Non Wedding Related: TV Stand/Dog Kennel

I just wanted to share a few pictures with you all from our latest project.  When we were home in IL a couple weeks ago, I talked Mr. T into building a table with me to fit over Chief's dog kennel.
After a quick trip to Menards, we came away with the wood and a brand new toy he wanted to use to build it that I bought him that will double as a birthday present (in March!)
We spent the next day out in my dad's shop and this is what we created.

It slides down right over the kennel, so we don't just have a big kennel sitting there in the way of everything.

We got it all built in a day, and then I stained and varnished it while he was back up in MN working.  It takes up so much less room than the old dresser our landlord left behind.

Non Wedding Related: Puppy Episode, Part Three

part one, part two

Hi guys, remember me?!!  Sorry I left you for so long.  Last week I was off school all week for Thanksgiving break and Mr. T was in town, so I didn't get anything at all done!  I had every intention of popping in from time to time, but it just didn't happen.

But I'm back.  And I only have 8 days of classes left until finals, and then I'm done forever!!  Or until I figure out what I'm doing with my life.

But anyways, I bring you more puppy happiness.  Mr. T and I drove up to Wausau last Sunday on our one year anniversary to pick out our puppy.  We got there, and walked down into the basement where all the puppies were, and let me tell you...it was love.  As soon as I got downstairs, all of the little puppies walked over and started climbing over our feet.  They were so cute!

If you remember, there were two puppies for us to choose from.  A little boy with a blue camo collar, and an adorable boy with an orange collar.  We stayed there for 2 hours playing with the puppies trying to decide.  I don't think either of us made up our minds until we were half way out the door.
In the end, we ended up choosing blue camo guy.  He was a pound heavier than all of the other puppies.  He has such a cute, roly-poly looking face.  We both like big dogs, and figured it couldn't hurt if he turned out to be the biggest.  He was a little bit calmer than the other guy too, so that played a role in our decision.

Here's our little baby.

We'll pick him up on December 20th on our way back up to Minnesota.  We did a lot of shopping for him over the past week.  We picked out food bowls after seeing him.  Then we got a big fluffy dog bed and a couple toys on sale at Big R on Black Friday.  Mr. T's mom made us a cute little rug to go under the dog bowls to match our kitchen rugs.  My sister bought us an "early Christmas present" that consisted of a leash, collar, and two rope toys.  Then Mr. T's parents found a brand new, unwrapped dog brush when they were moving back into their house.  Oh, and we bought a nice plastic container to store the dog food in on sale this Saturday from the hardware store.  So our little guy will be all set to go when he comes home.  We'll just need a couple more little things.  I can't wait to see how big he is in 3 more weeks.

Non Wedding Related: Puppy Episode, Part Two

part one

This is gonna be bad....I can already tell.

I'm already bragging about our new baby and we don't even have him yet!  But just to be clear, we will love and adore this puppy, but he will not be our "child" or even our "furbaby."  I'm sorry to those of you it may offend, I just can't stand that term.  We won't dress him in clothes, and he won't be eating table food.  Other than that though, he'll probably be spoiled rotten.

Here is his three week picture that I just found posted online.

I say him, but really there are these two males that we need to choose from.  We get to do that this Sunday!! Mr. T and I will be driving up to Wisconsin on our one year anniversary to pick him out =]  I can't wait to see the two little guys, and hopefully the decision between the two will be easy.  Since they're both adorable, and very similar in color, we'll be making our choice based on their personalities.

I'll let you guys know when we decide.  Maybe even throw in a couple pictures of the pup and me and Mr. T.

Non Wedding Related: Puppy Episode

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Mr. T and I are getting a puppy!! A yellow lab puppy to be specific.

I found a stay at home mom whose dog Maddy just had puppies on October 23, with their male dog Kaden.  She had 5 females and 3 males.  One of the males is already spoken for, but we get our pick between the remaining two boys.  We'll go up to Wisconsin the week of Thanksgiving and pick him out, and then he gets to come home with us after December 18.  I'm so excited =]

One of these little boys will be coming home with us in about 5 weeks, and he's going to be spoiled rotten.

And just for good measure:

Non Wedding Related: Episode Two

episode one

"Write that down....." "Here's another life skill, add that to the list."

Mr. T thinks its funny all the various things I've picked up along life's journey.  Like my excellent bow making skills, or the fact that I used to make glass beads, or that apparently I can draw well.  So now any time I do something crafty, or introduce to him another side of me, I like to joke with him. 
If we were to write it all down, we'd have a pretty long list!!

But here's another one of my hobbies.  I knit.  And Mr. T's mom just taught me how to crochet this summer as well.

But I've been knitting since I was a little girl when my grandma first taught me.  And by saying I knit, I use that term loosely.  I have an almost finished afghan that I've been working on for about 2 years now.  I kind of tend to go through phases of being interested, and not.  So right now the panels are just waiting to be sewn together, but who knows when I'll get around to that.  I haven't touched it in about a year now.

So anyways, this isn't exactly wedding related, but I do have another DIY project that would be perfect following a wedding....a baby blanket!

I made this blanket last year when my boss's daughter was having a little girl.

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I hadn't been introduced to the blogging world back then, so needless to say, there aren't pictures of my steps.  But I just used the pink baby yarn and knitted a simple rectangle to the measurements I wanted.  I can't say how many stitches it is across, or how many rows it is long, but I basically just started knitting, and continued until it was what I thought was an appropriate size.

I used very small needles, probably a size 18 or something along those lines.  It took forever!!!  But I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Then I cut out yellow satin for the back, and attached yellow satin binding around the edges. 

Then I simply ironed on a cute giraffe applique that I bought at Walmart.  I made sure to cover it with a towel when ironing so it didn't melt the yarn.

So there is a cute, simple project that matched with the theme of her nursery.

Honestly, if you know how to knit a row, and sew a straight line on a sewing machine, this project is super easy!!

Non-Wedding Related: Episode One

From time to time there are things that happen or projects I've done that just need to be shared.  And though this blog isn't specifically a "wedding blog" it has turned into one.  So I feel bad blogging about things that aren't wedding related, like you guys might get bored or wonder what the heck I'm talking about.

But, I'm going to take a chance here, and hope that you won't stop reading my blog!  I'd like to think I offer you plenty of wonderful things that are wedding related, that you couldn't leave if you wanted to.  =]

Anyways, here is a project Mr. T and I worked on last spring and into the summer.

My dad was there the day his friend tore down a 100+ year old barn, and he brought back a truckload of old, dirty barn wood.  Immediately flashes of projects started going through my head, and I was itching to come up with something my dad and I could make.  At first I had grand ideas about a gorgeous dining room table, or even a coffee table with matching end tables.

But a year went by and the wood was gathering dust out in the shop.  Around that time, Mr. T and I started dating, and what do you know...he knows his way around a woodshop!  I still wasn't sure what I wanted to make, but I wanted to take advantage of the hidden potential that wood had to offer.  Once we had been dating for awhile, and knew we would be getting engaged and moving to MN together in the summer, I decided we needed to make a bed.  My parents thought this was interesting, because at the time we weren't engaged and it was pretty early on in our relationship.  But Mr. T and I had been talking about it, and we knew we'd end up together and that this would be "our bed" instead of just mine.  I recall talk of how this would be the bed our little kids would run to in the middle of the night when they get scared.

There's no way I could even try to give you a step-by-step tutorial, because a.) we kind of made it up as we went along, and b.) I am way bad with all the technical mumbo jumbo it would require to describe what we did.  But I can show you some pictures I took along the way.

Here is the inspiration for my sketch.

I believe I found this on Walmart's website.

This is what the wood looked like before we spent many, many hours (days) running it through the planar.

It came out absolutely gorgeous, and had way more character than we could have imagined by looking at the old dirty boards.  I love the grain, and how the worm holes stayed.

The headboard, glued and clamped, waiting for the top to be glued on.

The finished bed with our brand new mattress set, after many hours spent sanding it smooth and applying three coats of polyurethane.

Our bed, new mattress set, and new Pottery Barn bedding in our house in MN.  Don't you just love an excuse to buy new things??

If I had to pick a favorite thing about this bed, it would be either the sideboards or the wide top to the headboard and footboard.  Or maybe the trim at the bottom of the footboard and top of the headboard.  I just can't decide! 

You can see in this picture the tops were attached with 1 1/2" dowels.  It's pretty neat that there isn't a single nail in this bed.

It was a great opportunity to work with Mr. T on a project.  We really butted heads sometimes because I'm super opinionated when it comes to things like this.  He also likes to say that I "know everything" or pretend to anyways, and that got on his nerves sometimes.  But overall, it was great and we have a lasting piece of furniture to show for it.

There is still a large pile of barn wood at home that I'd really like to make a matching dresser and nightstand out of at some point, but for now the pieces from my bedroom set match well enough.

Any other woodworkers out there??  How about projects you and the boy can do together?