Adora"bill" Card~Again Inspired by Mary Fran

I took a break from caulk removal to try my hand at another card. Mary Fran just released Just Ducky (and Lil Bits (where you get the 'adorabill' image) and showed the cutest card (I thought) to tease her customers. It worked on me! Ü. You can find her version here. Drat, I just realized I forgot the bow and the buttons. Oh well. I changed a few pieces to make it "mine" and I think it came out pretty cute. 

I created a blank file 5.5 x 4.25 and built up the card with all the images layered on top of each other. I tried to shadow a bit, too. I was able to print off the whole piece. I used photo paper this time and it sure does make a difference. *Ü* Thanks for the tips on that. I cut out and adhered this piece onto a cardstock base. I did a little editing in PSE and this is pretty close to how it looks in real life.

Thanks for stopping by. Guess my break is over. I have one more side to work on and then cleaning up those bits that just don't want to come off. Steve gave our old refrigerator to a buddy at work and he came by to pick it up this morning. So of course, Steve showed him what we are doing (guess this guy does home improvement stuff) and he immediately told us we don't have a mold problem! Yahooo! That's another confirmation. Now it's just a time game, shimming up the tub (Steve's job) and my removing the rest of the stubborn caulk, before someone (who is not me) runs a new bead of caulk.

Okay, break's over! Thanks for stopping by! Hope your Sunday is going great.

What a Week!

Whew! It's Friday! This week is just about over. What a week it has turned out to be. I've been feeling such angst over my ill-fated attempt to re-caulk our tub, but I'm getting over it. Especially after Steve was able to rig up a modified "shower within the shower." It's working pretty well, too! He bought a shower rod and a shower curtain liner. That, with some cable ties, turned into this:

This is what you see when you walk into the bathroom

This is the top part of the back end of the shower.

Looking down a little farther you can see more duct tape and some clothespins holding the liners together.

This is the front end. You can see how the shower head is tucked into our "tent" shower.

And this is along the side next to the wall.

I thought he was all kinds of clever for coming up with this. He admitted though, a guy at work told him how to rig it up. I told him he didn't have to let me in on that part and I'd keep on thinking he was super clever. Well, getting it to actually work IS pretty great!

Remember when I mentioned our rock star neighbor who helped us move in my thrifty finds last weekend? Well, he works in construction and Steve's been wanting to talk to him about our, ahem, situation. He came over last night and took a good look at the shower. In his esteemed opinion, he didn't think the mold would have moved up behind the walls. First of all, when it was installed, they used the green drywall, which is the mold/mildew resistant kind. He found flaws in how they DID install it, but he didn't think we needed to remove the surround. What we do need to do is cut a hole in the wall behind the tub/shower via our entry closet and try to shim up the lip along the long wall. I told him how water pools in one spot along that side and he could see how the edge of the tub in that area was angling toward the wall. If we didn't get that fixed, we would continue to have mold issues. We do have an access panel to the pipes for the faucet in our laundry closet and there is no evidence of mold that we can see there. Whew. So my job today is to work on getting more of the caulk out. Stuff I didn't know was caulk. This weekend Steve will cut the hole and with our friend's help, work on getting that area fixed. We are hoping once that hole is cut, we'll be able to see if mold might have crept up through any gap we think might be there. Our tub is a jetted tub and there's an access panel in the front side. We've looked in there as best we can and don't see any mold on the studs supporting the tub, which is hopefully a good sign. So, keeping fingers, eyes and toes crossed, this will be an easier and less expensive fix than we feared. You don't know how badly I hope this turns out to be the case!

In other areas of our life, I was busy on Wednesday volunteering at the school for their Earth Day activities. My friend, Susi, organizes a really neat event, complete with different stations for the kids to go to and learn about the earth and how to protect it. She enlists the help of the city we live in. They came and shared their expertise. We even had the mayor there, who helped us dedicate a newly planted tree. We did the Earth Day event a day before because yesterday was Take Your Child to Work Day and the 2nd-5th grade students had a field trip planned to watch a ballet performance at another school. It turned out to be a good move aside from the other events. It's been raining most of this week. Wednesday morning it didn't rain, so the Earth Day event (which is held outside on the lawn) went off without a hitch. And yesterday morning it poured! Whew!

Jessica went to work with Steve yesterday. His company has an organized program they run for this event. Amy was more interested in the field trip, so she didn't go to work with them. Anyway, the program was scheduled from 9-Noon and I completely spaced that off when I made a doctor's appointment for myself (routine check up to have my prescriptions refilled) at 9:15. Oy! Steve was fine with actually taking her into work with him and I picked her up at the end. She really enjoyed herself. She got to meet some "new friends, not kids though, adults" (her words). She said all the adults kept saying she was cute. LOL At the program she was quite impressed by the presenter who dipped a cracker into liquid Nitrogen and then ate it! He had smoke coming out of his mouth! (Steve works at Ball Aerospace, for those of you who didn't know that) He also froze a banana! They also worked in Earth Day as well. She got some sort of footprint (she hasn't shown it to me yet) that has wildflower seeds in it that we can plant. We'll do just that, if it ever stops raining!

We started up swim lessons again this week, so that has been added fun.

Amy has a field trip today (how lucky is she, two field trips in a row?) to the Museum of Nature and Science (her favorite place pretty much) where they are going to tour a newly opened exhibit on the human body. The class has been studying the body during science time, so this worked out wonderfully for the teachers. I might have volunteered to go, but they only needed one parent. Amy kind of does better if I'm not around (I think I annoy her too much...LOL), so I don't feel too bad about not going along. I AM going along with Jessica's class when they tour a garden next week (and the forecast at this point is for it to be dry-let's hope).

And if you are still with me after all of that jabber, I managed to finish the girls' dresses yesterday! Isn't that blue fabric for Jessica so pretty?? I love me some bright vibrant colors, don't I?

I took close ups of the yo-yo stacks I made to help dress them up just a bit. Oh heck, let's be forthright here,  I made them to hide the hand stitching I had to do after adjusting the strap lengths. LOL The pattern called for tying ribbon around the strap, which would have been cute, but I thought this might be a little cuter.

Okay, I'm done now. I've got caulk to remove.

Thanks for stopping by. And thanks, big time, for not laughing too hard at me about trying to re-caulk the tub and having it blow up in my face. By the way, that Renovation Realities show appears to be on every night during the week at 9pm Mountain time on the DIY network. I've watched it a couple of more times. They show a new episode on Saturday nights. Just in case you were interested.

*Ü*

Update...Ugh...

Just got off the phone with Steve who was chatting with a co-worker who's done this type of stuff before and since I found mold, this guy thinks we should pull out the surround and make sure there isn't any behind it. Oh man! All I wanted to do was re-caulk the tub, not a major thing like this. Steve told me not to attempt to caulk until we talk more when he gets home.

Yep, the surprise is on me!  Sigh...talk about renovation realities. (but it gets me out of attempting to caulk...)

Renovation Realities

I stumbled upon a show last night that I'd never seen before. I was channel surfing because I wasn't quite ready to go to bed and my usual channels weren't thrilling me with their content. Oh my gosh, I have not laughed so hard (and also empathized) in a LONG time. I was a giggling maniac. The show is called Renovation Realities and it's on the DIY Network. It's a show about real people doing real renovations on/in their home. There is no glamorous host, it's kind of like a video diary of what happens. That's not the funniest part though, as you are watching the trials and tribulations of the homeowners, the editors of the show add pop overs that are hysterical. Of course, they promote the DIY Network, but they are also a bit sarcastic and, did I mention, funny? Well, at least to me they were.

For instance, on the one episode, the homeowners were renovating their kitchen. I mean a total overhaul, sink, cabinets, adding an island. They estimated it would take 4 days (even I knew that was not gonna happen). They got to the flooring and the guy was trying to use a hand tool to scrap off the tile or whatever it was. He's huffing and puffing and commenting it's gonna take a long time. The pop over at this point says...that's why they invented power tools! Then they show the guy using a power tool and it's going much more smoothly. LOL The second episode I watched involved two female middle school teachers who wanted to fix up their kitchen. They live in New York. They were going to take out a part of a wall to create a breakfast bar. The one gal was trying to find the studs in the wall using a stud-finder. Then she drew lines across the wall (not vertically)where she said the stud was. The pop over said something like going to diynetwork would help her learn the direction of studs. Or later, when they went to get supplies for the renovation and upon arriving home, sorted the supplies. Each wondered where the other put the sink. Um...they forgot to buy it! (the popover mentioned it, too). They had to go back to the store and get the sink and take it home on the subway! They also came across some electrical conduit in the wall and thought it was a gas line. The gal said she was comfortable continuing the project even though she thought the line was a gas line! The other gal was a bit more cautious saying they could explode! I'm giggling remembering that part. I'm for sure gonna look for the show again. If you get the DIY Network, you might want to check it out for a good laugh. Oh and at the very end they show the completed project, how long it REALLY took and if they stayed on budget. The first kitchen overhaul took 4 weeks, but they stayed on budget. The second, with the teachers, took 4 days instead of three and they were $2000 over their $1000 budget. Ouch.

Lest you think I'm terrible for laughing at this. I'm not above laughing at myself and my attempts and fixing things up. The caulking in our one and only bathroom that has a shower/tub was in desperate need of replacing. Initially Steve thought we should get a handyman to do the job. My friend, Erin G, insisted I could do it myself. I procrastinated forever and a day, but thought I'd surprise Steve and get it done yesterday. Yes, laugh at me, I actually thought I could do it in one day. Shows what I know! I got all the caulk out in one day, if that means anything. I also sprayed the heck out of it to kill the mold that was growing...ewwww...I won't gross you out with a picture of that, okay? I thought Steve might get really mad at me for starting and not completing the project (remember, we don't have another tub/shower), but thankfully he wasn't, especially when he saw the mold. Whew. So, I think, let it dry overnight and Steve can wash up in the sink in the kitchen. Um that would be NO. He still wanted to take his shower. He told me to duct tape trash bags over the open areas and he'd take a super quick shower. I didn't really want to do it, but I did it anyway.

Here's what it looked like: LOL A true blue Red Green moment.

I asked him if it worked after he took his shower. He said yes. Only when I checked it after he went to work, and I'd say not so much! The area was definitely wet. Shoot. I've got a fan blowing in there now  to be sure it's extra dry and will attempt to caulk in a bit. Wish me luck!

Yes, I decided to do this as a surprise, since he surprised me by agreeing to purchase my thrift store finds. The surprise may definitely be on me, if I find out I can't caulk! LOL