Have you ever been to one? I hadn’t before Saturday. But here at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, it is a big event! A pine car kit costs about $3.00 for our activity, and consists of a block of wood (must be pine!), four wheels, and axles. From there, parents and children get together and design it, carve it, paint it, weigh it, and perhaps even bake it, aiming for a creative design and speedy car! Then the special Pine Car Derby racing track is set up, and when race day arrives, people come from miles around to enter their cars. Each car has its own name, too! This year, friends from a church in northern Pennsylvania brought their young ones to race also. Here are some pictures of the event!
A Wide Assortment of Pine CarsPine Car Repair Area
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...complete with all the bells and whistles --AND --a distinguished lady driver with a wide-brimmed sun hat! This one won the most creative design!Not sure the name behind this one, but it is complete with three riders, and real peices of popcorn on the hood!The Twix-mobile!
Flower Power!Award TableBlack cat?Hershey's...made by a true Pennsylvanian!
I think the following cars were “antiques” made by adults either this year or even in past years…they are pretty creative!
Dustin has told you about some of our adventures at IKEA along with our purchase of a new dining room table. Here is a follow-up about the shelf-work station we purchased the same day. This was also purchased with Christmas money. I LOVE it! It is really more for me than for Dustin.
It consists of a wooden shelving unit with sixteen square spaces for storage or display, and a nice wide desk/work area attached. It is perfect for my new Cricut Expression and sewing machine. Both fit on the desk, and depending on which one I am working on at a given moment, I can switch positions of the two, so the right one is there before me as I sit at the desk! And I REALLY LOVE the storage spaces. I can keep crafting tools, supplies, manuals –everything in them!
Dustin has called the second room the “Woman Cave”! I can even set up the ironing board and leave it right there for whenever I need it –don’t have to set it up and take it down every time I need it! I love my little space!
P.S. In case any family/friends are wondering, we have measured it out and placed the furniture in such a way that our queen inflatable mattress still will fit in the room when guests come! Never fear! We still have room for you!
My collage wall...decorated with Lindsey's pictures, a calendar, and some Cricut by-products!Adjacent wall
Yes, I went cricut crazy! With my new Cricut Expression, (a Christmas gift), I was excited to be able to cut out letters for my church bulletin board. Before, I rarely used individual, stand alone letters because I was too lazy to cut each one out by hand. But with a Cricut, I could use letters without all of the work! So, I prayed that God would guide me in what message to use for my bulletin board. Well, being January, I was thinking of snow, and the passage that came to mind was Isaiah 55:10-11.
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
Isaiah 55:10-11
Well, I tried to trim down the verses, but didn’t think it very possible without taking away from the meaning of them. So I began to cut out letters…and I cut out more, –and I realized this was going to be bigger than I thought–and I cut out more…and on and on. Finally I finished.
If the cutting took a while, even with a Cricut, the taping and mounting took a good chunk of time too. In fact, I had to trim down some of the verse so that it would fit on the 4′ x 4′ bulletin board. It was quite a project!
Since one of my original ideas was Cricut-cut snowflakes, I did lots of them –white, light blue, dark blue, purple — to decorate the edges of the board. The result: A VERY “busy”, but nice board. I think I went a little overboard on the cut-out-shapes style! And I think I am going to leave everything (except the borders) taped right on that background paper, and roll it up carefully so maybe I can reuse the board easily after all of that work! Some projects are a bit big even for a Cricut! Lesson learned!
Another board in the same room that I usually coordinate with the bigger one.
We knew that we wanted to go back to IKEA and look deeper at what we would enjoy having in our home: if we saw something that we liked there, we could get it, and if not, we would at least make a fun day of it. I was settled on purchasing new bedroom furniture, or possibly new living room furniture; but, we were pretty much open to anything.
We decided that New Year’s Day would be a perfect day to go. We both had the day off, and they had an annual sale going on that week. We borrowed a friend’s trusty old Suburban (we weren’t going to try and jam whatever we got into our little Saturn…not that we haven’t done things like that before…), and headed off to the Baltimore suburbs around noon.
During the hour-long drive, we got to talking about what we really wanted. We began to lean away from the bedroom and living room furniture, and towards a new kitchen table and chairs. Let’s just say that at the time, our current dining room set had a lot of history behind it; but nothing matched, and it was not the sturdiest thing in the world either.
We arrived at the store, and immediately went to eat at their restaurant. They had a special where you could get fifteen Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, a cream sauce/gravy, and Lingonberry jam for $3.99, so we both went for that, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Afterwards, we went searching. We grabbed our pencil, card, and shopping bag, and headed in. Almost immediately, the first thing that caught our eye was the most interesting and innovative–but simple–tie rack. My ties usually just end up on very generic tie rack, and overflow onto a bent-out-of-shape hanger. This one would clean everything up just how we wanted. One thing about IKEA, which you will find out about more in the next post in this series, is that they are the masters of organization. We grabbed the information on it and continued on…
My new tie rack
Eventually we came to the kitchen and dining area. I think that this is one of their most unique and popular parts of the store. They have a wide selection of kitchen organization solutions, as well as plenty of dining room options. We looked around–back and forth–for about a half an hour, trying to find something that would fit our needs. Neither of us had a clue what we wanted exactly in a dining room set. Their were some very nice sets that were a bit out of our price range, but all together, nothing caught our eye–expensive or inexpensive–like the elegant (did I just write that word?) GRANÅS set of table and chairs. It gave off a little bit of a modern look, without being way out there where it didn’t feel like home. It is has a tempered glass tabletop, sitting on a sturdy black steel frame and legs. One perk is a second lattice style tabletop/shelf underneath the glass that can be used to display decorations without cluttering the eating area (it is kind of difficult to see in the pictures below). The chairs are made from the same simply constructed black steel, but also have a woven cane seating pad, that promotes comfort and styling–plus made it much easier to match with the rest of our kitchen. We were extremely happy with our purchase: it is very well built, and looks great in our home. With the table, we also purchased four place-mats that go well with the set.
We bought a few other things as well, but that will be saved for the last post in the series…
Eventually we came to the kitchen and dining area. I think that this is one of their most unique and popular parts of the store. They have a wide selection of kitchen organization solutions, as well as plenty of dining room options. We looked around–back and forth–for about a half an hour, trying to find something that would fit our needs. Neither of us had a clue what we wanted exactly in a dining room set. Their were some very nice sets that were a bit out of our price range, but all together, nothing caught our eye–expensive or inexpensive–like the elegant (did I just write that word?) 