New Tile Floor

So this last summer DH said that we would do the floors, like we've been planning for fives years, during the Christmas break.  Well I knew he wouldn't remember so I talked to my brother who is very good at tiling and helped me do the backsplash in the kitchen.  We set up a weekend to do it and he told me what we needed to do ahead of time.  Then I informed DH that I had it all set up and what he needed to do.  He tried to back out but I told him it was all scheduled so he couldn't cancel on me now and my brother. He wasn't very happy with my sneaky methods but realized he had no choice.  As soon as he started tearing out the old floor he saw that I was right and that it was going to be good.  

Here is the original flooring.  Yikes!  Isn't it gross?  We also had wood floor in the entry.  It was gross too. I am too lazy to go find a picture of it and I don't want to make you sick.

Here's DH and my oldest pulling it out.  We even decided the subfloor underneath was nicer than the old stuff.  

This is after the cement board was put down which was a whole project in itself.   I had to do this pic of my DH and his first experience doing tile.  Standing is my brother Calvin who was project manager, so he is managing there and my brother Kirk also getting ready to get dirty.  3 long nights; one to put the cement board down, next to put the tile in and the last to do the grout.  

This is the messy grout process.  We couldn"t walk on the floor for two nights so DH built this little bridge that went from the carpet in the hall to the carpet in the living room.  Yes, the kids loved it and went back and forth way more times than they needed to.

The kids take lots of pictures of the cat so here is the finished project.  It's so beautiful and we love it everyday.  I am super grateful to my brothers and my husband for working so hard.  

Now see that carpet the cat is stepping on.  DH can't wait to replace it with pergo or something like that. I love it when a plan comes together.

Since we did the labor ourselves we spent about $450 to do a little over 120 square feet.  I didn't have a hard time choosing the tile because I just used the same style that I had chosen for the backsplash.  I did choose darker grout which was good because grout comes out a lot lighter than the color swatch on the box.  It does darken over time but starts out very light.

This tile looks good even when it's messy.   My old linoleum looked gross even right after I cleaned it.  

Kat Dress

Here is the finished product of the Kat dress. It's a dark dress so it's hard to get a good shot on my camera. Every step of the way had to be redone or adjusted but that's what happens when you are making it up as you go.

I stitched the name in the back of the dress because the back and front are almost identical. And I think it looks super cute.
I stitched all the embellishments on by hand. It took well over 10 hours.
In the end unfortunately the client was not able to wear the dress because it was just too poofy because of the stiffness of the fabric she chose. She is thinking about doing another dress with a drapier fabric. I am going to see if she let me have it back for a little while and see if I can make some adjustments to make it wearable. I hate to think of her not being able to wear it and enjoy it. I did warn her in the beginning the fabric was not like the one in the original picture. She liked the color so she wanted to try it. Which I can understand. I think if I can take the skirt off and take out some of the fullness it might work better.

Christmas Headband

Here was a last minute project that took about 10 minutes. I got some cheap plastic headbands from Walmart, some read tinsel and some sparkly ribbon. Fired up my glue gone and here you go. It took about 10 minutes to make three. I knew my girls wouldn't wear them all day on Christmas but they each wore them for a little while. So I could have made one and had them trade off.

Baby Steps

I got the movie "What About Bob" for Christmas and it inspired me to try and one baby step at time on my blog. Instead of being overwhelmed by all the pics I have not posted I am going to try and post one a day, maybe two if I'm ambitious. Thanks Dr. for the great advice!

These are what I made for my Beehive girls (ages 12-13) at church that I work with every week. I put it in a cute plastic bag with a package of hot chocolate. In case you can't tell they are dipped in milk chocolate first, then the stripes are white chocolate with crushed candy cane sprinkled on. You use it to stir up your hot chocolate. It all melts and you get some yummy goodness. I didn't taste test them but Mya (12) says it was super yummy. I have some left overs so maybe I'll give those away for Valentine's day. Just put them in new bags???