A road trip, a wedding, and a winery

Daniel and I just got back from a really fun road trip, thanks to my friend Melody, whose recent beautiful wedding was in the middle of beautiful hill country. On the way to our B&B, in Comfort, TX, we--of course--took some classic Texas bluebonnet pictures... because how can you not?

And then we stayed at this lovely B&B called the HoleKamp House. Our first time at a B&B, and we really enjoyed it. Homemade gourmet breakfast? That is exactly what my past travels have been missing!


We had some time to kill before the wedding, so we stopped by one of the many wineries in Texas' hill country, Sister Creek Vineyards.
This winery used to be a cotton gin:

We took a self-guided tour of the facility. This seems obvious as I think about it, but really most of what there was to see involved different containers in which the grapes/juice/wine were stored. Lots of containers. Like these, which are temperature controlled:

And these wine barrels, which are not temperature controlled but are interesting because they're made of different kinds of wood, from different places, and that gives the wine different flavors.


And our final destination, the wedding! Melody made for a lovely bride:
And it was so nice to re-unite with my 4 roommates from my senior year at A&M:

Turns out the hill country is gorgeous in the spring! I highly recommend a trip out that direction and a stay at a B&B.

Snowy Dallas

It was a couple weeks ago now, but I wanted to post some pictures of when our good friends from Beaumont came to visit. Overnight the outdoors were transformed into a winter wonderland... for the second time this season!


This photo makes me wonder what it would be like to live in Alaska.


From left to right is Joe, Sarah, Judy, and Buddy.

On the door!

Officially my name is on the door! Check it out! It was a big day at work :). Silvia, the office manager, actually brought me outside between patients to show me the new lettering.
They even spelled my name right :).

From so-so to slate!

What a week! Daniel and I decided on Monday to tile our previously carpeted dining room, and 8 days later we were finished!

On Tuesday we decided on and bought all the slate and supplies at Floor and Decor. And that evening we took up all the carpet. Here is a before picture:



And here is after we took up the carpet. This is the carpet pad underneath (gross! So much dirt):

After we got the carpet pad up, we tackled the baseboards and nailboards on the floor. We used crow bars and pry bars to get them all up. Check out this original linoleum!


One thing I learned is that you should cut along the baseboard before trying to pry it off, or else you'll pull up a lot of the paint just above the baseboard.
Like this:

Underneath the carpet pad was a ton of sand and dirt. So we cleaned all that up with brooms and with our Shop-Vac:

Next we found the center of the room with chalk lines and laid a row and column of slate, so that we could be sure we wouldn't end up needing a 2-inch piece of tile along one wall (b/c that's hard to cut!)

And sure enough, this placement showed us we would end up with about a half a tile at each wall:


Next we started laying the mortar. This is tricky to do, but we sort of got the hang of it after a while:
It's best to use these little spacers so that the tile stays semi-consistently spaced. In retrospect, we wish we'd used larger spacers to better accommodate the irregularities of the natural stone.

We rented a wet saw to cut the tile. It looks like this:
Daniel did most of the sawing, so that I could continue laying the mortar and tile. If you take too long of a break, the mortar hardens and is a PAIN to scrape off the floor. Anyways, here's Daniel cutting tile:

And here is our work, in progress:

You have to let the mortar set for 24 hours before you can start grouting. Personally I was really dreading the grouting part, because I've had some disappointing results with mosaics. But my MIL came over to help, and wow! She and Daniel got a great start while I was at work on Saturday.

The way you apply grout is to get the tile wet first (with a big sponge or a spray bottle), and then smush the grout between the tiles, starting at the corners. Then you have to wipe away all the excess grout, which is the most tedious part.

One thing that is very helpful during this part of the project is to have somebody refilling buckets of water all the time, so that you always have some semi-clean water to dip your sponge in. My FIL took up this position:

Here we are, wiping away the excess grout on Sunday:

After allowing the grout to set for 24 hours, it was finally time to seal the stone and the grout! Daniel did this on Tuesday night after work, and it was a pretty quick business with the spray bottle and the sponge. We got a sealant+enhancer, so it makes the slate look a little darker:


Then just another 24-hour period later, and the slate is completely finished! The reason we rushed to do this project was because we learned our beautiful Amish dining table was coming (ordered 4 months ago), and wanted to have the floor all taken care of before it arrived. Here are two before and two after pictures of the dining room:



And after!
The dining room, like the house, continues to be a work in progress. For the dining room, we plan to put on wainscot panel, paint the walls, and swap the chandelier. Check back to see our progress!

Art in time for the Housewarming

So... although I don't have pictures (yet), my MIL (and FIL) threw us a wonderful housewarming party about 3 weeks ago. Daniel and I worked and worked to make the house look homey--and it did--but my main concern was this big bare spot of bricks above our fireplace. I purchased a really pretty red woodwork to hang above it, but it wasn't big enough, being only 2 x 2 feet. So, inspired by a couple of my sisters' recent projects, I embarked on making my own art... with the invaluable help of my new Cricut! (Thanks, Becky!)

Here is the Cricut, a 2010 scrapbooker's best friend:
Using different cartridges inserted into the front of the machine, it cuts out almost any shape or letter you can imagine, in a variety of styles. You choose the paper, so the possibilities are practically endless.

For my project, I played around with a lot of different ideas before deciding on a massive tree with a "Starry Night-Esque" sky above it.
That big yellow thing in my hand is the 2010 scrapbooker's second-best-friend: a massive double-sided tape dispenser, which after a few months of scrapbooking, pays for itself. The little adhesive applicators you buy at the craft store are PRICEY, and they don't last long. I'd had my eye on that yellow thing for over a year before finally spending some graduation money for it. It's awesome.

After I mapped out where everything would go, my supportive hubby helped glue down the tree part:

While I focused on the sky part:

And done!


And... bare brick spot is covered successfully! Just in time for the housewarming, the next day :).

Project for the boys' room

I made some paper-covered letters as decorations for my niece's room a while back, and now I'm going to do the same for my nephews' room. I love this project because it doesn't take much skill, and the end result is so cute!

Start by going to a craft store (Or Kohl's has them too) and buying the wooden letters you need. They come in several sizes and styles:
I bought the ones I needed for my nephews, James and Randall:
Next pick the papers you want to cover them with. I'm using greens for one nephew and blues and reds for the other. I think their room walls are dark blue, but the letters will still stand out because you only cover the front surface with paper and leave the edges white (they come painted white already).
Now just trace the letters, one by one, onto the desired papers:
And then just use scissors to cut them out:
So you have something that looks like this:
And then just use a glue stick to paste it on. I used the "wrinkle free" kind of glue stick you get in the scrapbook section with the adhesives.
And you've got a cute paper-covered letter:
So I did that for all the letters, and this was the result:
You can mount them onto a board like this (I'm going to paint the board black), or you can just hang the letters individually on the wall. Or if you have a girl, you can use cute colorful ribbons to hang them.