She's Crafty!

And she's just my type! For those of you who got the Beastie Boys reference, congrats!

Today's posting is to share a few of my recent craft endeavors. About a year ago, we started shopping for our renovation. During our shopping excursions, we came across the coolest pebble tile that we loved and wanted for our bathroom floor. Then we got hit with sticker shock. It was $40 per square foot! Yikes! Even though we had a small bathroom, that was just a bit too much of a splurge to consider. However, I thought I could possibly make the tile myself for much cheaper. I did a little research and then bought the supplies to test it out. Then the renovation started, the stresses of it kicked in and our tile plan was forced to change.

But, I still loved the look of that tile and wanted to see if my idea would work. So, I dug in the (still not fully unpacked from renovation) basement and found my supplies - a silicone baking pan, river stones and my resin mix. First step - find a level surface. The level said my sideboard was good so I set it up there. I carefully placed the river stones at the bottom of the silicone pan in a pleasing arrangement, mixed the resin and poured. Bubbles in the resin product slowly rise to the top and breathing through a straw (for the CO2) gets rid of them (thanks for the straw tip mom!). So, I checked in on it every 5 minutes for the first half hour and got rid of any rising bubbles. A cardboard box acted as a good cover for it's initial drying period to prevent any dust (more realistically, cat hair in my house) from getting embedded in it. After 72 hours, the resin very easily removed from the pan and voila! Here is my beautiful river stone tile:

Cool, huh? I wish I'd had a little more time before the renovation to work on this because it would have been the coolest bathroom floor ever. Maybe on my next renovation. For now, it's going to be used as decor in our NH condo.

My next project looks like it might become a regular at the baby showers. So, to all my pregnant friends out there, you might be seeing this at a shower near you! The Wile E. Coyote onsies I made for Kari came out so well, I decided to make some for my friend Katherine. She and I met through our book club that we participated in for about 7 years. So, I figured a book theme would only be appropriate. Below are the customized onsies I made for her:

I missed the shower but took a quick trip down to visit last Wednesday to give her the gifts and visit. Good thing I did because Miss Sarah was born 4 weeks early on 10/6! Congrats to Katherine and Erik! I look forward to meeting your future bookworm.