I started on Monday.  I  just wanted to take it slow and work on one part at a time and make it look good.  So over the course of this week I’ve worked on this table a few hours at a time here and there.  Delilah and I have went to Home Depot everyday.  Buying small amounts of lumber, screws then stain.

Delilah practicing her gymnastics routine on the wood cart. 

The legs were a little complicated, but fun to put together.  And nothing too time consuming.

Whenever I start hammering on something the girls always want to take over.

The main post in the middle of the legs was a 4×4 I salvaged from a pallet.

Then came the table top using 2×6′s kreg jigged and wood glued together.  It’s super heavy.

Then I stained it.

Phone pic!

My lovely sister suggested I try grey washing it.  I hadn’t heard much about it, or haven’t been paying attention to this new finishing technique.  So I did a little research and thought it looked cool.  So I gave it a whirl.

You may notice I also added the diagonal braces.  I had planned to leave them off thinking it would look to busy and jumbled.  But it looks pretty awesome actually.

Plans from Ana-White: Fancy X Farmhouse Table

I altered the plans to get a custom size perfect for our dining room.

This plan is based on the Restoration Hardware table Salvaged Wood X-Based Table, retailed at $3,295.

Price breakdown for my table: $50 wood, nails and jig screws, $10 stain and lacquer.  So I think I saved a pretty penny, eh?  Also the RH table is humongous and would never fit in my house anyway.

After I make some benches and we buy a couple chairs for the ends and then get it in our dining room, I’ll share with you how it all looks.

Joey and I bought a big tree and had the guys help us put it in the ground.  We are used to little trees from Walmart, so this was pretty exciting to have such a large tree in our yard.

Then we had some fun playing baseball.

The girls loved playing with their uncles all weekend.

Even though I haven’t blogged in over a month, I have been doing some projects. These were small projects that in the past I would have made a post for each one, but now I feel like that would just waste your time seeing as I don’t have much to say about each one. So I’m just going to lump them all together in this epic post. (Epic might be a bit of an exaggeration.)

So here goes:

I saw this idea from Shanty-2-Chic’s blog. DIY Centerpiece Mini Planters .  I’ve been keeping an eye for some planters for my herb garden shelf.  So I made these little wooden boxes.

Currently they are housing fake plants.  Cause it’s been wonky weather outside and anything would just die.

They go with the table centerpiece I made awhile back that I don’t think I ever shared on here.

Next, I made this butterfly specimen art for Delilah’s room.  I painted each butterfly on canvas then cut them out.  Then bent them to give it some shape, and hot glued them on a diy stretched canvas.  Then framed it out.

This is a produce crate I made for fruit.  I got the idea from Pottery Barn, Stackable Wooden Fruit Crates, they are no longer available.  I made it stack-able, but never made a second to stack.  But I might someday.

I’ve been lining my flower beds with random rocks I’ve been finding.

I updated the girls’ silhouettes above our bed. Old silhouettes seen here.

And finally, we got fish!

The girls love pulling up a stool and just watching them.  Joey and I do it too.

And that’s all I can think of for now.

So this is my 200th blog post. That kind of blows my mind to think about. I’m not a Chatty Kathy, so it’s impressive that I have come up with 200 different things to talk about.  I feel like I’m becoming more motivated to do some more projects and actually share them with you.  Sorry to everyone who checks my blog only to have nothing to read about.  But also, thank you to everyone who reads my blog.  And for those of you who leave comments, you make me feel so loved.

I had every intention of blogging throughout our trip.  The first few days were relaxing at the health resort.  Then after the wedding, the following day, we packed everything up and heading on our tour.  It was a jam packed, fun filled 8 day excursion around the island of Sri Lanka.  We ended up having internet access at every hotel, but by the time we got to the hotel we were plum exhausted.  We only had a little energy to Skype the girls and then fall asleep.

We traveled with 13 other people.  Most of them were some of Joey’s best friends.  And a few were friends of friends we only met on the trip.  We all got along really well and had so much fun together.  I didn’t know how it would go traveling with other people.  I worry about people not getting along and everyone getting tired of each other.  But it was not like that at all.  I now think traveling with friends is a great idea.

Some of our new friends made a blog just for the trip.  So if you are interested in the details and seeing more pictures you can visit them over at LivingtheLankaLoca.wordpress.com

If you are friends with me on facebook then you can see me tagged in my fair share of unflattering sweaty/frizzy haired pictures from the trip.

But some of the highlights from the trip were:

• holding a baby sea turtle
• visiting an island where they made cinnamon
• tea plantations and factory
• the beach/ocean
• train ride in the mountains
• elephant orphanage
• safari
• waterfalls
• Buddhist temples
• so many monkeys
• snake charmer show and holding a python
• not getting sick once!  Joey did, but it was only one night.

I have to show some photos, but I realize seeing someone’s vacation photos can be a drag so I’ll keep it to a minimum.

Our traveling companions

Tea plantations all over the mountains.

Kandy

Our pink tour bus.

Buying a painting from a local artist.

Joey and I at the wedding.

Kandyan dancers and firewalkers.

The trip was so amazing.  The flights home, not so much.  And we are still suffering from jet lag.  But we would totally recommend Sri Lanka!

]]> http://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/home/feed/ 3 amykayparnell sl1 sl2 sl3 sl4 sl5 sl6 sl7 sl8 sl10 sl11 sl12 sl13 sl14 sl15 sig http://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/sri-lanka/ http://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/sri-lanka/#comments Tue, 05 Mar 2013 08:22:28 +0000 Amy Parnell https://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/?p=2758 ]]> We arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka yesterday early (5 am). After a crazy drive though the city we got to our hotel for the next 3 days. It’s a health retreat and everything is amazing- the view, the food, the room, pool. And so relaxing.

I’m doing this post on my iPad on paid by the hour wifi. So it’s a bit of a struggle for me to figure it all out. I’ll get it.
But for now, I’m going to go swimming.

Rory has only went to school one day this week.  Monday and Tuesday were scheduled days off, Thursday and Friday were snowed.  Joey hasn’t been able to go to work either.  They forgot to plow our roads yesterday.  While most are returning to work we are stuck at home again.  It was nice yesterday, but we started to get a little stir crazy towards the end of the day.  So today I don’t know how it’s going to go.

But we have been enjoying the sledding.  We have a big hill next to our house with prime sledding.  All these photos were taken the first half of the snowstorm, so it doesn’t show it all.

Joey’s doing something strange at the top of the hill.

With the neighbor kids making a snowman.

And a photo from last month’s snowstorm of Delilah and her cousin Ella.  One of the hills in the background.

This photo was taken towards the end of the storm out my window.  The car parked there was a family sledding.  They were there for like 3 hours.

This snowstorm and being stuck all day in the house has been kind of nice.  It has forced me to get ready for our big trip to Sri Lanka next weekend.  We will be gone 12 days.  The girls are going to stay here with the grandparents tag team watching them.  So I have been getting all that in order.

And hopefully I’ll be able to blog some while we are over there, so you can see what we are up to,

]]> http://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/snowed-in/feed/ 2 amykayparnell sno1 sno2 sno3 sno4 sno5 sno6 sno7 sno8 sno9 sig http://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/felt-flower-bouquet/ http://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/felt-flower-bouquet/#comments Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:13:25 +0000 Amy Parnell http://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/?p=2729 ]]> Hey-o! It’s been awhile.

Today I did a little Pinterest crafting.

Here’s the inspiration.

{ I couldn’t find a source for this image.  If you know of it, please send me a message and I will credit it. }

And here’s my whack at it.

They look great in the flower crate my friend Aubrey made me for my 30th birthday.

This was super easy and such a cute result.  And I love that they won’t die.  Now maybe you could make them for someone special for Valentines day tomorrow?

]]> http://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/felt-flower-bouquet/feed/ 3 amykayparnell 7973561049668f4b50a19113a45a17f4 flo1 flo2 flo4 flo3 flo5 sig http://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/coffee-staining/ http://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/coffee-staining/#comments Wed, 23 Jan 2013 18:50:24 +0000 Amy Parnell http://amykayparnell.wordpress.com/?p=2715 ]]> Awhile back I made some cheese boards for gifts.  Kind of like cutting boards, but made with a softer wood, so I wouldn’t technically call them cutting boards or use them a such.

I cut a random shape out of pine and sanded them down.  Then drilled a hole in the handle.

But, they looked too new.  I wanted the aged look.  But since these are meant for food, I couldn’t just use wood stain.  So I used something I’ve been wanting to try out.  Coffee staining.

Some people use brewed coffee and paint it on.  I just mixed coffee grounds with a small amount of hot water.  So it was like a coffee ground paste.

Then rubbed it in.

Here’s another project being coffee stained.

Let it sit for a bit, then wipe the grounds off with a paper towel.  Then let it dry.

To finish it off, for the cutting boards, I applied a wood oil made for cutting boards.  I found that at Ace Hardware.  This will keep the wood looking nice.  Since you wash the cutting boards, some of the stain will come off eventually.  You could re-stain it, or just let it wear down and that could look cool too.  I haven’t gotten that far with my cheese board, so I have no clue what it will look like.

As for the other project I stained, here’s the before,

And after.

I made this box to hold the poinsettia we had for Christmas.  The pot was covered with the crinkly gold and green wrap, which is now sitting down low to keep the water from running out.

I also did the book crate with coffee stain.

So even though I could have used regular stain on these last two projects, I like that I’m not using harsh smelling chemicals for projects in the house.  And I can do the actual staining indoors.  And I get to use up all that random coffee I buy but don’t end up liking.

What about you guys?  Have you tried coffee staining wood?  How does it hold up?  Or have you tried staining other things?  Maybe fabric…  That’s sounding cool.

Chalkboard Produce Crate

Perfect!  I went right out to the garage and whipped it up.  Using the wood I had and tools I have.  I don’t have a big enough drill bit to make the handles cut out.  I would love to do rope handles, but I used what I had.

Most of it was built with pallet wood, but I also used some 1x2s and 1/4″ mdf for the bottom and chalkboards (there’s another one on the back).

Don’t let the books fool you.  Those are the bigger kids books we have.  This crate is actually pretty good sized.

And since it’s chalkboard, I can make it say whatever!

I used coffee to stain it.  I plan on sharing more on that next week.

Source: Frosted Bakeshop

There were no plans to work from, and I used only the wood that I already had.  So mine was a smaller scale table.  But that was good since I can now learn from my mistakes if I ever want to make a bigger table like this.

So I started out by drawing one leg in the shape that looked good on a 1×6.  Then cut it out.  Then made 2 more exactly like it.

For the forth leg, I had to make it 1/2 wider.  So I had to use some wide store bought wood that I had.  Then attached the wider leg to another like this using pocket holes.

Then pocket holed the other 2 legs.

Next I made a round table top.

Then screwed it all together and puttied all the pocket holes.

As soon as I put it together I said “Ah man, that looks bad.”  The legs are really fat and lumpy looking.  But to make them smaller and thinner the wood would have broke.  So a larger table would look nicer with this width of legs.  But I would have to actually buy wider wood. And this was using free pallet wood.

I painted it yellow and gave it to Delilah for a side table for her toddler bed.

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