Update: Creating.....Muscle!

Hey all! I told you in my "Creating Muscle" post in the beginning of November that I was just starting a 12 week challenge with my boot camp, Rock Star Boot Camp. And the results completely speak for themselves!

I took this challenge to heart. I thought about the food I put in my mouth. I made more homemade meals. I limited my alcohol consumption to, in total, maybe 4 glasses of wine and 1-2 beers for the 3 months. I did not count calories--I ate clean, not 100% but cleaner than I had been. I still consumed sugar, but I limited my intake to natural sugar. Did not get Costco Frozen yogurt for 3 months!!! That was huge! It's one of my favorite treats :)

My goal now is to maintain what I have achieved. The pictures don't do my abs justice because I haven't quite perfected flexing them, but they are indeed there. If you want to see details of the program I attended 3-4 days a week for the last 3 months check it out at www.rockstarbootcamp.net {I started in June and plan to keep on getting stronger!} Some day instead of getting the "compliment" "you're so cute and little!" maybe I'll get cute and strong?! ---A girl can dream!

Now on to my first ever Spartan Race February 9th! Whatever your goals are: Grab hold of them and never let go, stay focused. If you lose focus for a moment it's ok your hands get sweaty, you lose your grip, but wipe them off and grab hold again!!

Thank you to all the RSBC campers that push me everyday to achieve my best!!

What's your CREATING goal?!

--ZZB

In "LOVE" with this Hanging Shelf

I absolutely fell in love with this pin on pinterest. This adorable "love" shelf awesome. The caption read "Found this on Etsy, but it looks easy to DIY" - I'll repin that! So there it went to my ginormous board of DIY. Then the other day Kurt went to Home Depot and SCORED in the scraps pile! He came home with a ton of actually useable items. So as I sat on the couch pondering what I was going to create for the day I remembered "his" wood and the LOVE shelf. YES! I popped right on to pinterest found the shelf and low and behold it did not take me to Etsy... it took me to a HOTTUB WEBSITE! WHAT?!, such disappointment.... I was eager to look at the other angles of the shelf before I set to work. I even searched all over etsy to find it. Nope this one was on me.... I drew it out...I crossed that out. Who am I kidding I don't follow directions anyway!!

So I set to work! I had a general idea that I wanted my shelf to stand taller than my tv to add some height differences to our living room. I followed the cuts that the picture appeared to do, making my height of letters 14inches, but I only have a miter saw, which means the largest angle I can cut is a little over 45 degrees. Since I had made mine taller I needed a larger angle. I attempted to hold my piece right in the correct spot I wanted it and CUT--only to send wood flying and me to the ground oops--ok note to self I won't do that again!! I used some scrap wood and created the angle I needed and it worked. Not beautifully, but eh!

What do you need?

Everything in that above picture + a miter saw + a sander + drywall hook + 2 yards fabric

Notes on putting it together.

1. 2 people would have been great!

2. Sand all your pieces before you attach them.

3. Predrill your holes and wood glue couldn't hurt

4. Drill your L together.

5. Drill your V together.

6. Drill your E together.

7. Make the bottom left side of the O.

8. Drill your V to the appropriate side of the O. 

9. Attach the L to the one side of the O you already made (it looks like 2 L's now)

10. Drill in the final right side into the O.

I did not do it this way and wish I would have! I also attached and reattached "better" multiple times.

Bam! DONE! AWESOME...... nope, not awesome it did not "stand" I could not put anything on it....

...now what...?!

FABRIC! Yep I covered it in a super fun fabric that I also fell in love with and had a coupon for--bonus! I simply wrapped it around my letters and used a staple gun to attach it. I used the fabric to "reinforce" where my letters met and staple gunned the heck out of those spots....

Still didn't "stand", so I hung it up. At first Kurt helped me hold it up against the wall... it looked nice....

Then we held it suspended in the air and it was PERFECT!!

 

I used some thick wire and a drywall ceiling hook to hang it in the corner of our room. Added my tin herbs, a photo, a candle and since the pics a little round globe in the "V"-- I could not be more happy with this project!!!

 
TOTAL COST: Wood $1.51+tax, 2 yards of fabric $6

.....So Miss Beth that's how it went down :)

--ZZB

P.S. One of these days Kurt will stop leaving his wood unattended!! Finders Keepers ;)

Photos on Wood- A Scrabble Transfer

After completing the Wood Photo Candle Holders I was still amped up on transferring photos to wood--the concept AMAZES me!

For Kurt's parents.

Kurt's mom had told me she doesn't have any pictures of us. They live states away, so I wanted to do something really special for them. I used a series of photos from Kurt and I's trip to Hawaii a few years ago to create this idea for them.

I had this piece of wood hanging around for creating and this was just its use. I used thin wood from the craft store and cut it into 4"x 6" rectangles and then used the photo transfer method. Using wood glue I glued the pictures on. I really like how the images have a 3D effect. A few months ago I ordered these scrabble tiles off Amazon--finally the perfect use for them!! Kurt wants to be where the sun shines, so I felt the saying fitting for where we are in our life now.


For my parents.

I tricked my mom one day into telling me what her favorite photos of us were on my facebook. We are also states away from my parents--for the first time in my life I did not spend Christmas with them. This was strange and different, sad and happy, well it was just all sorts of emotions! We spent Christmas with Kurt's family, which I feel blessed to have been able to help Kurt surprise them for his first Christmas home in over 5 years!

This is one of the photos my mom picked and also happens to be one of my favorite! After putting so many letters on Kurt and Nancy's gift [and glueing them down} I realized my options for sayings were quite limited for this one-- My parents are Words with Friends addicts so having to use blanks actually worked out just perfectly!!

I then wrote love notes on the back of each of them and added a hanging hook.

We are lucky to have such supportive parents in our lives and would not be who we are today without their love. Thank you for all you do for us!

--ZZB

Wood Photo Candle Holders

I have missed blogging! The last month and a half was overtaken with Christmas gift creating. All of my creative juices went into gifts for our family and friends. Thus no blog posting could happen since I didn't want to ruin any Christmas surprises!

Without further ado, this is what we created for Christmas:

For our families, we put our talents together and also combined two cool ideas I had found online. On "So You Think You're Crafty" I saw an idea to use 4"x4" wood posts from the lumber store as candle holders, which I thought was very clever! I knew then that I wanted to make them for at least someone, if not my own home. I continued my hunt and researching for the perfect idea and remembered another idea I had seen-transferring photos to wood. The idea seemed too good to be true, so of course I wanted to give it a go! So, I thought why not combine the two ideas into that PERFECT idea!

We headed to Home Depot and Hobby Lobby for all our "ingredients," then went to work!

1. We cut our posts down to 6" sections and sanded the heck out of them. I of course attempted this on my own--my mistake doing it while Kurt was trying to do homework. There is no way he will leave me alone with power tools and well I got a piece in my eye... so he stepped in! {p.s. I was gifted protective eyewear for Christmas!!}

2. We used the drill to put holes in the posts. I wanted some to sit up and down and others to sit long ways, so we figured out how many of each we needed and Kurt drilled the holes. After much debate we decided having a hole big enough to put an actual glass votive holder in would be best for fire safety. Low and behold our drill wasn't strong enough :( Back to HD we went {Have I told you we live 2 blocks from HD- this is either an AMAZING coincidence or a terrible accident!} Kurt, 2 weeks before Christmas, bought a new drill that worked beautifully for this task!! {He also got a new one for Christmas--it's cordless so all is well now he has 1 of each! Lucky man!} 

3. Once the candle holders were ready I put my touch on them. I used the photo transfer video from Heather I saw on pinterest. It is wonderful and gives you step by step instructions--check it out!

Each candle holder was unique and personalized to the recipient. The photo transfer provides a vintage rustic kind of feel, which I loved. The picture did rub off in not so perfect places on occasion and required reprinting and re-sanding- but at least it offers an undo option when it doesn't turn out just like you want!

Here's a peak at how some of ours turned out:

TIP: Put some adhesive felt on the bottom so it can sit safely where ever you'd like.

TIP: When mailing these--package better than I did....all my vases were broken by the time they arrived in Oregon! :( Thank you mom for replacing them all!

Some had extra space where my photo didn't take up the entire side, so I painted the recipients favorite saying or their favorite sports team's logo. 

Broken vases aside, these were a hit! Can't wait to get a picture of one lit and in use just where they want it!

P.S. See what we did for our parents using the same photo transfer method! Photos on Wood- A Scrabble Transfer

--ZZB