hannamades

Wingbacks (the planning phase)

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:40:00 +0000

I’m hoping to recovering these two wingback chairs soon – just trying to decide on a fabric. There are so many wonderful choices. And since this is my first time doing a chair with so many curves, I know picking an “easy” fabric (i.e. no checkers or lines to match up) would be ideal. I, however, really do like some sort of pattern with symmetry – yet something subtle that doesn’t take away from the design of the chair and actually highlights the chair more than the fabric itself.

To start, I tried my hand at Google Sketchup just to see what a few fabrics looked like. I usually watch my husband work in Sketchup, but I gave it whirl alone the other day. After some trial and error I figured out how to make new materials from downloaded fabric samples and apply them to chairs. Yes! Not perfect but it works. When Nick came home, he showed me how to make groups and components and all sorts of tricks of the trade. I'm definitely going to have to explore Sketchup some more with supervised coaching.

I’ve been collaborating with Brianna on fabrics. She has great taste and she’s very honest. Two great things in my mind. Here are a few of her thoughts:

So that you have it. Once I blog about it, I have to do it. I can’t chicken out now.

If you have any fabric recommendations, please post a comment – I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Goodbye 2011

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:23:00 +0000

It has been 6 months since my last post. eeks. Here’s a quick recap of the past year, although this doesn’t quite cover all we’ve been up to. But you get the jest. It was a wonderful year, full of a lot of painting, many a croquet-bq, and an overabundance of tomatoes and mustaches.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Four years ago

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 23:59:00 +0000

It’s hard to imagine it has already been four years! Four wonderful years.

Thank you, Nick, for eating carrots with me. For holding my hand. For riding bikes. Thank you for being the best husband ever. God is good.

::graphic lovingly created by my sweet sister

And we ate bananas in everything

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 04:57:00 +0000

We had a special weekend for the 4th of July – a wonderful missionary family stayed with us along with my dear mother. We went on many bike rides, ate bananas in everything, and chatted late into the nights. It was so wonderful and encouraging to be with them!

Laundry Room remodel and summer dreams

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 04:11:00 +0000

As you know, we have been working on our basement. Our goal is to get done down there before the nice weather starts. Because this summer we would really like to:

Work less on the house, be outside more, help friends and family out more, have more croquet-BQ’s, go backpacking, eat more veggies, rides bikes, save more, and basically have a simple and enjoyable summer

(I feel like this list almost resembles my sister’s “25 hours in a day”…except I would call it “3 months of summer – it goes by fast so make the most of it”

So here’s a picture update on the Laundry Room:

BEFORE

PROGRESS

Don’t mind the laundry in the baskets…we are real humans with dirty clothes. But I was going to mention that we would love to install cabinets and a countertop right there. We’re scouting for a used large stainless steel single bin sink right now and are saving up for cabinets, etc. Possibly making a mini-kitchenette for guests that need a place to stay for a few months (missionaries, etc.) But I am just so excited to have this space almost complete!

But in the meantime, we are framing other parts of the basement and hope to cinch things up down there in the next few week so we can enjoy the above mentioned list of summer activities.

Still wondering what a croquet-BQ is? Here’s some insight:

And yes…he is eating a raw beet.

25 Hours in a Day

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:32:00 +0000

Hey all! My sister submitted a doodle to a doodle contest. Because she is awesome and her doodle rocks, please vote for her! Just click here.

Mary Meccage – 25 Hours in a Day

Laundry/Utility Room

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 05:02:00 +0000

The last few weeks have been a blur…tearing apart the laundry room and getting it put back together in a way that is more functional. On top of that, a good chunk of my time has been spent at work in the evenings/weekends doing taxes. I do enjoy it, but it has been a challenge to get used this new schedule…a “taxing” time as they may say.

Here is a pieced together BEFORE picture of the room (picture taken from the doorway of our new basement bathroom):

View from the opposite side of the room:

Points to address: plumbing issues, new window needed, floor to be tiled, appliances to update (they are on their last leg!), and pantry to organize….the list goes on.

Here’s how we had to finish our laundry on Sunday: (Nick always finds interesting solutions!)

Although I grew up hanging laundry to air dry, I certainly appreciate modern conveniences. My dear mother once bought an old wringer washer because she thought it would be “fun” to use. It was quite the all-day process (especially with 4 little ones running around). We ran the hose from outside into the house to fill it up and drain it. Then over again for the rinse load. Then of course you ring every item through that deadly hand squisher. And then you hang it all up to dry. It actually was kind of fun and an interesting experience as a little girl. I will never forget it. Definitely made me not complain as much about laundry. I have great admiration for those industrious women of the good-old-days!

What we’ve been up to…

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 05:22:00 +0000

As you recall, Nick is slowly recovering from a broken leg. He is now bumbling around with a cane and is getting along quite well! We joined the local YMCA to help with getting his leg working normally again. That has been great for us and we are looking forward to the playing squash again someday! I’ve started meeting friends for Pilates over my lunch hour – what a killer core workout and a energizing break in a busy work day.

So after taking a few months off from house projects, we recently jumped back in. We finished the basement bathroom – (remember the one we plumbed last summer?) All that was left was a little drywall, tiling, and installing the fixtures. Feels great to have it checked off the list! Here are a few pics of our new guest bathroom:

BEFORE

DURING

A story about the tile: The challenge was not so much the tiling, but rather finding a grey tile for a great price. One tile shop said, “Grey is a specialty color. We usually don’t stock it.” What! A specialty color? Interesting because all they had was beige… Whelp. It pays to shop around and be patient because we did find a “specialty” grey in our price range.

WOOHOO!

Basement Bathroom

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

DOWNLOAD ALL

Yes! It is just about ready – just need to put up a shower curtain, towels, etc. So…who will be our first guest?

Coming up next: The Laundry/Utility Room

Put a Bird On It

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 01:38:00 +0000

Owls & Elephants - Baby quilt finished!

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:52:00 +0000

Finished size: 32 x 40 inches (crib size)

Flannel back for soft-cuddliness, owls peeking around the edge, giraffes on the go, bikes just hanging out, elephants lined up for dinner, and dots will be dots. It is now ready to meet the soon-to-arrive little boy or girl – J & A, you will be great parents!

Owls & Elephants – Baby quilt preview

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 04:53:00 +0000

Almost done! Here’s a sneak peek:

National Pie Day observed

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:50:00 +0000

Thanks to my friend Rachel of Rachel’s Cooking, I learned that Sunday was National Pie Day! So I made a delightful cherry pie in honor of the holiday. (Cherries picked from our friend S & L’s cherry tree.)

No pictures of the cherry pie – we dug into it too fast. But here are a few other pies I made last week. The “house” pie, was for Nick’s every other Tuesday lunch at work where they discuss crazy architecture ideas. And then I made us a N & H pie! Yum!

National Pie Day

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

DOWNLOAD ALL

At our wedding, (almost 4 years ago!) we had pie instead of cake. All the neighbor ladies brought homemade fruit pie over for a grand total of 40 pies! My oh my! It was wonderful!

The Mary bag

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:23:00 +0000

I made my sis a reversible purse and zippered pouch for Christmas. It was sure fun to make – and I even tried it out for a weekend to “break it in”. I really wanted to keep it! Here it is:

The Mary bag

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

DOWNLOAD ALL

Want to make one too? Free downloadable pattern available from VeryPurplePerson. Happy Sewing!

Calculator watch

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Nick surprised me with a hilarious Christmas gift – a calculator watch!

It makes me smile every time I look at it. The fiscal office gals at work really want one. I frequently stop by their office to help compute tough numbers now that I have this watch. It has all the best functions + – / x. It will be perfect for the upcoming tax season and for unit pricing at the grocery store...

I am now officially a nerd. A nerd with the funniest husband ever!

Typography is wonderful

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 02:22:00 +0000

Typography done right is wonderful. Check out these sweet typographic maps I came across today. Such a practical way to label a map – it brings it to life. Words no longer label location but become location: streets and rivers and neighborhoods. I love it!

CHICAGO

SAN FRANSCISCO

SEATTLE

Owls, elephants, and babies

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 04:14:00 +0000

This New Year’s weekend was spent with wonderful friends. Friends that are fun, in the same boat of life, and all striving to glorify God. And a few of them are expecting!

I’m excited to make a baby quilt for one of the wee ones. It will be a “neutral” quilt – as the baby specifics will be a birthing day surprise.

Green & brown – owls & elephants – dots & stripes!

{via www.fabric.com design wall}

When Nick broke his leg…

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 15:19:00 +0000

Two weeks ago Nick broke his leg. He has been a trooper through the surgery, pain, and slow-down in life. Lord willing, it will heal soon and he’ll be back on his feet…without crutches!

The day he broke his leg (golfing) – one of the first things he said was, “I guess we won’t be putting those egress windows in this afternoon.” What a guy. :)

And of course we didn’t put the windows in. Instead his amazing co-workers surprised us one day and put both of them in for us! That was so thoughtful of them! And many other people have been such a blessing – bringing food, transporting Nick to Dr. appointments, and stepping in when I was gone to Washington D.C. last week for work. Thank you to all for your generous help!

So here’s a few pictures from D.C.. If I ever get the opportunity to go back, I would love for Nick to join me – to browse museums, walk the mall from the Capitol to the White House, and eat the best guacamole ever at Oyamel Cocina Mexicana.

It is hard to capture the rich history found in our nation’s capital in a photo. I opted to “remember” most of it instead of always grabbing the camera. But here are a few:

We did a “Night Tour” of the Monuments – I loved the Lincoln Memorial pictured below and seeing the reflection of the Washington Monument on the water.

One of my favorite tours was of Mt. Vernon – home of our first President George Washington. More to come on this…

Financial Education and Kid Art

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:25:00 +0000

August – what a blur!

I changed jobs this month and have been adjusting to a new schedule and the whole transition of am working in a educational type role again. The subject matter is near and dear to my heart (financial education) and I’m loving being able to help families meet their asset goals and get out of debt. The opportunities to learn about financial matters (tax laws, public policy, etc.) is inspiring. I also get to travel a bit and am excited for an upcoming conference in Washington D.C.! Should be very educational and a lot of fun. Blah blah blah. Well – enough of work! Sorry to bore you all.

Now, I want to share a silly story about some nice young girls. The other day, when we were painting the exterior of our house, two girls strolled up (maybe 6 or 7 years old). And literally one was in a stroller, being pushed along by her friend, while she carried a big box on her lap. They were very cute indeed. They asked if I would like to buy some art from their big box to help their “back-to-school fund”.

Sure – I love kid art. So one by one they showed me their “posters”. I was utterly disappointed! I usually am very encouraging of art and creativity (even if I have no idea what it is), but this time I was just plain saddened. Their so-called “posters” were pages just torn out of an everyday magazine! And that’s it. Granted they were only selling them for a penny a piece, but still. No creativity. At. All. That made me sad.

So, the teacher in me thought to tell them honestly what I thought (in a nice way) and encourage them to be creative! After all kids have some of the most interesting ideas. I remembered back to when I was a little girl and went through the “make-a-homemade-envelope-from-a-magazine-page” phase of life. I told the girls to wait a sec and I ran inside, grabbed an envelope, scissors, and glue. Then on the sidewalk we made a few envelopes out of those “posters” and the girls had so much fun! And so did I. They left pretty excited to make envelopes and homemade greeting cards from their “posters”. Not sure if they sold any – they never did come back!

That is my silly story. If you have kids or are around kids – inspire them to be creative. Don’t let them settle for easy pre-made things. Help them to use their resources to make something new, repurposed, and original. OK - those are my thoughts! Would love to hear yours!

CANDISC 2010 video

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 20:47:00 +0000

Check out this video of CANDISC 2010 that a fellow rider put together. I love the landscape, old cars, and baby bunny they captured on film. Enjoy!

Credit: DakotaPuma

CANDISC 2010

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:24:00 +0000

Whew! I just got back from an awesome week of cycling 450 miles around North Dakota with CANDISC! Here’s what it stands for:

CANDISC - Cycling Around North Dakota in Sakakawea Country

{a bicycle ride across some the greatest frontier of North America}

This is the second year I’ve been on CANDISC – and can’t believe I’m saying that I would love to do it again! This is the 6th year my dear Mom has been on CANDISC. What a trooper! 2nd year for my sis and 1st year for my sweet cousin, Apples. She was the best hill-climber on the tour!

Words to describe the week:

beautiful – hot – windy – hilly – fun – simple – exhausting – rainy – interesting – long – discouraging – challenging – rewarding – hilarious – spandexy – small-towny – freeing – relaxing – strengthening – eye-opening – awesome

This is a fully supported 7-day ride – which means we don’t have to haul our tents and bags on our bikes. They haul our bags to the next town for us. Then we camp outside each night with about 4oo other bikers in a park or school yard. Each community provides a meal and local entertainment. This can be hilarious and quite entertaining. Key examples from this year:

Berthold – demolishing an old grain elevator

(I love how they saved this “event” for the day CANDISC comes to town! Pretty sure we more than doubled their population.)

Kenmare – free movie in the cutest little theatre. The Twilight Saga – Eclipse

(I have never previously partaken in any of the Twilight nonsense until this day. Now I can firmly say I’m on “Team Jacob”…)

Crosby – Viking Women!! uffda!

Bowbells – the Mayor invited all 400 of us over to his backyard for appetizers. Who does that!? Very beautiful garden and yummy food.

Also, a sweet accordion band!

Glenburn – huge Applebee’s hot air balloon. A musical concert of sorts. And a lot of card playing.

Makoti – Threshing Bee tour. Tons of old tractors and stationary engines. Very cool.

Here are the official directions while riding on a trailer pulled by a tractor to the tour:

TO STOP DRIVER PULL ROPe + RING BELL if technical difficulties HOLLER VERYLOUD louder than tracter ROPE <—>

What we had for breakfast – Mom’s mixture – soaked overnight – chewy morning delight? buckwheat, almonds, dates, sunflower seeds, raisins

So…we once had a cat named Norma…and couldn’t resist.

I loved the beautiful fields of sunflowers.

Way to go ladies! It was a awesome week with you!

Interesting in riding CANDISC next year? Click on the link for more info!

Window and Door Replacement

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Last winter, our patio door and front window leaked in quite a bit of cold air and had a lot of moisture damage and rot. Our heat bill and our chill factor said we need to replace these both before next winter.

So, here goes!

Nick worked with a rep from his office to get a custom size for the front living room window. We ended up going with vinyl for this one to cut costs, while still accomplishing a good looking window that seals well. We changed the layout of the panes because with the old one, the pane divider was right at eye-level as you sat on a couch to look out. (We like looking outside – and it blocked the street view!)

The patio door was in their “garage sale” pile for quite a discount as it was previously custom-ordered for someone, then turned down. It is not as big as our last one, but much sturdier and built well. Metal clad exterior and wood interior. I love it!

Front window and siding:

Just gotta throw in a pic of our garage sale bikes!

We had extra fiber-cement siding from the garage project to wrap it around up to the brick wall. Eventually – we’ll reside the whole house. But small bites at a time!

I’m really excited about the natural wood around the door! Nick cut the boards to make it ship-lapped. (Similar to a tongue and groove, but not quite.) The wood adds a lot of warmth to the entry along with updated numbers and a locking mailbox. Woohoo!

As for the patio door…lacking many pictures. We replaced this right after playing bball at the Big Sky State Games – we were all exhausted and starving for dinner!

Big Sky State Games

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:22:00 +0000

Last weekend my sis came down for the Big Sky State Games. We we played on a women’s basketball team. It was sure fun! It has been years since I’ve played “organized” bball – where we all somewhat matched and had referees to call the fouls. (And yes they did call em tight – just ask Mary about fouling out!)

Right before our first game, we found out we needed to have a jersey with a number on it. Hmm…no numbered jersey in my closet – except my old Lacrosse uniform. So, I thought I would just tape a number on a grey tank top.

Then, Nick said, “Why don’t you just sew a number on?”

Sure, why not? So I did…

However, at the game – someone found matching jerseys so I didn’t even need to wear my number tank. Sure glad I made it permanent!

So…now what do I do with a numbered shirt? Maybe I can number all my clothes! One for each day of the week. This is now my “Saturday shirt”. Only available to wear on the 7th day of the week. Ha!

Here, I’m up for a free throw. Nice break time from burning lungs. Question is – did it go in?

Three Years Ago

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:01:00 +0000

Three years ago we tied the knot!

These three years have gone by so fast. It seems like yesterday when we closed our college textbooks and said, “I do”.

As we walked the other night on the Rims, we reminisced about what each year has held - adventures, challenges, and blessings. We are so thankful for God’s hand in our marriage and His continual guidance in our lives.

I feel so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man and look forward to many more great years!

Happy Anniversary, Nick!

Denver, CO – 4th of July

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:22:00 +0000

It was such a blessing to visit an old college friend (and meet her husband!) in Denver last weekend for the 4th of July. It is amazing how times flies and years pass so fast!

They took us to a beautiful new housing development, Solterra, located between Denver and the majestic mountains. It was a wonderful blend of Tuscan, French, and Spanish inspired homes with beautiful stonework, landscaping, and views. Her husband is the head developer for this community and it was neat to see his ideas come together in such a beautiful way.

Here is a picture of the community center at Solterra where we had a memorable evening of fireworks and fellowship.

We also saw Blues Traveler live at Red Rocks Amphitheater – what an amazing venue! The rain started pouring during the song, “Mountains Win Again” – making for a drenched but exciting and crazy time. That’s a concert I’ll never forget!

Here is a video when the rain starting pouring down:

See the guy in the orange jacket? That’s Nick! And we’re all standing on the other side of him. :)

What is your IKEA name?

noreply@blogger.com (hannamades) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:46:00 +0000

Ever wondered what your name would be if you were a Swedish furniture company product? Click here to find out!

Here is what Nick and Hanna translate to:

*I came across this silly name generator at How About Orange. Fun blog to visit if you have a moment.

What is your IKEA name?

OK…enough of this time-waster. Back to work!