Day Thirty: Self Portrait

Day Twenty-Nine: Black and White

Day Twenty-Eight: Flowers

Day Twenty-Seven: Celebration

Day Twenty-Six: Close-Up

Day Twenty-Five: Strangers

Day Twenty-Four: Animal

Day Twenty-Three: Pattern

Day Twenty-Two: Inspirational

Day Twenty-One: Faceless Self Portrait

Day Twenty: In My Bag

Day Nineteen: Something I Want

Day Eighteen: My Shoes

Day Seventeen: Technology

Day Sixteen: A Good Habit

Kitchen Secrets

I finally took some organizational advice from Pinterest, and I am pretty please with this spiffy idea, now my catch-all utensil drawer is a little more spacious! I was able to find stick-on hooks at the dollar store, being frugal and organized is just my passion

Day Fifteen: Silhouette

Day Fourteen: Eyes

Day Thirteen: Cannot Live Without

Chocolate

Day Twelve: Sunset

Day Eleven: Something Blue

Day Ten: Childhood Memory

Day Nine: Someone I Love

Day Eight: Routine

Day Seven: Changes to Come

Day Six: My Obsession

Day Five: After Dark

Day Four: Something Green

Bear Encounters

If you have spent any long period of time in Montana, you are bound to come across a bear, whether you are driving, camping, or hiking out and about.

The first time I came across a live bear was when I was hiking in the Rattlesnake with my boyfriend Aaron. It was a younger bear pretty far up ahead and it was running away, so we just decided to turn back. No big deal.

The second time I saw a bear was actually through my living room window. We live out side of the city limits right next to a mountain, so that wasn't too surprising. It was a cute little cinnamon colored bear that ran through our neighborhood, and went on his merry way.

My most recent encounter was a bit more involved. My friend Tara and I were hiking through our favorite spot, the Rattlesnake. We had hiked in quite far, probably farther than we had gone before, so when we turned back we still had a while to go. About 10 minutes after turning back, Tara stopped and asked if that was a bear on the trail ahead. At first it was just a big brown blob, I was really wishing it was just a big dog, but unfortunately it was obvious that it was a younger bear. We immediately turned around and walked the other direction. At that moment a 40 year old jogger came running up towards us. We told him there was a baby bear on the path. He didn't skip a beat, he just grabbed a stick and ran on through. Luckily this scared the bear off the trail.

You will always hear that you need to avoid mama bears at all cost, and you need to be loud and act big around bears, unless they do attack you , then you need to get in the fetal position, act dead, and cover the back of you neck.

We did wait a bit after the jogger went through, just hopping that the baby and the mom that was bound to

be around just kept running away towards the river. Just to be safe Tara grabbed a stick and I handed her my mace(she wasn't sure was she was going to do with it but eh) I manned the bear bell and my pugs leash. We ran through the area with our appointed objects while screaming at the top of our lungs. I was fairly terrified that an angry bear was going to just pounce on me from the bushes, but luckily that didn't happen and we were able to laugh at the thought of seeing ourselves running down the trail looking like legitimately crazy people.

Black Bear that is brown in color. It has big ears, and no hump on his back.

Grizzly Bear. It has small round ears and a hump on his back.

Day Three: Clouds

Day Two: What I Wore

Ceramic Tiling: From a Newbie to a Newbie

So it took me a while to get around to blogging about this project, mostly because I just wanted to be done with it, I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to relive it. I was happy with solely enjoying it when I walked into the kitchen. This endeavor really wasn't that bad, we just didn't know what we were getting ourselves into.

My home has the bland, boring, washed-out linoleum in its kitchen. Without much thought or discussion my boyfriend Aaron and I decided to do our own tiling job to give our house a statement, and just add some creativity. Neither of us had any experience with tiling, but we stubbornly decided to charge ahead and figure it out as we went along.

Pulling up the linoleum was ridiculously easy! We were ready to go into battle, but luckily our linoleum wasn't even glued down. Many home improvement places do sell floor scrapers to help you out it you floor is glued down.

First thing we agreed on was a frugal plan. We did not want to spend every penny we had when we knew we could do it on a budget. There is this fantastic store here in Missoula called Home Resource. This place sells home improvement and building materials that have been used/donated! It is an absolutely amazing place to meander through. Any way, this is where we went to get our tiles.

On average, the 12 inch tiles were about 60 cents each, which is a pretty rare find in any major home improvement store. We took a couple trips there, picking out tiles that were within a general color theme. We ended up with a lot of tans, browns, and mochas which all looked really good together.

I was tricked into laying out the tiles because I was blinded by flattery when Aaron called me the creative one. Looking back, I would say laying out the tiles was probably my favorite task. Since we did have different tiles, there was a bit of creativity put into it. I also learned that no 12" tile is the same. Understandably they can be different thicknesses but different sizes?! This caused much cursing and frustration, but in the end we returned the abnormal tiles and stumbled into a great sale at Lowes where we were able to stock up on 57 cent tiles. These tiles were so beautiful; they were all the same! Because of this, we were able to tile our laundry room all one glorious cappuccino color, and we mixed in a lot of the cappuccino in our kitchen.

Laundry Room With Spacers... and a Pug

We used 1/8" spacers for our tiles. They were kind of a pain in the tush to use with tiles that are slightly different, but if you are working with all the same, they are an OCD godsend! My first instinct was to start tiling from a wall, but all the experts will tell you to tile from the very center of your room. I sort of did a mixture of both since there was a bit of shifting. In the end it worked quite well.

Tile Clippers

Tile Cutter

                                                              Tile cutting; ugh. This was definitely my least favorite task. Since the beginning my boyfriend thought we were  going to be just fine using little tile clippers that we picked up from Home Depot. I had a feeling that we would need something a little bit more substantial, but we could blow up the bridge when we got there. When it came time to blow up the bridge, we did some research and found a fancy little tile cutter. This thing cost about 20 dollars from Home Depot, and it worked gloriously. The tile clippers were great for small little nips like corners and such, but the tile cutter was able to cut tiles in half, which we needed to do sometimes.

After all of our tiles were set, and cut and laid out perfectly, it was time to put down the mortar.We just got the grey mortar at Home Depot, it seem to be kinda hard to go wrong with mortar. There were two options; one for darker tiles and one for light colored tiles. Aaron got an attachment for his electric drill that could be used for mixing. This is something that is necessary when mixing mortar. We also looked up smaller 'recipes' online; we were not interested mixing the entire 55 pound bag at our first go.

Notched Trowel

Your mortar is mixed, your tiles are laid out, you should have knee pads on your knees, latex gloves on your hands, and a bucket of water with a big sponge in it by your side. The first time I mortared the tiles down, my fingers began to crack just from them getting so dry. The bucket of water and sponge are just a little safety net. If you make any mistakes  you can wipe it up quickly instead of letting it turn to cement... which it does. Laying mortar was a lot easier and more fun than I had anticipated. I used the cheapest notched trowel out there and it worked just fine.

Laying Mortar

You scoop up a bunch of mortar with the smooth end of your trowel, slap it all down, kinda of even it out, then use the notched side at about a 30 degree angle to really even it out, then gently set your tile down.  Make  sure you start the mortar in a far back corner that you won't have to walk on for 24 hours. If you step on it before then, your tiles slide and squish around, that's not attractive.

I busted out the mortar for my 200 square foot-ish kitchen in about 4 hours. I was going pretty steady and strong. By this time my kitchen appliances
and booth had been shoved into my living room, so I was
ready to have my house back to normal.

Now your tiles are all set! After 24 hours you can get started on grout. We got our grout from Home Resource. A "Latte" color for the kitchen and "Delorean Grey" for the laundry room. We made sure to use grout without sand, sometimes the grout with sand will scratch up your tiles when you are applying it.  One big mistake we made was mixing up the grout in the same bucket that we had mixed the mortar in. It is next to impossible to completely clean out all of the mortar, especially after it dries, so just make sure to get a different bucket once you start the grout process.

Floater

Our grout seemed to be extra dry, I was worried we hadn't mixed it up right, but a quick video search online showed me that some grout is just really dry. A grout floater came in handy, especially for scraping off the excess grout. Otherwise I used my gloved hand to kinda shove the grout into the cracks. To use the floater: you scoop up some grout, and slap it down onto your tiles, push the grout around to make sure it gets in the cracks, then use your floater at a 90 degree angle to make sure it is all level, you scoop up the excess or just keep grouting.

The toughest part about grout is getting up the haze that is left behind. After a few hours you can go over your tile with a wet sponge. We then used a dry towel and cheese cloth, and then we mopped the tiles a couple times with with vinegar water. Finally the last of the haze was gone! After 12 hours we moved all of our stuff back into the kitchen, and enjoyed the fruits of our labor.

Before

After

        
                                                        

Day One: Self Portrait

30 Day Photography Challange

Day One

Day Two: What I Wore

Day Three: Clouds
                                                                                                       

Day Four: Something Green

Day Five: After Dark

                                 

Day Six: Obsession 

Day Seven: Changes to Come

Day Eight: Routine

Day Nine: Someone I Love

Day Ten: Childhood Memory

Day Eleven: Something Blue

Day Twelve: Sunset

Day Thirteen: Cannot Live Without (Chocolate)

Day Fourteen: Eyes

Day Fifteen: Silhouette 

Day Sixteen: A Good Habit

Day Seventeen: Technology

Day Eighteen: My Shoes

Day Nineteen: Something I Want

Day Twenty: In My Bag

Day Twenty-One: Faceless Self Portrait 

Day Twenty-Two: Inspirational

Day Twenty-Three: Patterns

Day Twenty-Four: Animal

Day Twenty-Five: Strangers

Day Twenty-Six: Close-Up

Day Twenty-Seven: Celebration

Day Twenty-Eight: Flowers

Day Twenty-Nine: Black and White

Day Thirty: Self Portrait