I love my new hobby!!!

Ever since I moved back to Utah, I have tried and done so many fun things!!! Shawn had to stay down in New Mexico for another week and a half after me. He is home now. I decided to try my hand at refinishing furniture. I found an already pretty cute piece and refinished it to look like something different. It was an oak carved piece, and I am not so fond of oak, so my dad and I decided to turn it into a cherry wood looking piece. We made it look a little antique and vintage too. It was really fun. My dad would tell me what to do and start showing me, and I would do it and complete a step, until he had to show me the next step. I loved it! We did it in a few hours. I would love to refinish furniture to look like Habersham furniture. If you don't know what that is, look it up.

Well, enough about that. Shawn and I are now living in Ogden for now, just kind of doing our thing. I have started an online ebay business, and Shawn will be helping to cater a reception center, and pursuing sales of his book early in 2009. We are happy and just going with the flow right now. I would love to refinish furniture and paint, but we will see what will happen

my original piece

just finished putting the hardware and doors back on

My finished piece!!!!!!!!!

Something I find myself being passionate about

stacked flat rock pile technique.

The project I finished on Saturday. I took a continuum course. It is one of those community classes. A lady taught me and 3 other people how to do faux painting on example boards. I could do it on a wall. I was in class from 9:30-3:30. We went over a bunch of different aspects, techniques, basics, advanced things. We learned how to make our own wallpaper, and how to do faux brick/rock. It would actually be done on the wall, but we used cardboard as a sample. We also learned to do mottling, ragging, sponging, tiling, marbleing, double-rolling, distressing, etc....... I am really excited I took this class. This is something I am passionate about. I would like to start doing furniture. I have always wanted to do furniture and walls, but never knew where to start, so I gave up. Now I have the little bit of knowledge to be able to start, and improvise, and learn. I now have the basics, I could follow the steps out of a book on a sample board, and perfect my techniques. Here are some things that I learned and took pictures of:

The weathered rock brick sample I made

closeup. You can see the cardboard as my "grout"

top left: regular double-rolling, top right: marble tile, bottom: raised cracked marble

I just showed this as an example, that the "brick" could be used as a backsplash behind the counter. Of course, it would definitely have to be sealed very well.

close-ups of the self-made wallpaper

I loved doing all this!

This is mine and the other woman's pieces. Mine is on the bottom. I am a perfectionist. Can you tell? :)

Something you don't see everyday!!!

Shawn and I were driving to church today, and there were a bunch of multi-colored signs and flags placed on both corners of the church lot. Our church is on a main road, right across from the college. There was 2 men sitting on the corner protesting. They were not verbally protesting, but they were with their signs. They said to "honk if you are for civil rights and equality." There were people honking everywhere. Basically, it was because of proposition 8 (legalized gay marriage) did not pass, and they felt that their civil rights were being witheld. A lot of people are scrutinizing the church because of our views on what the family is to us. The bishopric talked about it today in sacrament. The guys out on the corner were guys that left the church and became homosexual. The bishopric made sure to get across that they are nice guys, and there is no need to start a conflict. The guys waved at us as we were going home, and were very nice. I just think they were trying to get their point across. We do have our free speech. I just thought it was interesting, and something I would never see.