Projects

If you've visited here in the past few days, you might think all I've been doing is reading, but you'd be wrong. I've been up to my eyeballs in projects:

Let there be light--but not quite so much of it:
Because of my unique housing situation, and because of the furniture arrangement in my living room, I frequently found myself simultaneously watching television and struggling not to look straight across the carport into my neighbor's house. My solution was to keep the blinds closed almost all the time, but that made the room depressingly dark.

Before

This week I put up privacy-frosted window film around the perimeter of my front windows and all across the two bottom rows of panes, leaving a two- by four-pane section near the top clear. Now I can see out when I'm standing, but I can sit on the sofa with my feet propped up and not worry about flashing anybody.

While I had all the supplies out for that project, I decided to put the same film on the doors of the bathroom cabinet. They were already lightly frosted, but the additional layer made my extra rolls of toilet tissue a little less conspicuous.





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Another window project:
A long time ago (we're talking years) I bought two halves of an old window at my next-door neighbor's garage sale. I knew I wanted to use them to frame pictures, but I never could decide what pictures I wanted to display. This week I did. I love the concept of bringing the outside in, so I printed twelve different photos of trees:

I dug the old windows out of the garden shed, hosed them down, then brought them inside for a thorough scrubbing.

It'll take a while longer to mat the photos and hang the heavy windows, but at least I have a plan in progress. I'll show you the finished project as soon as it's on the wall.

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Saving files in style:

After finishing several family history searches recently and printing out tons of paper records, it occurred to me that there is a better way to store all the documents and images. Thanks to the ever-helpful Internet, I learned how to save genealogy reports as  PDF files that can be opened, searched, and printed on a wide variety of computer types, then I saved each person's family history files on a CD. Wanting to end up with a nice-looking product for a couple of special people, I made covers for the CD jewel cases. Those turned out well, so I bought a packet of Avery® CD labels and downloaded a free template from their website. This was fun, and it sure beats my previous method of titling CDs with a Sharpie® marker.

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I don't know how long this creative spurt will last, but I'm enjoying it for now. The heat is keeping me indoors, and I'm glad to have something to do. Anything but housework.