Wednesday Workings Champaign Style

Welcome back to my Wednesday Workings. I really liked sharing the progress of the projects that I was working on at Judson. Since moving back and going back to work at the bank, I haven't had a lot of projects to do. That will soon change in 7 short weeks with the beginning of school.

But for now, I had some time to work on things for our new apartment.

First, my dresser. I found an old dresser that someone was giving away, so I decided to do a little artistry to the top. I picked a Celtic design and traced it onto the four corners of the top of the dresser, then using a Dremel, I etched off wood veneer and exposed the particle board.

My next project was a welcome sign for our new place. We were both reading Lord of the Rings at the time, and came across the phrase 'Mae Govannen' in Elvish. It means Well Met. So I looked up the Elvish Font and carved it, again using my Dremel. I used tea and coffee to stain the letters, and the put a clear coat of polyurethane on it. I'm pretty proud of this.

For our dining room, we made a floating poster frame for our Map of Middle Earth (side note: I realize that having a Elvish welcome sign, and a Lord of the Rings themed dining room makes us just a tad bit nerdy, but I'm totally alright with that). The frame is made of acrylic sheets, balanced on two lengths of chain, suspended away from the wall, so that it 'floats'.

We took our boring white wall clock in the living room and painted it with blue and orange (wonder why?) using plastic bags for the texture.

Our last project was String Art. We painted two canvases and then used yarn that was dipped in white paint to create patterns. Then we placed the canvases on top of each other and pulled the string out. I like the mirrored look that it creates. It's a nice afternoon project to do, too!

That's it for now. It's been nice to get some creativity going and design stuff again. I can't wait for the semester to start!

It's been too long

I have come to a conclusion: I'm really bad at blogging when I have a lot to do. When I was in Elgin, I blogged a lot, and I'm going to attribute that to the fact that I didn't have a lot of friends there, and I wanted to let people know what was going on at school. Since I've been back in Champaign, there's actually stuff for me to do with people that I like spending time with. Instead of sitting here blogging, I'd rather just make plans to hang out, grab a drink, watch a movie, you know, the usual stuff. I guess I'll just give a quick recap of the last 5 months or so, even though my readers know everything that I'm about to type...weird.

So I lived with the Waters' up until about a month ago (has it already been a whole month, yikes!) I'm really grateful for their hospitality and willingness to let me stay with them. It was really nice to come home to a family, and kids that shouted "Sam's home!!!" when I walked in the door.

The last 5 months have really flown by. I went to Lincoln's graduation in May to see Stephanie and Craig (finally!) graduate. And I got to see friends that I haven't seen in a long time! Oh yeah, and I got contacts. Forgot about that. After 20 some years of wearing glasses (and hiding behind them) I decided to try contacts. Yeah, I definitely like them.

The first weekend in June, I moved out of the Waters' basement into my new apartment with Katy. We're pretty much settled now (one month later) and it feels like home. We've done a ton of decorating. I will definitely have a separate blog for the before and after of the apartment, as well as some projects that I've done. We also had a little housewarming/Katy's birthday party. Both our families came, and a few friends. It was a good time.

Stay tuned for a Wednesday Workings blog. I'm being creative again!!

In the meantime, here are some countdowns that I'm looking forward to:

Going home for Cam's birthday party: 20 days!

Hanson Concert with Danielle: 41 days! (seriously, I can't get enough of that CD, but that's also another post)

Classes Start: 50 days!! (I am so ready! Registered for classes, loans accepted, book list available, I can't wait!)

My birthday/Labor Day Party/Baby Waters #3 due sometime: 61 days!