Junque Yard - freshening up the walkway

It's a warm/cool morning, as I sit outside with my laptop and cup of coffee. I'm really enjoying the spring/summer like weather. After all my rantings that spring was too cold and rainy, I'm taking advantage of all the good weather I can!

DaMan started on a project that I've been chomping at the bit to have done for awhile. We held off due to financial and the aforementioned rainy weather, but the stars have aligned, and we can now (hopefully) go forth!

There is a paver-lined walkway that goes up to the back of our yard. It's in sort of a strange area, about 2 feet out from our garage, leaving a space that has become our berry patch, with strawberries, raspberries, and one lone blueberry that's hanging in there, but isn't happy, because it needs a girlfriend blueberry bush in order for it to be happy and produce blueberries (hoping that will be rectified soon, I hate to see anyone/thing lonely).

As nature is prone to do, the grass and weeds have come up through the cracks between the pavers, and it's pretty unattractive. Grass has also permeated my strawberry patch, and is making it difficult to weed in there. So it is time for a re-do.

DaMan pulled up about 50 concrete pavers last night. Today we are going to head to the local hardware store where they are having a sale on pea gravel. We will pick up some landscaper's cloth, too (and maybe another blueberry bush for the lonely guy that can't get a date).

The pea gravel is essential. Once all the pavers are up and the unwanted sod is pulled, we will level the dirt underneath as much as possible, lay down the landscaper's cloth, and spread the pea gravel. The bags are $1.75 for 3 cubic feet.. We estimate that we will need about 20 bags of gravel. Then the pavers will be laid down again on top of the gravel. Everything we've read about this says that a good 2 inches of gravel will help with frost heave during the winter. If you are unfamiliar with that lovely trick of Mother Nature's, it's where the ground buckles and heaves up during the winter due to cold and frost. Concrete and cold do not like each other, and they fight in the winter time, especially in cold climates, such as ours. If you see cracks in a  sidewalk where one corner is higher than the other it's likely, more often than not, due to frost heave.

Landscaper's cloth is just a little more insurance that the grass and weeds don't come back for a few more years. It will eventually degrade, and you can buy the stuff based on how many years it is estimated that it will stem back the tide. 7 years, 10 years, etc. it sells for about $8.00 per 20 feet.

We are hoping to do this project for around $45. Here's hoping that we keep our budget, and I'll have a nice looking walkway again! I will update the results as we finish the project.

Isn't this ugly? Strawberry patch to the left, lawn to the right

The pavers DaMan pulled, to be used again, once the ground is ready for them.

Junque-olgy - It's Curtains for you!

I'm in desperate need to get rid of my mini-blinds. They are disgusting and broken, and UGH!

I'm starting easy, because it's many, many moons since I hauled out the sewing machine (remember "Hammer Time?" - remember "Hammer Pants?" - yeah, I made those).  I want to make cafe curtains for one window in the kitchen that sits over the sink.  The walls are pale yellow.  The counter top is a mottled pottery color (not orange, not brown, but just like a clay pot), the appliances are all white.

So, I'm looking for fun and funky prints to buy for curtains this morning, and most of the things I like are labeled "Juvenile." I'm trying not to be insulted, and mostly I'm just giggling at the thought of truly WILD prints, and the look on DaMan's face when I finally get them up.

say...something like this: 



But he probably wouldn't have a problem with this:



I love this, but it's a jersey knit, and not at all right for curtains:



... and people wonder why I never get anything done.



So help me out...wild prints, that aren't too dark (my house is light challenged), in the yellow/red/green family preferably. Please?

I promise to write up the whole process of what is sure to be a comedy of errors - Me vs. Sewing Machine vs. Tension Rods, etc.

And!!!  Bonus points to those that might point in me in a trying Junque-like fashion of re-using something else to make my curtains.

Junque-ology - Cleaning Copper-bottomed pots

Cleaning Copper-Bottomed Pots

My mother-in-law knew that I coveted her ancient Revere-Ware copper bottomed pots. They were awesome for even heating and not scorching. She gave them to me when she bought herself some new cookware, and I happily took them.

At some point in time (in Happy Accident Land), tomato sauce overflowed one of these pots, and we'd noticed that the copper which was dull and dark, became clean and spiffy looking. Thinking we were geniuses, we would occasionally throw the pots in a shallow dish filled with some sort of tomato sauce. Spicy V8 was the usual fare, as we always had some around, but it never got used enough to feel bad "wasting" it to clean a pot, if you get my drift.

Anywhooooo, last week I noticed that my most beloved pot was getting reeeeeeally grimy on the bottom, and I knew that I'd have to get around to cleaning them. Since I started this blog, I thought it might might be neat to conduct a wee little experiment and see if tomato juice was truly the bestest, fastest, easiest way to clean a copper-bottom pot.

I went to my trusted old book, "Talking Dirty with the Queen of Clean," by Linda Cobb. In the book, the author said to use lemon juice and salt to shine up copper. And I got to figuring, tomato juice and lemon juice...both are acids, so why not try vinegar, too? This works out well, because I have three copper pots to clean.  :)

As you can see, they are pretty dingy. Definitely time for a clean. I got out my trusty Pyrex casserole dishes, and loaded one up with each acid: V8 Juice, vinegar, and lemon juice. I dunked one pot in each for a minute, then poured salt on the bottoms, put them back into their respective acids, and swished each for a minute or so.

Here are the results, and let me say, I'm pretty surprised:

 I'm calling it a tie between the lemon juice and the vinegar.  The pot that the vinegar was in wasn't as dingy, because it doesn't get used as much as the two larger pots. However, the vinegar pot needed to be buffed as it got a a grey-ish film on it when it dried.

The lemon juice pot still has a few burn spots in the middle, that has since resisted being cleaned off no matter what. But these pots are ancient, so I'm willing to live with a few spots.

The V8 Juice just did not live up to snuff in this experiment.  I finished it off in the lemon juice, and was able to 85-90% of the black off the bottom of the pot.

There you have it! And now I have cleaned pots that I could hang on the wall, if I ever got my shaker shelf up....  :)