My word, y’all! Can you believe we seriously only have two months left in this year?? It still seems like June to me. Or maybe I’m just wishing for a few extra months’ worth of time to get all of my to dos done. I dunno. Anyway, it’s time for my monthly recap of what’s been going on in the world of 7MD. This will actually cover two months since I didn’t get around to doing one in September. I had a reason why but I forget that now. Be sure to read until the end because I’ll be sharing what I’ll be doing next month which is a little intimidating for me and with a big potential for failure. (Oooh! The drama!)
Let’s start with what I shared with you on the blog just in case you missed anything.
The first is my favorite – the wood lath wall.
Using inspiration from a cooking magazine, I added inexpensive wood lath/lattice to dress up an impossible to decorate wall. I really love it, folks. It’s become one of my favorite places to record my Instagram stories. Also, through these stories I learned that my hair color matches the color stain I used on the wall. Minwax Honey in case you want to tell your hairdresser.
Next is a mini bathroom upgrade with super simple towel hooks/baskets.
I wanted to upgrade the builder basic towel bars in my bathroom but wanted to compliment instead of compete with the artwork I was hanging. These only required minimal tools and minimal time – my favorite kind of project.
The last post was my mini side tables.
I got to use a new pocket hole machine on these tables and it was fun to experiment with new tools. Also, this was made from only 3 boards!
I had some fun shares on my social media accounts over the last couple months. I won’t go through them all because you really don’t want to sit here and read all that but I will highlight some of my favorites.
I made my most favorite cutting board to date.
This thing is gorgeous (even if I’m biased) and I still have a hard time believing I made it. To prove to you all that I’m not exactly biased in my opinion, I entered it into a cutting board competition and…I WON! My board took first in the Women’s division. I rode the high of winning my first building competition for like a week.
I also had someone share with me pictures of something they built based off my plans. That was pretty dang awesome. An instructor at a tech school had his construction students build two of my lumber carts.
I got the opportunity to play on the scroll saw some. I still need to practice more on it but I have come a long way. I made a logo sign for a friend preparing to launch her second start up and I can’t wait. I’m going to take full advantage of the marketing services she’s offering.
And we’ll close out this section like we started, with another cutting board. I really enjoy making cutting boards.
I got to use poured epoxy for the first time on this board to make the Thin Blue Line. This was a fun one and I definitely learned a thing or two.
Oh wait! I forgot an important one! I was one of four women featured in an article on women in woodworking. If you have the time, I’d appreciate you hoping over to Sawinery to check it out!
I don’t have much to report on the non-working life part. I either didn’t really do anything or I just didn’t photograph it and I can’t remember anything more than a few days ago without pictures. I did make sure to attend both state fairs that happened in my state. That is a yearly must. I search for all the new foods, hit up the exhibits, and play state fair scavenger hunt. It’s a grand time. I’ll leave you with two of the new foods I tried. Deep friend cheese curd tacos and chicken fried bacon. They were both interesting and tasty.
Alright, now! It’s time to share with you the part you skipped everything else to get to! (Just kidding. I know you read the rest. Right? Right??) For the month of November, I’m going to try something that I’ve seen a few other bloggers do. I’m pretty sure I can do it. I’ve been practicing in preparation. It won’t be easy though. Tired of the build up? Me, too. I’m going to do a No Spend Month. Obviously, all of my recurring bills will be paid. Money will be budgeted for certain expenses. The purpose of a no spend month is to, obviously, reduce the amount you are spending but to also evaluate what you are spending your money on. I will be budgeting money for food (less than I normally spend) and for pop up expenses. Because I am also running a business that can’t exactly have a no spend month, I’ll also allow for purchasing items for customer orders only. The good news there is that I’m not currently taking new orders and am trying to wrap up current orders that most, if not all, of the materials are already purchased. I’ll spend my time organizing the shop and working on projects with materials from my scarp pile. It’ll be hard to break some habits (I’m looking at you, Amazon. I’ll miss you dearly!). I’m looking forward to it, though. I’ll keep you updated on my progress and provide more of the down and dirty details throughout the month as well as a recap on how I did.
And that’s it, folks! See you next month!