Mean Green Clothes Dryin' Machine

Notice anything green about my bathroom? (Besides the plethora of green clothing...)
This weekend I successfully installed my drying rack in my bathroom. And when the shower curtain is closed, you don't even see the plastic monstrosity. Of course, in the eyes of an environmental protector (or whatever green people want to be called), the drying rack is a thing of beauty. For me, it means I can run four loads of clothes through the washing machine but only two in the dryer, saving energy and having softer, less shrunken clothing.
I recognize that this isn't a particularly crafty project, but as my little mission statement says (see the Left Panel), I like doing things that are cheap and using the dryer less is cheap!
Plus installing the thing was nightmare-ish. My ladder didn't fit in the space so I had to stand on the (very) narrow wall-side ledge of my bathtub to install one half of the thing. And all whilst using a power drill at an awkward angle. All in all it's worth it though and I get a kick out of being a little friendlier to the Earth.
And really, it isn't that ugly. I enjoyed artistically arranging my clothes on the hooks beneath the mirror and on the drying rack. Note that no, as Martha would say, "unmentionables" are visible! Goodness gracious, even a green girl has to have some standards!
And now for a completely useless aside... when I was a study-abroad student across the Atlantic in Florence, Italy. I lived with the lovely Bianchi family and enjoyed many, many moments of it. Of course, I declared war on the clothes line that was precariously placed outside my fourth story window. I had to dry everything outside! And I had the absolute worst eye for Tuscan weather. I'd often go to classes with my "unmentionables" and other assorted clothing items blissfully blowing under the Italian sun only to remember as I rode the crowded bus home from school through a blustery downpour that all my poor clothes were getting pounded! And naturally a sock or two wouldn't be able to stand the storm (this compounded with my weak clothespin skills) and would plummet to the ground and gated garden below. I'd have to knock on these poor old people's door and try to explain in very sad and broken Italian "sock" "ground" "over there."
Oh Italian laundry. How difficult it all seemed then. How quaint it seems now. I'm delighted to recreate the situation right in my very own bathroom!
"Posso fare un bucato?" -- That's Italian for "Could I do a load of laundry?"

Cabinet Upgrade

I like my apartment, don't get me wrong. It's in the ideal neighborhood for me--quieter than Dallas' West Village or Uptown, but by no means boring. The building is small and quiet, I rarely hear my neighbors and that's great. And the layout is fairly ideal for me. But, I'm not a huge fan of the white walls (there's a very strict no paint clause) and beige carpets. It's so bland! And I'm such a fan of color, texture, patterns, eye-catching elements... That's why I insist on undertaking projects that, yeah, I could live without, but that bring extra colors and patterns into my home.

When I moved in to this apartment, I was thrilled that the bathroom has turquoise tiles (a lovely escape from the white-on-white scheme that rules the rest of the pad). But I was fairly depressed by the bathroom cabinets under the sink. The hardware couldn't have been more boring if they tried and, to make things worse, the cabinet doors didn't match up and close correctly, meaning my cleaning supplies were always visible!

If you've never ventured into the cabinet-hanging world, I urge you to avoid it at all costs. On a previous house redecorating kick, I took down about 14 cabinets, thinking it would be a breeze to re-hang them. Boy was I wrong! Apparently, it takes an engineering degree to get the doors to line up perfectly and also to shut correctly. Thankfully, in my apartment's bathroom, I only had one cabinet to re-hang and I got through the whole process without cursing or pulling out any hair.

And now for the fun part of this project...

I wanted the bathroom cabinets to have color and different handles. I'd been looking around for hardware at various stores (Elliot’s True Value, Restoration Hardware) and online. I found some great handles at Anthropologie's winter clearance sale and they were cheap, so I snapped 'em up. They are an ivory-colored bone-like material, in a very classic shape. I bought a roll of Caspari wrapping paper to cover the cabinet faces and added in the handles, and voila a very refined looking collection of bathroom cabinets. To cover cabinets with paper, you should use a high quality double-stick tape. Often in the scrapbooking section of a craft store you'll find the kind of tape I'm talking about. Make sure, though, that you don't use a "puffy" tape, or else you'll be able to see the tape when the project is finished. Cut the paper to fit the cabinets (whether you want a little to wrap around the sides or a small border of the cabinet underneath is your choice), carefully place the paper on the cabinet, flatten out any wrinkles, and then cover with clear contact paper, for a lacquered look.

At right is a "before and after" picture of the cabinets when I was half-way done with the project. It's such a typical before and after shot because it was taken in low lighting and doesn't look very good, kinda like those pictures of people before and after a diet or tooth whitening--in the before, they are wearing ugly clothes, without their hair done and frowning, and in the after they are totally glamour shots. I liked the way this turned out so well, I might just do every cabinet in the apartment this way!

Out of Reach for Use, And That's a Good Thing...

This is my decopaged bedpan. Most people have never used a bedpan, nor do they own a bedpan, much less a decorated bedpan. What can I say, I've got all the luck...
Most of my readers already know that I had a big ole' accident in Italy a couple of years ago and I broke both of my legs. And you need to be able to move your legs to walk yourself to the bathroom, and thus, the bedpan comes into play. And the story goes on (and gets less bodily-fluid centric, I must add), when I asked my friends if they'd just do me one little favor, to show their solidarity for my poor crippled condition. You know how when one child in an elementary school class has cancer and looses all his/her hair in chemotherapy, how the other kids in the class shave their heads to show their support? Well, I asked my friends to use a bedpan while I used one. So, that didn't really pan out, but they showed their love by founding a facebook group dedicated to me and bedpans; taking pictures of themselves with adult diapers and bedpans; and ultimately, making me this bedpan.
And I'm presenting it to you as a favorite craft ever, even though I didn't make said craft. The credit for all the cutting and pasting goes to my bud Emily, up in Chicago. If you look closely, you can see both Lucy of "The Effects of This Good Lesson " and Katie of "How to Survive in Subtropical Paradise" up at the top of the bedpan, even if the glare on Lucy's face makes her all but unrecognizable.
The big question when one receives a decopaged bedpan as a gift is, where should I put it? Well... the bathroom is an obvious spot for such a treasure, but even then, it needs to be somewhere safe. I wouldn't want toothpaste or harsh cleaners to get near this one-of-a-kind item (I venture to guess it may be the only decopaged bedpan in the whole world, though I'd love to be proved wrong and see pictures of other decorated ones). So I mounted this thing above my shower. And it looks good. And every day I look at it and smile because seriously, who has better friends than me? A decorated bedpan... the gift that keeps on giving.

Jarring Pointillism

I found the perfect place to display my collection of assorted painted glass bottles--atop the glass shelf in my bathroom! To most of my readers, these glass bottles are not a new craft, I've been painting jars like this for years, but I decided I'd write about them anyway, just in case someone out there has never seen them. This is the greatest TV-watching craft I've got. Just rinse a glass jar (or buy one at the dollar store if you see a great shape) and start dabbing dots of paint all over the thing until it's thoroughly covered. The only tip--don't paint yourself into a proverbial corner, always make sure you can set the jar down if you need to. Walking around with a wet-paint-covered jar that you can't set down on any of its sides is truly annoying. As you can see, you can do themetic collections of dots or group dots by color or really play up the paint's textures by putting lots of paint per dot on the jar (as demonstrated by the pickle-jar piece). I love these jars, not only because they are so interesting to look at and are made from completely free materials, but also because they have the most wonderful texture to the touch.

Upon occasion someone will ask me to make them a jar and I'm more than happy so to do. For now, I think my apartment has its maximum saturation of painted jars.

Bathroom Bonanza!

Yeah, I just used the title "bathroom bonanza." And it describes this week's theme. I do realize that by posting this now, it will be at the bottom of the week's posts, so if you get to this point in the blog, look up, because that's where the new stuff is.

I promised I'd do my dining room this month, but things came together faster for my bathroom projects, so this is the room-o-the month, for now. I really don't have enough rooms in my home for there to be a room for every month, but I'll deal with that fact later.

My beloved Dj Jazzy is coming to visit me in March and I really wanted my place to look crafty and cute for her arrival. Natch (as Susan would say), I started with the bathroom, and that's because Susan and I have a long history of getting ill when we are around each other. And as long as she's going to fly to Dallas just to get sick, she might as well do it in a cute bathroom, right? So without further ado, I will reveal my bathroom's projects.