10, 2 & 4

Hey kids! I know I promised my most loyal reader that I'd have tons of projects rolling out this week. And I wasn't lying. I've got a lot of things ready to post. A month ago (perhaps more?) I believe I mentioned that I have a new laptop and that this new computer would help me post more frequently. Well... As I discovered, it wasn't going to let me post anything but raw, uncropped pictures until I got photo manipulating software. And since I didn't want to splurge on Photoshop, I thought I'd shop around for something cheaper. I was mentioning this little photo editing crisis to a coworker (who happens to be the ultimate Photoshop whiz) and he told me I should get GIMP, a free photo manipulation software that has vectors and layers and all the cool bells and whistles of Photoshop but is slightly less intuitive and of course completely a bigger bargain, i.e., free. So I downloaded it and have been loving it!
I forgot how much I love being able to do cool tricks with photos. And not that I did particularly cool tricks with today's pictures, but I was able to lighten the color of the Diet Dr Pepper so that it wouldn't look so black. Instead its kind of a creepy shade of neon maroon or something but I'm learning the ropes with this new software. I hope you'll cut me some slack. It's not like I professionally edit photos (anymore).
This is an update of my kitchen shelf complete with old school style glass Diet Dr Pepper bottles, which will eventually hold spices and baking supplies. For now, I have the uber tough task of drinking all that soda!

A funny thing happened while I was installing this project. Or at least I chuckled. I got the power drill all ready and figured out where I needed to drill holes and had everything all ready. I reached to look for the screws I needed and couldn't find them anywhere. And I'd been sure to buy 16 golden screws designed to fit the "L" brackets I used for the project. I searched high and low for the screws--through two tool boxes, opening drawers and cabinets. The logical crafter walks away from the project until the screws surface, knowing that 16 screws can't really vanish into thin air. But not me! I was really determined to get the project done, even at the expense of abandoning these 16 golden screws. (insert apparent non sequiter here) If you know my father Dale, you may know that he never throws away a piece of hardware. He keeps nails, screws, bolts, nuts, washers, and countless other metal objects designed for some household/outdoors/automotive function in old coffee cans and washed out jelly jars. He has shelves full of these jars. And he searches through them with great care and pride. It's a wonderful relationship he has with these jars. The greatest part is that he can grab a jar off the shelf, empty out a few items and pick up a washer and tell you where he got that washer and why he chose to save it. Some have great stories like, "I found this while walking down a sidewalk in New Orleans" or "This came out of the engine of my 1975 BMW that I drove when you were born. It's been waiting a long time to finally be used again!"
Well folks, I too have such a jar. I only have one jar and it's not full of truly storied pieces of hardware. But it did manage to produce 16 mismatching screws that I could use to complete my project and hang up my Diet Dr Pepper shelf. And I kid thee not, as soon as I finished hanging the shelf, I walked out of the kitchen and saw the 16 golden, matching screws on my coffee table. How irritating. Murphy's Law I guess. I put them in my hardware jar. Sometime during the next five decades, their time will come.

I like this project, but I feel like something is missing. It's still a little drab. I can't decide what to do to make it more fun. Something behind the bottles? A different collection beneath them? I don't know. Let me know if you have any thoughts. I am really open to suggestion...


And one more note, how come that one bottle is so much more full than the other bottles? Doesn't that seem odd? I'm really looking forward to drinking that one.