Warning: Ironing can be Hazardous to your Health

Seriously it can be, but we'll get to that in a minute. Hi there.  Yeah I know it's been a minute, but I am still here.  To say this week has been crazy is an understatement, and it's only just begun.  Today starts my office move, which I will hopefully have complete by tomorrow afternoon because I am out of the office all day on Friday so I have to be done.  I have yet to pack a single thing, so today's going to be so much fun.  This is one of those weeks that I wish I was one of those bloggers who put together posts en masse so that I could have random craft and recipe posts [that I've been meaning to put up for weeks] to put up here instead of nothing.

However, this little tid bit of my day yesterday deserved a PSA about why ironing is a very dangerous activity. If you don't believe me, then explain to me how I dropped my iron not once, not twice, but THREE times while I was ironing four pairs of pants, narrowly missing my foot twice (not sure how I didn't drop it on my foot-divine intervention perhaps?), and catching it once.  Since I am moving my office today I wanted to wear khakis so I could move around a bit easier.  The only problem is that I had no ironed khakis.  I own 3 pairs, and if it weren't for basketball (I wear them to away games usually when I am coaching) I am pretty sure I would only own one. All three of my pairs were in the laundry room where I'd hung them to dry since they'll shrink if I dry them in the dryer. #tallgirlproblems  I am pretty sure that 2 of the three pairs had been hanging there since the end of LAST basketball season (aka February). See?  Me no likey the ironing.

Last night I finished ironing pair of khakis #1 and noticed my favorite black work pants were hanging up as well.  I forgot they'd been washed this weekend and I knew I was going to want to wear them to my conference on Friday, so I decided to just go ahead and iron those bad boys to save me some time.  At this point I was riding high thinking I was getting myself ahead in this little game of life and would not have to stay up late Thursday night cursing as I was ironing pants that I could have already ironed. And then life decided to knock me back down a peg.  I was halfway done with the black pants and reached over to set the iron down and turn my pants over to do the other leg when I heard and felt a crash on the floor (it was that close to me).  I looked down to see my iron and a bunch of little pieces of black plastic.  Awesome. I picked it up to examine it and it looked ok structurally, the back plastic just filled in the space between the top of the iron that you hold and the hot part at the bottom which was still hot.  I finished up pair of pants #2, and then I got the wild, crazy, insane idea to keep ironing and just finish the last 2 pairs of pants that had been hanging in the laundry room since February.

After drop #1

I get halfway through pair of pants #3 when I had a little deja vu and the next thing I knew the iron was on the floor again.  This time my knee hurt, and I realized that at some point when the iron was falling I picked my foot up off the floor, hitting my knee on the washing machine.  Did that quick reaction prevent the iron from hitting my foot?  Not sure, but I will say it did. On the second drop, the front tip of my iron was bent back, BUT it still worked.  I just have to make sure not to press down too hard on the front tip because it will add lines to my pants.

Consequences of drop #2

After drop #2 I considered throwing in the towel, but decided to suck it up and finish ironing those stupid pants.  I finally got to pair of pants #4 (and last pair for a long time), and the SAME thing happened again, even though I was trying to be really careful NOT to have it happen again. However this time since I was being so careful as the iron started to fall my hand was barely off the handle and I was able to grab it quickly to prevent it from falling, again.

And that my friends is why ironing is hazardous to your health.  You could narrowly avoid breaking/burning your foot 3 times in a span of 25 minutes.

The moral of this little story is when it comes to pants you can a) hire someone to iron them for you, b) buy pants that don't wrinkle easily or don't show wrinkles (my personal favorite tactic), or c) wait for the unkempt/wrinkled look to make an appearance in the office arena.  And you can throw irons on the floor multiple times and they won't break.

You're welcome.

Laundry Room Project #1: Key Holder

I have always been a fan of creative key holders. Maybe it comes from the J key holder that has always been in my parents' house. Maybe it's because I am REALLY good at losing my keys if I don't have a specific place to put them.  If I have to have something to help me keep up with my keys it might as well be cute, right?

Hang 'em here!

When I moved out on my own I found a super cute key shaped key holder that I used, which I still think is super cute, but with our laundry room makeover I decided it was time to get creative and make something new. Plus 4 key hooks were just not enough for us. Ridiculous? Yes, but apparently we have a lot of keys!

For whatever reason, I had visions of a brightly painted chevron key holder that would really pop against our dark bluish gray walls. I had a cheap wooden picture frame that I bought in the Michael's dollar bin years ago. It's a large frame but only holds a 3.5" square picture which makes it hardly worth using to frame a picture.

I scoured Pinterest for chevron painting tutorials, and came across this one. It's for walls, but I figured I could just pare it down a bit so that it would work on my frame. I opulled out my ruler and pencil and got to work. Once I had the lines drawn I started painting my chevrons. It took several coats and my lines are far from perfect, (I am not the best line drawer or painter by any means.) but I was very pleased with the result.

I have quite a few bottles of craft paint from other projects and ended up recycling the green from an old project.  The yellow came from Wally World...a whopping 65 cents.  When I finished painting I decided it needed something in the teeny tine picture hole.  I toyed with the idea of hanging a "C" in it, because I loves me a monogram, but when I was at Michael's I could not find a C that I liked. I came across the key charm in the jewelry section for $3 and decided that I had to have it.

My orginal idea...I found a sketch app for my ipad and have fallen in love it! It's turned me into a doodling fool!

If I had purchased all of my supplies new I MIGHT have spent $10, and that's only because I would have had to purchase an entire picture hanging kit and a paint brush. Since I had those things, I only spent $3.65.

I called in the expert when it came to putting the hooks, and picture hanger thingys on the back, but then again isn't that what husbands are for? He was happy to help, and we had it done pretty quickly! The only mess up we had was only putting one picture hanger on the first time. It looked great but when we hung the keys it tilted to the side, so he took that one out and it 2 on the back the second time.

Not sure why the wall looks green, it's more blue in real life.

So there's my latest DIY project.  I have several more up my sleeve that will hopefully involve chalkboard paint and giant safety pins!  Have I mentioned how much I like to decorate?!