Well, you’ve already seen the photos from our cruise earlier this year, but I thought I’d share the mini book I made as well. I finally decided to fill up one of the projects I made at CKC a few years ago (think this one is from 2009)– this cruise seemed to be a perfect fit for the SEI clear mini album. Since it was semi-made already, it made the project super fast – only a few hours! The thing I am liking about mini albums is how easy it is to include random postcards, your room keys, etc. in the book – just punch a hole in it with your crop-a-dile and stick it in the ring binding! (Is Oak the only one that is convinced the crop-a-dile is a castration device masked as a scrapbooking tool?). Putting these items right in the binding is so much easier than trying to get them to look right on a scrapbook page. The clear aspect of it does present a challenge because you have to think about how the backs of the pages are going to look. This was a little tricky for me, even with the pre-done aspect of the album. I definitely would only want to do a super small clear album, or maybe mix the clear pages in with regular ones in the future.
Here’s the cover to give you an idea:
See the rest of the album here.
OK, I realize that our trip to the Midwest for Belinda’s wedding was oh, 2 years ago. But hey, I was kinda missing my entire scrapbooking set-up after the trip, so whatevs. 
This is presented in no particular order…
Well, here are the photos from the whole reason we went to Chicago – the wedding! I didn’t get a ton of great pictures but enough to tell the story. Oak even caught a photo at the exact moment when I was about to run over the groom’s sister during the Electric Slide. Good thing that situation got intercepted, because I’m pretty sure I outweigh her by about 50 pounds, ha ha.
Good thing the wedding was first, cause I’m not sure I would have fit into my dress after this crazy trip. I know we were trying to eat the “local specialties” — do real midwesterners eat this much cheese? Geez louise. But it’s so tasty. Here’s my first Chicago deep dish pizza experience. I recommend doing it at least once. I have to say this was one of the richest meals I’ve ever experienced, considering the fact that it consists of exactly 1 item. The small pizza, about 4 hours of walking in the cold later, and Oak and I STILL weren’t hungry! Unbelievable!
Then, we continued on a tour around the midwest to experience more cheese. Well, in Wisconsin you’ll come across cheese just about anywhere, even if you’re not looking for it. This trip, we went to Madison and the Wisconsin Dells, and hit every cheese outlet in between. I noticed a special theme with the cheese outlets, apparently they aren’t afraid that the giant mice they have as mascots will eat all the cheese inside their stores….
I promise to return soon with more layouts… I was testing out my camera location and lighting situation for photographing the layouts — I think these came out pretty good so next time I’m home with natural light (which, somewhat rare with the crazy Daylight savings-ness causing it to be dark at 5pm..), I’ll get right on it!
Boy oh boy…. like the upstairs drywall, we managed to find another project that never ends, the wood floor. Lessons learned thus far:
- Relaimed wood, while eco friendly, is dumb!! Luckily Oak has mastered the art of re-adding the tongues and grooves… so our waste level is still pretty low. But, that has definitely added a lot of time to this whole process.
- Wear gloves when you’re sorting wood, otherwise you end up with raw hands and splinters.
- A quality pair of pliers, awesome for removing staples!
- Using the flooring nailer is a great man-workout! haha
- Patience is virtue.
The title of this post is inspired by Oak’s favorite demolition music. I’m sure Marilyn Manson would appreciate my re-work of his lyrics very much. After a year of house renovation, I’ve come to accept that dust is permeating almost every aspect of our lives. Even when I go to work, I notice a layer of dust on my laptop that I have to brush off every morning. Awesome!
So, Oak has been taking out the kitchen floor one section at a time (at my request.. cause I don’t think it’s very good to get the subflooring dirty/wet), but with it and his crazy demolition circular saw comes teeny white pieces of linoleum everywhere along with a new layer of PermaDust(TM). Every possible house project comes with a new layer of dust and/or crazy tools everywhere. I try to keep the kitchen area semi-respectable and non-disgusting, but I’ve pretty much given up everywhere else on the first floor.When I finally clean the front room where we’re currently keeping all the trim pieces, new flooring, etc, I’m betting on a 3 inch layer of dust.
Another dust tidbit: I finally figured out where the term “dust bunny” comes from. Radar’s hair falls out in little clumps that gather up in corners of the room. Luckily he LOVES to be brushed/groomed (most of the time..sometimes he hops away.. haha) so that reduces the shedding a little bit. He’s lucky he’s so adorable. Makes a little better when your shirt is covered in hair after a cuddle session. haha.
As if this weren’t enough dust to talk about, Oak has become preoccupied with dust collection for his woodworking tools. I was a good wife and listened to about an hour’s discussion (over several sessions) of the special types of dust collectors, the cyclone thingy that prevents most of the big chunks from getting to the vacuum, etc. Then finally, I had to throw in the towel and say, I can’t listen to this any more and even feign interest (sorry darling). Then I tried to bore him to death with some talk about scrapbooking tools. That said, I totally support the need for dust collection (yay, not inhaling sawdust particles). In fact, I support it so much that I am sharing these pictures of Oak’s super sweet dust collection setup.
Here’s the dust collection system hooked up to the thickness planer, which funny enough, reduces the thickness of a piece of wood (OMG are you impressed with my tool knowledge OR WHAT!). The shavings go to the garbage can with the home made something-baffle lid that makes a cyclone a la your fancy dyson at home to catch all the big pieces. Then it goes to the final dust collector, which is that white bag looking thing in the background. There’s ALSO an overhead filter to collect any fallout. Apparently we got a super deal from our neighbor for the overhead filter, a $200 machine for $25. ha!
If only there were something that did this for everywhere in the house… Push a button and BOOM! All the dust (and dust bunnies) is sucked off every surface. Sort of like a Roomba, but that works a lot better. Wouldn’t that be suhweet???
