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Mike and I have found that we enjoy taking on do-it-yourself projects. Among some of things we have done are woodworking, furniture re-finishing, upholstery, sewing, paint projects, and tin punching.

I have completed so many projects in the past few months, so I figured I better get some of the pictures posted.

This is the bag I made for my mom.

This is the bag I made for Mike's sister. I made another one for his other sister.

This is the sweater cabinet that Mike made. I painted it a dark turqoise and sanded off some of the paint on the edges to give it an aged finish. Mike doesn't know I did this. Shh!

This dresser was once black. I painted it green. I have since put the rest
of the drawer pulls on it. At the time of this picture I hadn't bought enough.

We finally have a way of keeping Annie out of our computer stuff, thanks to Mike. He
built this beautiful computer armoire in his spare time. Since the computer has to be in Annie's room and since Annie's so mobile now, we thought it best to construct this piece of furniture. The design is modeled after a Crate & Barrel armoire, and it's stained navy blue to somewhat match our living room entertainment armoire. Eventually, the computer armoire will have its own room in the new house. Make sure to give Mike a nice pat on the back the next time you see him. He has worked so hard.

Mike's mom helped me to sew this shirt when she visited us in April 2004. I'm
pretty proud of my sewing skills. I have fabric to make 2 more.

These are my new favorite thing - marble magnets.
They are super easy to make. You just need floral
marbles, magnets, silicone sealant, and a small
pictures cut to the size of the marbles. Assemble with
very little sealant, and wah-la: a very cute magnet.
I orignally made them using rubber-stamped images,
but then soon realized that I could use pictures from magazines or even my own photographs. Mike's sister
Jenni also figured out that you could use fabric as well.
They were a hit with my most recent Stampin' Up party
and with Jenni's quilt group.

I made this purse after seeing how cute Jenni Smith and Sara Evan's purses
that they made were. After some coaching from them, I decided I could make
the big step to attempt the project on my own. I must say I did a pretty good
job (I'm patting myself on the back right now). The purse on the left is the
one Imade, the one on the right is the one Sara Evans made for me. How
sweet of her, huh?

Mike made this bookcase for Annie. He made it at the woodshop on the
Parris Island base. They had everything he needed. He put wainscot on the
back. We painted it lavender using our new paint-gun attachment for the
air compressor. Annie loves her bookcase. Below is Mike painting it.

This is the bumper and pillow I made for Annie's nursery. I wanted a bug theme for her room. I appliqued the bee.

This gun cabinet was given to us (it has
another piece not in use here). It came to
us brown and with tinted glass in the doors.
We painted it (crackle finish) and put
punched tin in place of the tinted glass.

I stripped/painted this endtable.

Mike and I built this armoire one summer. We no
longer have it. It was just too massive.

Mike built this sweater cabinet. He keeps his t-shirts
in it. I'm still trying to talk Mike into letting me
paint it celery green.

I sewed these Roman Shades for the apartment in New Brighton, MN.
They are no longer part of our decor as my tastes have changed.

The next few pictures are of our house in Mounds View, MN.
We did quite a bit of redecorating.

This was our living room. I made the plum-colored Roman shades. Mike and I reupholstered the overstuffed chair ottoman. Mike installed the hard-wood floors. We
painted the walls a mossy green and the woodwork white.

In the kitchen we woodwashed (a painting technique) the cabinets and the
woodwork and installed new hardware on the cabinets. The walls are painted colors unknown.

In our master bedroom we did quite a bit.
We uninstalled a "fireplace" (some hideous
ply-wood thing) and re-sheetrocked the
walls. Installed hardwood floors, painted
the walls sunny yellows, painted the
woodwork white, and installed crown-
moulding.

We painted the cabinets white and the walls periwinkle in the bathroom and installed new hardware on the cabinets.