/friend/bridesmaid is an amazing musician and wrote and performed this song for me at my wedding reception. It’s been stuck on my sister’s camera until this weekend, so I’m extremely excited that I can finally watch it again. I cry every time!
Okay, don’t forget to check out the amazing carrot cake recipe below. Yum!
