Where To Begin?!

First, let me say, once again, June exhausts me.

This fact is compounded this year with the Grade 8 graduation of my son and all the shopping that is required. At least with having my boy graduate first I've got a little warmup for when my little dancer moves on to grade 9! I hear the girls are way over the top with preparation; I just "passed", had a school dance that we actually 'dressed up' for and then went on with our lives. But that was back in the olden days, you know, before Facebook.

Soooo, how did everybody enjoy WWKIP? Thanks to my dear friends who stopped by to help me celebrate and the knitters everywhere who make that day special! Go here to have a look at the fun we had!

O.K. let's get back to crafting and fun stuff like that.

Dear Michelle,

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, but "life got in the way." Feel free to hum along if you like. In answer to your questions:

1) The contractor that worked on our bedroom (among other renovations we continually seem to have) made the frame and secured the padded piece into it. He came by and we decided on measurements and dimensions and then he went away cut all the pieces of wood, brought the plywood back to me and went on to build the frame. So, as we like to say around here, "You gotta get a guy." I imagine you could work with a premanufactured frame, but just make sure that it's built well enough to take the pressure of the padding.

2) We (royal we) secured it to the wall with 3 normal hangers mounted to the studs!! This is not a 'put the plugs in the drywall' kind of project; really, do those ever work? He also secured the base of the piece using screws into the bottom because the padding made it stick out a bit, and he wasn't happy with how that looked. And that is what you want from your contractor, make it look good, pay attention to details and secure it so that when the hurricanes come the headboard will still be standing.

Here is another option especially if you're starting out and doing it on your own.

This is the headboard in our "old" master bedroom. This was done by a professional apholsterer, but the premise is the same. Pad the wood as I did, they divided it, but it was for a queen bed, and then it's mounted slightly differently. A piece of wood is diagonally cut across the entire length. One piece is secured to the wall, again, in the studs; so that the angle slopes against the wall. The other piece is secured to the headboard with the angle sloping away from the headboard. The pieces are put back together by sliding the headboard angled piece onto the wall mounted piece; thus resting the headboard onto the wall.

I haven't figured out drawing on the computer, but if this makes no sense whatsoever, just leave a comment and I'll try to get some pictures. That's one of the frustrating thing about Blogger, I can only post 5 photos; at least that's all I've ever been able to post. Anybody know any tricks to fix that?

In current news, today is my friend Christine's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!!!

Here's a blog birthday card (sort of); it's also a picture of this neat planter I found that came home with me (much to my husband's dismay) when I went plant shopping. The girls at the nursery had no idea what a treasure I was taking home with me! I haven't used it to wind yarn yet, but I'm pretty sure I will...

Still no knitting content, but the following is at least yarn related.

For years, and I mean years, I've had this idea of what to do with yarn labels.

I would attach them to a table and have a yarn labeled table top! Genious, yes?

Yesterday, the weather was perfect, because this truly is an outside job. (Step 1, is of course, getting said table out of the basement to the outside working area.) **I just hit some button that made everything here get smaller!!! Geeezzz!!!***

Anyway, so I glued a bunch of labels to my sturdy table top. This is a challenge in itself, because I was never very good at 'random'; I am so much better at 'symmetrical' or 'balanced', which looking at my life most of the time is totally hilarious! But, I persevered and covered (mostly) the tabletop.

I waited for the glue to dry and then weighted down the labels. Embarrassing as this next photo is, remember the name of this blog is Wine, Wool and Whoppers; please also note that we recycle our bottles and after this project I took the empties back and got a nice little bunch of yarn money.

I anxiously awaited a suitable amount of time for labels to be fully compressed. I say anxiously, because I was really hoping that the glue was infact dry so that the boxes didn't stick to the table or labels didn't stick to boxes; anyway all went well.

I then sprayed Varathane on the tabletop.

This worked better in my head than in real life.

The labels mostly buckled from the moisture of the spray. There was also some colour change, but nothing too drastic. But the smooth tabletop that I was looking for, because, this is my sewing table you see, was not to be. So, obviously, I was meant to come up with an alternate plan.

I don't want to put a glass table top on because I don't think that that would be secure enough for the way I plan to use my table. That plexiglass stuff is too expensive. I'm not ripping the labels off---not an option! I'm going to get some clear plastic table covering from Fabricland, wrap it over the top and secure it underneath (probably get to use my staple gun again!).

I hope to try this again, because, I still think it's a cool idea. I still have a bunch of labels (and plan on adding to the collection). I think I would try a decopage product next time and I don't know? Varathane over that? Is Varathane even necessary?

So many questions; so little time!