Adventures in DIY: January 2013

Monday, January 28, 2013

Jujubeez - No Bake Cookies

Hello there! I hope everyone had a good weekend. We actually had a lot of rain this weekend here in Southern California, which we really needed. It's just funny because any kind of rain turns into "Stormwatch" on the news. I actually enjoy the rain, so I quite enjoyed it :)

Today, I have a very easy no-bake cookie recipe for you. And it's super yummy too! My friend at work shared this recipe with me several years ago and I've been making them ever since. The cookie recipe doesn't have a name, so my other friend and I named them after our friend that shared the recipe - Jujubeez (obviously that's not her real name - it's her nickname).

Ingredients:
*Peanut Butter
*Ritz Crackers (I use the store brand)
*CandiQuik chocolate (you can probably use other melting chocolates, although I've never tried)

1) Spread peanut butter on top of a Ritz cracker and then put another Ritz cracker on top to make little sandwiches.

2) Once you've made all your little sandwiches, melt your chocolate according to the directions on the package of chocolate.

3) With tongs, dip your sandwich into the chocolate and make sure it's completely covered.

4) Lay the finished ones onto wax paper and let them cool. You'll know when are "done" because the chocolate will have dried & hardened.

5) Then, wah la! You're done! I made 32 with 2 rows of Ritz crackers and 1 package of chocolate. I probably could have made more, but there were some broken crackers.

I was a bad blogger and didn't make a nice display for a pretty picture. I was taking them to work the next day, so they just went straight into a big ziplock bag. And a couple of them may or may not have been eaten before I even got to work. :)

Originally posted by: Adventures of DIY

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Friday, January 25, 2013

Side Fence

One of the things on my project list for this year, was to finally fix the fence on my side yard. I wasn't planning on doing it anytime soon because I would need to arrange for help, but it was on the list to get it done sometime this year.

I don't have any "before" pictures, but basically the fence had detached from the other fence, so it was leaning forward. Like, a lot! It was even hard to shut the gate because the latch on the leaning fence no longer matched up to the latch on the gate.

Well, last weekend the gardeners were here and they had opened up this gate to get to the backyard. It had been pretty windy lately, so the fence decided to fall over finally. Yikes. The gardeners felt really bad, but I told them that I was surprised it didn't happen sooner! (Especially with all the crazy winds we get here in town). So, they tied the fence to the tree to hold it up for the time being.

See the angle of the tree? That's about the angle that the fence was leaning before it fell over. My gardeners explained that the fence was only about 4 or 5 years old (they did the yard work for the previous homeowners also so they remember when the fence was replaced) and apparently the company that did it, didn't do a very good job. Much of the fencing didn't have any kind of support to keep it standing very well and the fence looked so old and shoddy to me, that I thought it was the original fencing from when the house was built in 1988! I'm still shocked that the fencing is only about 4 or 5 years old.

Anyways, my gardeners are so awesome - they offered to fix it for me for only the cost of the materials! (It's probably beneficial for them too - makes it easier for them to access the backyard). So, a couple of days later, they came by and fixed it. They used some metal poles and cement to really hold the fence in place. Now, I'm not sure if this is the proper way to have this done, but as long as it helps keep the fence up, it's fine by me!

And the latch now lines up with the gate. I went ahead and made a new pull for the latch since it wasn't long enough anymore. Actually, I made new ones for both of the gates, so they will un-latch from the front easily. So, hey, lookie there - I did a little bit of something for this project after all. :)

I had previously fixed the gate as seen in this post, but I think the leaning fence pulled on the gate, so it wasn't working so well anymore. They were supposed to trim the boards down on the gate again for me to help it open and close better, but I'm not sure if they got around to it or not.

If not, it's not a big deal because at least the gate does open and the fence is not in any risk of falling anymore. So, even though I didn't actually fix this myself, this was finally completed and I was able to cross it off my project list. High Fives!!

Originally posted by: Adventures in DIY

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Adventures in Painting French Doors: Part 2

The saga continues... I looked back and I have been working on these darn french doors since September. What the?! How did 4 1/2 months go by already? Geez! (You can see my "progress" here and here). Well, I decided over the weekend to finally get going on this project and get it done before I work on any other projects.

If you follow me on Twitter, then you saw that I posted this picture on Sunday...

I was starting to make some progress and it was already looking so much better and that gave me the extra motivation I needed to get it completed (and yes, I'll be painting the moulding/casing to match the doors). I had planned on taking only another day or two to finish, when this happened.

I peeled off the tape from the door and the frickin' paint peeled off with it! What a hot mess! This did not happen when I did the sidelite (the little door on the left). It's a good thing I hadn't started on the other doors yet! The only thing that I can think of as to why this happened is because the trim around the little windows are plastic. So, I will have to peel and/or scrape that paint off the plastic trim and re-tape all those windows (groan). Then, I'm going to use some primer on the plastic and then re-paint. Hopefully, that will do the trick (please, please, please).

I'll keep you posted!

P.S. In case anyone is wondering why I didn't choose a cool color like black for the doors, it's because I don't get a lot of good natural light in the house. The french doors & side lites take up almost that entire wall space in the living room, so I'm trying to keep it as light as I can, especially because I may go a tad darker with the wall color someday (not too dark, but maybe a gray-ish color). I do confess, though, that black doors are very, very pretty, but I'm just going to stick with white doors (for now).

Originally posted by Adventures in DIY

Monday, January 21, 2013

Garage Organization: Cleaning the Cabinets

It's only mid-January and I've already crossed a few things off of my 2013 project list! Saaah-weet! I'm usually a lot more motivated when the weather is cooler, so I'm trying to take advantage of that right now. :)

Even though I'm not completely ready to tackle the rest of my garage organization project, I got a wild hair to do #2 on this list, which is to clean the inside of the garage cabinets and the doors of the cabinets. This really needed to be done before I could actually organize anything inside because it was a big dusty mess inside those cabinets! There's really not a whole lot to show, but I did snap a couple of pictures so you could see an example of how dirty the shelves were.

Nasty, right? These particular shelves stored bottles of oil & I have no idea what that red stuff was on that top shelf, but it was a goopy mess (for the record, I did not create any of the messes inside these cabinets).

After some elbow grease, look at how nicely they came out. The shelves are even shiny now!

All of my cabinets look this nice inside now - no more layers of dirt and dust. Oh, wait - I lied. Not all my cabinets look like this. One cabinet is completely filled with all kinds of supplies, so once I'm ready to start the actual organization of the "stuff", that cabinet will get cleaned once it's emptied. I have another cabinet that was filled with stuff too, but it was already well organized, so I was still able to clean inside that one (plus, it happened that it wasn't too dirty inside).

Here's a re-visit of my list for this project:

~~1) Take everything off the storage shelves above the washer/dryer and move the shelves back to their original place.~~
~~2) Clean up the doors and insides of the cabinets~~.
3) Reorganize inside the cabinets by category (use plastic bins/tupperware/ziplock baggies).
~~4) Buy hooks to hang some items up on the walls.~~

5) Re-do the laundry area to make it "prettier" **this actually has it's own list now**

I also originally had a few other things on this list that involved painting, but painting doesn't really fit in the "garage organization" category, so I have taken them off this particular list.

Now that I've finished #2, I'm not going to do #3 quite yet. I have moved back to painting the french doors. I reaaaally want (need) to get this done, so I've told myself I have to finish this before I can move on to anything else - this was my motivation to get it completed and it seems to be working. :)

Originally posted by: Adventures in DIY

Friday, January 18, 2013

Disney Care Package: The Goods

Hello! I've been busy working on part of the garage organization I started last year - it's mostly the boring stuff right now (cleaning the cabinets), but it's slowly but surely getting done. And no, I haven't finished painting the french doors yet - I just have no motivation to do that now. I'll get back to it. Eventually.

Today, I'm bringing you the last part of the Disney care package that I made for my sister and her family. I previously shared the Mickey & Minnie cup cozies and the Mickey monogrammed tote bag I made. When searching for crafty things on the Disney Family website, I found a couple of printables that I thought the boys might like. I printed this Winter Day activity book (one for each boy) and this Toy Story coloring page (one for each boy). But there's tons of printables on their website you can choose from.

Now that the crafting was done, off to the store(s) I went. I picked up some of the boys' favorite snacks: Jif peanut butter to-go cups, Goldfish (in fun space shapes & colors), graham cracker packs, and graham cracker peanut butter sandwiches. I also got them Disney coloring & sticker packets and glow sticks & glow bracelets (the ones at the park can cost you an arm & leg). I included these with the Mickey & Minnie cup cozies, activity books, and coloring pages, and put them all in the tote bag I made.

They went to Disneyland earlier this week, so I made sure to mail them the package last week so that they would get it in time. I'm so bummed that I wasn't able to join them at Disneyland, but I actually had fun putting this together for them. And knowing how much they liked the care package made me feel better about missing out.

Originally posted by Adventures in DIY

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