Be Still

So where does "Be Still" come from? Well, it's only one of my favorite parts of the Bible. You can see it more than once, but for me, it's this verse specifically:

"The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still." -Exodus 14:14

What a relief to know we don't really have to do anything! Beyond prayer and petition; God knows our struggles, our pain, our desires and He will help us with them! This is not to say that everything will be easy. Even though Charli is only 2, I am already trying to make sure she doesn't fall into the misconception that having God in your life means everything will always be hunky-dory and we won't ever have to worry about anything. It simply means you are not alone. You have someone to lean on, someone who is strong enough to bear the weight of your struggles when you feel like you can't possibly do it anymore. Just cry out to Jesus. It makes me feel relief just thinking about it, even in a time of no struggles. Just knowing that God is there for me, God will fight for me, wow!, that makes my heart so light! 

My birthday is coming up this weekend so I plan on spending it working on the master bath! A shipment of items will be arriving today, and I'm planning a trip to Home Depot in the near future! Come back soon and see how it turns out!

~Kasey

Master Bath Update

I am SOOO excited about our plans for our master bath update. We moved into our house 5 years ago, and really never did much to the master bathroom. We painted it and added a storage cabinet over the toilet, but that was about it. And really, we were disappointed with the paint outcome. It was too bright blue and overly shiny, but painting a bathroom is a HUGE pain and we were not willing to undertake that challenge for a second time.

Well, recently, I've gotten the itch to update pretty much everything in our entire house. I blame it on "nesting." And we are doing ALL of it under a tight budget. (Also this is the first Summer in 4 years of marriage that we have had any extra money so we are kind of excited about it.)

During this bathroom "remodel," we are going to do the following things:

• Refinish vanity - completed
• Add cabinet hardware - completed
• Add bamboo shades (This bathroom is from 1997. For some unknown reason, the window is totally clear! No frosted glass or anything! When we moved in, it came with lovely white vertical blinds. I removed them and put up frosted window film pretty much immediately, but think the bamboo shades will just add a pretty element.)
• Repaint - my dear MIL is going to do this for us because she enjoys painting!
• Replace hollywood lights - vanity lights are SO expensive. We are going to be making our own with the help of my extreme-handyman-dad! Estimated cost under $30!!!
• Add a board & batten-esque wall with towel hooks
• Replace sink faucets
• Replace or spray paint existing hand towel holders

WOW! It's going to look like a totally new bathroom when we are finished, without having to truly remodel it. I was itching to replace the shower because it is all 3x3 white tiles and the grout was old and annoying, but my dad helped me regrout it and I don't hate it anymore! Yay! (Side note: I plan on regrouting the upstairs shower eventually so I will do a How To post on that...) 

There are a few things that I would like to do, if we don't run out of money first!

• New rugs and new towels to match our new color scheme (this is lowest on the priority list as it's not super important to achieve the look)
• Get rid of our 1997 medicine cabinet and turn it into a little nook to put decorative glasses & bathroom supplies
• Replace the flooring (Hubby would like to do this ASAP, but I'm nervous)
• Replace our bathroom fan with a light & fan combo. When I remove the hollywood lights from the vanity, I anticipate this making it a little bit darker in the bathroom so we can add a little light by changing out the bathroom fan. However, those things are like $50 minimum so we will just see how the new light looks before I commit to this one.

My goal is to complete this remodel with less than $300. Below is a nice before picture to pique your interest! Come back soon to see progress and find out if we can do it under budget! :)

Yes, this picture is from 2010, and although we have changed a few small things, it still basically looked like this until a few weeks ago when Steven refinished the cabinets.

~Kasey

How To: Install Cabinet Hardware

Welcome back! Over the last two weeks, my hubby refinished our master bathroom vanity and I installed new cabinet hardware. There has never been any  hardware on the cabinets so there weren't any pre-drilled holes. When I started, I thought it was going to be easy-peasy, but it didn't quite work out that way! I learned a few things along the way by trial & error, and by talking to my dad (an expert), and some maintenance guys at my work (also probably considered experts). I'm going to write a post on how to refinish the cabinets, but I wanted to go ahead and post a few tips on how to install cabinet hardware. Hopefully they will save you some strife and help you out!

Supplies you will need:

• drill
• drill bit for pilot holes
• screwdrivers - type depends on your hardware
• painters or masking tape
• level
• long, flat ruler

I didn't install any knobs so that made my job a little harder. I used matte chrome pulls on the cabinets and matte chrome cup pulls on the drawers so I needed to drill 2 holes for every piece of hardware (14 total). 

Step 1. Make sure your cabinet doors and drawers are all level and even. In our case, 2 of the drawers were not level and 1 set of doors were not matching up. Thanks, builders! It doesn't matter how perfectly you install your hardware if the other things are crooked!

Step 2. Decide where you want to put the hardware. For our doors, I put them at the top, but if you are doing kitchen cabinets, maybe you need them at the bottom. And we decided to put the drawer pulls in the center of each drawer.

Step 3. Put a piece of painters tape or masking tape in the general area of where you want to drill your holes. You will use this to mark your holes with a pencil and not worry about scratching/marking up your cabinets. 

Step 4. For drawers - find your center. If you have drawers in a row, like 3 in the middle of your bathroom vanity, mark your vertical center on the top or bottom drawer and then use your long, flat ruler to mark the same center on each drawer going up or down. This way, even if the fronts of your drawers are off by a little, your drawer pulls will all be centered and take the focus. Also find the horizontal center of each drawer; unfortunately, there's no shortcut for this one. :)

Step 5. Measure the distance between the holes on your hardware. Mine were 2.5".

Step 6. Measure and mark where the holes should be on your tape. You want to mark the holes on your horizontal center. You will use the vertical center to measure where the holes should be. 2.5" divided by 2 is 1.25" so I measured 1.25" from my vertical center on each side. Measure twice, drill once. Be sure you are measuring correctly! You don't want to drill holes in the wrong spot (I know from experience, womp womp). Plugging holes is not hard, but making it blend in with the rest of your cabinet might be!

Step 7. Use a pilot drill bit for best results. Make sure you use a drill bit that is about the same size as your screw for your hardware. You do not want to make a bigger hole than your screw , and a smaller hole will just be more work for you. Drill, baby, drill.

Step 8. Carefully remove your tape. There is a small chance that you will mess up your finish if you aren't careful here. I did make some small places, but we were able to touch them up with a furniture marker, and the new hardware covered it up.

Step 9. Put your screws through your holes and see if they line up with your hardware! If they do, you are amazing! I rarely got it right the first time. Most of mine were only off by the tiniest bit so all I had to do was use a drill bit to make my hole just the smallest bit bigger.

Step 10. Step back and admire your work. :)

Adding hardware to cabinets does make them look more finished and can totally change up the look. Our vanity definitely looks more dressed up now, but I don't know if that's the new fancy finish or the new fancy hardware.

Come back soon to see my post on how to refinish your cabinets!

~Kasey

How To: Applique with Blanket Stitch, Part II

Welcome back! Let's get right down to it and finish our applique!

This close up, mine is definitely not perfect. But, this blanket is for a newborn so I doubt he will mind much. :) That's what I mean about doing things yourself. People are not going to notice the tiny imperfections, they will just be happy that you put time & effort into something just for them!

After the last post, you should've ended with your letters ironed onto your blanket and ready to start the blanket stitch. It's pretty hard to just explain how to do a blanket stitch so there will be lots of pictures.

To start, you will need to thread your needle. I liked the thickness of two strands of the embroidery thread, so I threaded my needle with an arm span of the embroidery thread and tied the ends together with a knot.

When you are ready to start stitching, pick the place on your letter that you want to start. I started in the middle of a flat side because I thought that would be easiest. You will start with Stitch A shown in the photo below.

You come from the back and insert your needle straight up. Pull your thread all the way through until your knot catches on the back of your work.

Your next move is to insert the needle at an angle into Stitch B and exit your work at Stitch C shown above. As you pull your thread through your work, make sure the loop created by stitches A and B is underneath your needle as shown below.

In this picture, you can also see where I tried my first idea, which was to sew the letters on with my sewing machine. Fail. But I'm happy it didn't work because the blanket stitch is so much cuter!

Now, on your first stitch, you do not want to pull your loop all the way tight as you will use it to finish off once you've gone all the way around the letter. This part was hard for me because I couldn't determine how loose to leave it, but you get better with each letter you finish. I would suggest pulling it mostly tight, but not too tight. Very helpful, I know. :)

So now you will just keep repeating those steps. The length between stitches is totally up to you. On a larger piece of work, more space between the stitches would be fine, but I thought with the smaller letters, too much space between the stitches might look funny. As for your tension, you will pull the stitches pretty tight, but not so tight that your embroidery thread disappears behind your letters or pulls up on top of your letters. You will know how tight to pull it once you get started.

As long as you are going in a straight line, it's pretty simple! When you get to a corner, it's a little different because you want to make sure it stays lined up with the right angle. It's a simple little trick that will hold your corner in place.

When you get to the corner, you will insert your needle in your stitch B so that stitch C will come out directly at the corner. I somehow forgot to take a picture of this part, but just as an illustration, you will want your needle to follow the line in the picture below.

You will pull it tight just as you have on your other stitches. Then, to hold this stitch in place, you will want to do a tiny stitch over the loop. So basically, insert your needle going down into your work, very near to the blanket stitch loop. This stitch will be "pinning down" your corner so it can't move.

This is not a great picture, but it shows how closely you want to insert your needle. When you pull this stitch tight, you really won't even be able to see it.

Now your needle should be under your work. The next thing you need to do it get it back on top so you can continue in your ABC stitch pattern. Insert your needle up through you work in a manner that will "sneak" it back into the blanket stitch loop.

I tried not to catch any of the fleece letter when I sneaked back into my loop. Once you pull up all the way, you should be able to continue as normal.

When it's time to do an "inside corner," like in the letter K above, you will do something a little different. This was harder for me because the letters are so small, you don't have much room to work with. And for the inside corner, you want to line up three stitches so that they all come out lined up with the center of the "inside corner."

Stitch One

Stitch Two

Stitch Three

Whew, we have covered a lot of ground. You should be pretty set on how to blanket stitch now, we just need to learn how to finish off!

When you get close to the end of your letter, you need to look at spacing and make sure the last few stitches will be spaced evenly. Your last stitch will technically be the next-to-last stitch because your very last step to finish the letter will be to just loop your needle through. AGAIN, I am terrible, and I forgot to take a picture of this very important step! So, I borrowed one I found on google. 

See how you loop your needle under the first stitch you made? This is why you don't pull the first stitch all the way tight. After you loop it under that stitch, you insert your needle down through your work at the edge of your letter. Clip your thread and tie a knot! Voila!

You can see my blanket stitch on the back of my blanket. I think it looks cool so I am not worried about covering it up, but I am wondering how the knots will hold up over time since they are exposed. An option to fix this problem before it arises would be to applique the blanket before you hem it. Then you could put a backing on the blanket and your stitches on the back would be hidden from view.  I'm just going to roll with mine how it is and if it needs touching up over the years (or weeks if he's not a kid that's attached to his blankie), then I will just fix it as needed.

Thanks for coming back to view the rest of the tutorial! Please comment any questions or suggestions! :) And don't forget to pin it so you can save it for later!

~Kasey