Couch Makeover

This was my other big Snow Day project. My past roomie was given this couch by a friend who moved across the country, and it’s super-comfy. She left it when she moved to another state. The cushions got torn up over the last couple months, so I decided to give the couch a makeover. It was a fabulously cheap project – less than $20. I bought remnant fabric – “leftover” fabric that the store sells at reduced prices. The thread and the fabric were on sale, and I had a coupon. I love that kind of shopping!

Because the couch is a pull-out and everything is attached to everything else, it took many hours of hand-sewing, but it’s well worth it!

Before

During

After

Spartan Scale

I’m obsessed with the Spartan Races and I’m not ashamed of it.

I’m pretty sure that lifting this cover, with all the snow on top, to put in our recycling qualified as a Spartan-worthy “everyday workout activity” (or maybe just warm-up):

Anyway, when I was gathering the recycling, this saran wrap box caught my eye. You know the little metal tear-off piece? I kept thinking that it would be good for a miniature obstacle course. I let the idea go, but then the saran wrap box fell out while I was picking everything up – so I took it for a sign. After all, the whole goal behind this blog was to encourage my random creative urges – regardless of how silly they are.

I did three obstacles before I ran out of steam: a climbing rope wall, tires, and those ropes you have to go under. The ropes are at the bottom of a hill, but then you do the tires uphill to the climbing wall (it’s hard to see at the angle I photographed it).

It’s pretty silly, but I had fun coming up with ways to recreate the obstacles in miniature with things I had around the house. I used my craft blade to make small slits to fit the climbing wall in, and supported it at the back (though I had fun thinking about participants trying to scale a tilted wall….). I did something similar for the metal pieces (from the saran wrap box) that are holding the ropes.

My only regret is that I don’t have Lego people to put on the course! (Though I’d have to make it much smaller-scale if I did.) The last miniature I remember doing is the sukkah, and I had a lot of fun with that too.

So that’s my silly snow day project before I get down to cleaning.

Cubeosaurus (K-yoo-bee-OH-saur-us)

One of my oft-repeated goals is to indulge my random creative and/or curiosity urges (hence this blog!). So I made myself a Cubeosaurus for an office pet. Research papers exploring the lifestyle of this creature in its wild habitat shall be forthcoming.

Sukkah

I just got back from grocery shopping and I am SO psyched. It’s cold,wet, and the sale prices were amazing. There’s gonna be hot food galore, baby. There’s gonna be zucchini soup, pumpkin chili, stuffed peppers, sweet potato biscuits, herbed fennel and onion, baked squash, sauteed spinach, grilled eggplant sandwiches. And then maybe I’ll think about dinner :-p

Just kidding. What I’m actually going to do, given the bounty of produce, is make a lot of food, put much of it (specifically most of the chili and the soup) in my growing collection of jars, take it to work on Wednesday and freeze it there. There’s no room in sister’s freezer; it’ll save me the angst and shoulder pain from carrying it through bus and subway on my commute; and it’s generally an all-around awesome idea.

Another all-around awesome idea was the project that’s absorbed most of my evenings lately!

Sukkot is a week-long holiday when we build temporary “huts” outside. We eat our meals in the sukkah and some people even sleep in theirs. I pulled some traditional and some unique decorations 🙂

Pretty typical to have fake fruit hanging – I made my own with beads!

This one is sewn:

This one used glue:

There are three altogether in my sukkah.

More fruit, this time on the wall:

I wanted to put a chalk surface in my sukkah next to the fruit, but it turns out writing with chalk is prohibited during the holiday-days, so I went with the more traditional posters. Still, for years I’ve wanted to have a chalk-paint area in my home someday.

One of the major themes of Sukkot is prosperity, which is connected to our beginning to pray for a rainy winter (hence the fruit).

There will never be prosperity without peace. So I went ahead and got subtly political with my poster choices. Then, going with the theme of Israel and prosperity, I picked through the photos from my trip 2 years ago and pulled some of my favorite shuk (market) and flower photos from Israel – way to fill another dream for my someday home and print my own photos :-)!

On top of the sukkah is the schach – you have to be able to see the stars through it – hence, they can’t be spaced perfectly next to one another (mine also drooped – oops!):

I also made chains and a flower quilt:

(you don’t see it in the first photo because the chain hangs right over the entryway)

Sukkot is the end of the mad dash of holidays – it’ll be quiet til Chanukah now. I should probably start figuring out vegan latkes 🙂

I think I’ll take my sukkah into work on Wednesday to live there for a while.

ps. I made sweet potato biscuits last night and had leftover sweet potato puree. So I added sweet potato AND pumpkin to my pancakes this morning, and used homemade cashew butter in my “syrup” (nutbutter, maple syrup, and banana mashed together) – it was amazing! You should definitely try it.