Napkins

  We recently came back from a cruise and one of the things that really struck me on the boat was the napkins. Every set of cutlery was wrapped in a huge napkin, regardless of whether you were in the main dining room or at one of the many cafeteria style dining venues. It reminded me a lot of my Grandparents home where you always had your own napkin and napkin ring to use when visiting. We have a lot of guests and go through a lot of paper towel and paper napkins, I thought it would be great to start using real napkins again to save all the paper waste. The one thing I loved about the napkins on the cruise was the size, they completely covered your lap with fabric to spare, not a tiny little napkin that you still manage to get food on yourself while using. I made up my own template for the napkins, going with a 22" x 22" square.

  For the fabric I used a nice soft white cotton sheet i picked up at community league fabric sale, someone was selling off their whole fabric stash. I manage to get 11 napkins out of the sheet. I then used the roll hem on my serger to give the edges a nice clean finish I didnt' take any fabric off the edges as i ran it through, i just ran the fabric along the inside of the blade to maintain the size.

  For a finishing touch I used my embroidery machine and embroidered each napkin with our frequent guests initials so each person would have their own to use while visiting.

I used the Cirque Alphabet from Urban Threads for the initials. Now I just need to collect some antique napkin rings to use with them.

Reclaimed wood

We spent most of Sunday afternoon removing all the nails and bazillion staples from our reclaimed wood to get it ready for building with. This is now my new favourite tool, the Mechanical Nail Puller.

A definite must when working with reclaimed wood, it made removing nails a cinch.

Pull Up Bar

My husband and I recently started P90x again. Unfortunately our single pull up bar on the door frame that doesn't have much support just wasn't cutting it.

So my husband built a double one to hang from our basement rafters. We have engineered or I beams in our basement so we needed to add additional support on either side of the beams to bear the weight of the pull up bar.

We used a mix of 2x4s and 2x6s for bracing on either side, scrap we had left over from building our garage. We used 3 2x10s to hang the pull up bar from. One on either end and another in the middle for extra support. We made our 2x10s 28 inches long, that's what worked for our height but we're both on the shorter side,  really you need to make it what size will work for you depending on your height and how high you can reach to get the bar. I can just reach it when I'm on my tiptoes so there's enough clearance my legs aren't hanging on the ground but i also use a chair for assisted pull ups and its just the perfect height for that.

For the bar we used 3/4 inch black pipe, however even though its called 3/4 its 1.05 inches in diameter, confusing yes, it can be found in the plumbing aisle of your local hardware store. We drilled out 1 1/4 inch holes in the 2x10s about 3 inches from the bottom  for the bar to go through. We used (5) 3 inch deck screws to join the bracing boards to each side of  the I beam. Then another 5 screws to join the 2x10 to the bracing.

After all the 2x10s were up we just slid the bar though the holes and covered the bar with bicycle  handle bar tape, available at your local bike parts supplier, we got one pack for $10.

If you are worried about the bar sliding out, just get a couple of hose clamps, also available at your local hardware store in the plumbing isle.

Reclaimed Wood

  We spent the morning collecting wood for a few upcoming projects. My husbands work has a few crates and pallets that they were finished with so we disassembled them with some effort and brought them home.

I've been wanting to put a bunch of raised planters in the yard when we get our deck in and they had one really long crate that was perfect for planters so that saves having to build those. The rest of the wood is going towards a work bench in the garage and a couple decorating projects for the house, can't wait to get started on them. Hooray for free lumber.