Oh How A Little Time Make a Big Difference - Pampered Chef

I haven't written on this blog in two years.  That is WAY too long and we have SO much to catch up on!   Ler's start with Pampered  Chef.  

In 2014 I wrote about my Pampered  Chef Experience at that point.  I was a hobby consultant doing 6-8 parties a year.  For each party, I had to coordinate with my hubby's schedule with his two jobs to make sure he was off, and so the kid was taken care of.  After another two years of this, I was done.  I told my director I was going to quit. And the most amazing thing happened.  She told me NO.  What!?!?  I know.  She told me to talk to my friends and family and see what they thought.  Everyone I talked to said, "Why would you quit?  You like this."  So I decided to give it another try.

So I decided to do another party at my house.  I spread the word, invited my friends, cleaned the house, bought some food, and we had a great time as always.  This time at the end of the party a friend said she wanted to host a party, but her apartment was too small and run down.  I told her about the virtual parties I had just her of, and she was all for it.  I got THREE bookings from her party and my first potential recruit!  I was so excited, but couldn't get any of my friends to host a virtual party, so after two months I gave up and hosted my own virtual party!  I had two bookings in the first two days and two more potential recruits!  

The next month I had the highest sales of all of the consultants on my Executive Director's team with over $5K in sales on my own. I had two team members and three months later I qualified as a Director with Pampered Chef.  My team grew a bit more and we were having fun.   But I got comfortable and stopped recruiting.  So my team started struggling, we are building things back up and I am looking forward to a long career with Pampered Chef.  My Executive Director recently told me that when she went through this stage she was told when you make director, you have a $5K/month team, then your next goal is to be a $10K/month team, then $15K and so on.  I like this and need to recruit a bit more to help make these goals be a bit easier for us to hit.  Around December we added 2 new team members, then added 4 more between April and June.  We aren't stopping here.  

Would you like to know what I like best?  Do you think it's the boxes of new products directors get twice a year? That is a good one, but no there is something better.  Is it that I get paid to play on Facebook?  Nope, that is pretty sweet too, but there is something even better.  Are you ready?  It is the shift in my thinking.  Thanks to the many interactions, training, and books I have read I am a MUCH more positive person.  I run my own business, but I am not on my own, I am part of a team.  My teammates are the most amazing people I have met.  They truly help and encourage one another.  We recognize we all have individual strengths and struggles and help one another!  It is a completely positive environment.  I am getting ready to head to the Pampered Chef National Conference in about two weeks and I am looking forward to it because I know I will come back renewed for my business and my life.  

I still work full time in addition to my Pampered Chef business.  I love setting goals and tracking numbers, and I get that with this business. My goal for the fall is to book 10-12 parties per month (a far cry from where I started).  It's a stretch for me, but I have done it before, and I can do it again.  

I plan to get this blog up and going full steam again, as always, food, family, friends and crafts will be my focus.  You will get to see some Pampered Chef products and recipes and I am letting you know up front that I do make a commission on any purchases you make where you use my link and indicate I am your consultant.  I only share the products I love and products that make my life easier.  I am not looking to make significant sales from the site, but if you want to purchase I want to help you.  When you purchase from me it's different than buying something at Target or Walmart.  I am going to reach out and see if you like the product, and see if you need tips or recipes.  I am here for you.

If you made it this far thank you!  It has been a while and I am excited to write again!

Up-cycled projects for classroom

This is my new view every day as I enter my room.  This shelf is made from an old, odd tv stand. I painted it white and used wood from our old gate as the back and sides.  It's never looked better.  

I bought the picture frames from my favorite Front Porch Finds, painted them and added chicken wire.

The clock is from target and my J is from Hobby Lobby, and has recently needed a new home. 

The little table at the corner was honey colored until I stained and painted it.  And it was a free table my hubby picked up from the curb.

The frame is another curb find and I added plywood (already in my garage) and painted the plywood with chalkboard paint.  

The two benches/shelves are completely new builds. $11 per crate & $12 for the wood for each one. I still want to put casters on each one.

More up-cycled frames with paint and chicken wire a new IKEA paper holder, and a bulletin board I found got I had. 

I wasn't wanting to use the wire shelving, but don't have a replacement yet.

New find

Robert found this today.  My plan is to tighten it, clean it, stain it and seal it!  Stay tuned for my progress.

Staining concrete floors

So you want to rip up you carpet and stain your floors - no problem.  I did it.  I thought "yep, I just buy the kit at Home Depot, then rip up the carpet and tack boards, fill holes, and tape up plastic the first day, etch and stain the second day and seal it the third day ... Then the hard part waiting 72 hours to put your furniture back in place."  I was delusional!  Let me tell you what it's really like.

We went to Home Depot and bought the kit.  I had researched online and made a list of what I thought I would need and was prepared to spend extra money on those items.  I bought gloves, boots, plastic sheets, blue tape, broom, vinyl filler for the holes, putty knives, and even an extra can or concrete stain. All in all I spent about $100 more than the kit. And I was borrowing a shop vac.

If you are ripping up carpet by yourself, you aren't doing crap else that day.  The good news is that it is very satisfying, and the sound of the hammer hitting the pry bar is a sound you get used to fairly quickly.  

The bad news can vary.  It took me a long time because I was pulling up tack boards as I went so I didn't have to worry about Xman's little feet. You need a trash can to hold the tack boards as you pull them up.  Also, you need to call your waste people in advance to have them haul off the carpet, and they have requirements about how big pieces can be.  And the worst news might be what you find under your carpet.  Most of the living room looked like I expected: a little carpet glue and a little paint/stain, the hall way was completely painted and the entry way had about 2 1/2 feet of thin set for no reason with more carpet glue than everywhere else in the house combined.

Hopefully you have an army of minions and you can still roll through this no problem.  If you are on your own you may need to embrace the process and take your time.

Okay so the carpet is up. Now the hole repair.  This part was a little more complex than I thought but not bad.  I read the directions on the containers. I thought it was pre-mixed - it wasn't, so that added another step. I used my gardening pad to kneel on and save my knees.  I mixed the filler in a plastic cup and used a plastic spoon to mix and later to fill the holes.  According to my instructions I wet the holes, vacuumed out the holes, added filler and scraped them level.  I also used a target bag to contain what I scraped up.

I also taped ... and taped ... and taped.  I taped the bottom of the base boards using my putty knife to stick the tape to the underside of the baseboard.  Does this seem odd?  I don't really want to replace all my baseboards, so I was trying to protect them, hopefully I did, but I am a little worried about how much liquid we used. Once I taped the bottom of the baseboards I took 9' x 12' sheets of plastic and cut them and taped the. To the baseboards and up the walls.  My hubby had to help me some with this by holding the plastic up while I taped.  I thought of Dexter a lot during this process.

Then I thought I was finally done with prep.  And the etcher seemed like a two person job, but the hubby and the family were busy so I was fortunate enough to enlist a friend to help me - what a lifesaver!  

I mixed the concentrate and we poured and worked on spreading it around with a broom.  Problems: it says not to let it dry - it dries quickly.  The lines where we poured were visible and we didn't seem to have enough.  The paint and construction mess wasn't coming up.

Then we tried to rinse the floors and the plan was to use the shop vac to suck up the water, but it wouldn't suck the water up.  So I became frustrated.  I sent my friend home, took the kid to Home Depot to come up with a new plan and then gave myself a time out (to work through the process) with my sister-in-law.  

At this point I was 5 days in, and losing hope.  I thought I read that the etcher would take up the construction mess, and maybe it will if you don't have much of a mess.  If you have a mess you need to go back to Home Depot or Lowes.  

So my hubby came home, we talked though the process and he went to the store.  

He came back with a new shop at (that sucks up water like a champ),  a mop bucket with a wringer, new mop, and cleaning solutions.

After days of scrubbing and scraping here are my suggestions.

The best tools for removing paint are Krud Kutter, a putty knife, a scrub brush and towels.  Pour on the Krud Kutter, scrap the knife, scrub then wipe, move to the next section, repeat.

To remove carpet glue: pour boiling water in a small section, let it sit and start scraping.  I scraped the glue dry to remove some I think this o my made my job harder, if it's thicker sometimes you can get underneath the paint and it's a little easier to make more progress.

For the adhesive from the laminate floors of the kitchen and bathrooms I used Goof Off -- worked like a charm!  I was also able to get a little of the thin set off with the Goof Off, but it is stinky!  Open a window.

So finally we were ready to try etching again.  I had a lot more this time, it still dried, but we did better.  And this time I poured a spot the. We we would spread it around and pour another spot and even used a random pattern. Waited more than 10 minutes and scrubbed (we had to add some water to the dry spots).  

The we flooded a section of floor, vacuumed it up, and poured more water on it and vacuumed agin.  We let it dry and the. It was still a bit chalky so I mopped two more times and finally a week and a day from the time a started I was ready to add color.

So I added the base color.  I probably went too light.  The color was very orange and I was worried about adding too much and figured I could always add more later.  

I let it dry and opened the accent color - dark brown!  I was so excited and used every drop of that color.  

Once it dried the hubby and I walked it to see if we really wanted to add the black/grey.  We decided to add it. 

I started spraying it and noticed it looked a little blue, and it was thick.  It wasn't drying as fast as the other colors, and it seemed to be bubbling up. When I looked at the container I realized the other two were dye and the third was stain. So we left and I started worrying.  And I went to Home Depot to buy rags to try to wipe up the black.  But by the time I got back the bubbling up was no longer visible and the floors looked amazing.  The black even his several of our problems areas.

Tomorrow I stain and then we have to stay off of it for 24 hours.  Then a few days later I can move the furniture back in and try to get my life back in order!

Craft Night #2: drawing mandalas

Craft night number two was much more successful than our kick off night.  While there was some hesitance, drawing mandalas is easy, and there is not dry time.  

Xman drew a picture and write a welcome note (about as close as we have gotten to home work).  

There were no supplies to bring because I already had a ton of pens and paper.

I lightly sketched templates onto papers the night before.  I had actually planned on going over the pencil with sharpie and everyone would leave with a template, but I simply didn't make it that far.  

We all started drawing together.  To draw a mandala you start in the center then add layers of petals and leaves and designs or patterns within them.

I tend do only use black pens and figure I can make copies to color if I want to..  And I like to use different thicknesses of lines by going back over the lines and making sure lines meet and don't cross by thickening lines as needed.

Everyone did a great job but I really need a bigger table or we need lap desks so we can spread out into the living room.

We also had lots of yummy food and lots of laughs.  And everyone walked away with beautiful mandalas.

When will I learn?

Ever wondered if your vacuum is strong enough to suck up a phone cord?

Mine is ...

Craft Night #1: Screen Printing

As a quest to be more creative, learn new crafts, and most importantly create opportunities to be social, we decided on having a weekly craft night.  Last night was the first night, and we set the bar high with screen printing which no one had ever attempted.

I got the idea from Calico Skies, and it seemed easy enough.  Take panty hose and an embroidery hoop, draw your design fill white space with Modge Podge, let it dry, scrape paint across.

Where it all went wrong: we didn't get the nylon taut enough, so when we pulled the paint across the design moved.  The only other thing that might have caused problems is not getting a thick enough layer of modge podge. 

Despite the fail, we had a great time.  My 5 year old told us to turn the laughter down.  We also had lots of tasty treats.

Chonte' made Pesto Pasta Salad, I made salsa and jalapeño-cilantro dip, I bought chicken salad, Jamie brought pinwheels, and Jill brought cake and scones.

I had a blast and I am lucky to have such great friends.