My project challenge: 14 before 2014 (the rest)

Well, I have finished my list. I am so excited to get started on my 14 projects before the end of the year! This post includes the rest of my list. My previous post contained the first six activities, and here are numbers 7-14:

7. Bottle cap project
I kept this one vague because I have found so many cute things to do with all of Michael's beer bottle caps I have kept. He loves to drink IPAs and other beers that come from breweries who do awesome art on their boxes, bottles and caps (like Mad Hatter, Bell's, or Founders), and I like to keep the boxes and bottle caps. I have found a few really cool bottle cap ideas, and I would like to do something for Michael's office with these bottle caps.

Here is a link to a list of cool bottle cap projects. I will pick one... eventually.

8. Purge the house of things we do not need & get organized
This will be an ongoing project. I hope to have it done by the time I graduate in December, because M and I hope to move when I can find a job. Since I cannot post a link about this, I will just tell you why this takes so long for me: instead of just gathering up everything that is taking up space in our house, I gather it up and put it on eBay, or the online yard sales Facebook group where we live. Instead of just getting rid of things, we are making money off of the things that we can make money off of. The other stuff I donate to the local food/clothes bank that just gives it away to people who need it. We are both really excited to get on this.

9. Frame the honeymoon coasters
That is a weird title. Let me explain it. We just got back from our honeymoon, and we went to Germany. As I will mention again, M loves beer. You know how you will go somewhere that serves beer and they will have those cardboard/paper coasters with a beer's logo on it, and maybe some other information as well as maybe a cool picture? Well, in Germany we pretty much picked as many of those up as we could from different places, and I walked in to my parents' guest room (we are staying with them for a few days in Grand Haven, MI, where I am from, before driving back to our house in Georgia. My parents were nice enough to watch the dog for us while we were gone), and M was arranging them in a pattern he liked. He said, "I would love to do something like this and put it on the wall of my office". So we will. :)

10. SAVE for a new TV.
I know this "project" isn't crafty at all. However, since we are trying to consolidate our stuff and open the house up a little bit more, we would like to sell the old, huge, boxy TV that I have had for almost ten years now (and that has moved with me everywhere I have gone!) and get a new flat-screen for our living room, moving the one that is in the living room to our bedroom. We like wall-mounting, and that boxy TV is taking up a lot of space on our dresser. Time for a change! By selling everything we do not want or need that is still in good shape on eBay or an online yard sales site, we have been able to get a good start!

11. Tee-shirt placemats
This is a project I have done in the past. I took several very odd tee-shirts I found at Goodwill, cut them up, sewed them together, and made placemats. Why am I doing it again, then? The ones we have now have been so well-loved that they will need to be replaced soon! I will post a tutorial as soon as I do this. We only have four right now anyway, and the last time we had people at the house, there were not enough! I love this idea, and I had so much fun with the project before. Plus the logos and print on the shirts that I have found are so odd that they are great conversation pieces! Four more, before 2014!

12. Make the perfect soft pretzel
I have always loved soft pretzels, especially when they include some sort of cheese to dip them in, but since we have come home from Germany, I have found myself absolutely craving them! I love the salt, I love the taste, I love everything about them! They are amazing. M loves them too! The problem is, last time I tried to make them, they were kind of a disaster. The boiling process is where things got weird. I am absolutely determined to get this right. Since I cook all the time, I did not want to make more than one of my "before 2014" goals about cooking. It would be too easy. :)

Perfecting the pretzel, however, will not be easy. Those who know me would say that I hate failing at anything I try. What a challenge!

Now I cannot find the recipe I used telling me to boil the pretzels in baking soda water for a few minutes, but here is the next recipe I will be trying. Maybe just dipping the pretzel in the baking soda water will be easier for me. :)

13. Trivets
In our house, we use potholders. Now that we have this amazing, blonde wood, Heywood Wakefield style dining set that was my grandparents' from the 50s, those will no longer do. I have found some amazing ideas for trivets, and I cannot decide which one(s) I would like to make! This one takes the cake! If I can find some stove top guard things (what are they called?!?!?!), I will be making this. Otherwise, I will be using corks, or maybe something else that I have not decided yet!

14. "Home" art
I have seen a lot of cute tutorials for art projects displaying a person's love for their home town and state. I love all of them. M and I are both "displaced". He is from Rio Rancho, NM, and I am from Grand Haven, MI. We love our home towns and states, and would love to have some art representing that hanging in our house.

Here is a really cute one done with paint and canvases. I like the "places we have lived" idea too!
This one is my favorite, though. We have some boards, nails and string around here that could definitely stand to be used up. I love projects that are both awesome and stashbusters!!



I had better go get started on these awesome projects! Do you have a list of things that you absolutely want to get done by the new year? I would love to hear about them!