Miscellaneous project roundup

I made this a couple months ago as a wedding present for our friends who recently got married and hauled it up to Seattle one weekend in October in a suitcase. It's fairly large, 1x2 feet, and it only fit in my huge rolling duffle (which we call the body bag, it's pretty big). It felt ridiculous packing that for a weekend, but you gotta do what you gotta do. (This also allowed me to take four jackets and six pairs of shoes, so I guess it worked out ok. Indecisive much?)

I'm thinking about making another one for myself :)

And...I don't remember when we finished this up. Probably also in October. Planted tiny arbor vitae shrubs along the back driveway, which will form a nice screen when they grow. I missed the privacy we had before the neighbors' 15-foot-tall shrubs died; the 6-foot fence just isn't the same. Plus the hedge was prettier. This should have a similar effect and also screen whatever's parked back there.

Foiled

I'm going to guess it was back in March that I ordered some foil and glue with intentions of taking on this project. Every time I thought about it, I just couldn't muster the interest in trying it. Craftier pursuits don't exactly intimidate me, but it's not really my game the way building stuff is.

So I put it off until this quiet Sunday, and the result was almost exactly what I was hoping for. That never happens. I'd like to take one more crack at them and see if I can get them more heavily foiled, since they look a little more distressed than I wanted. Overall though, pretty awesome.

And now when I see things like this in stores, I think to myself, I know how to do that.