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Create Plans Woodworking

DIY Emerson Dresser – How To Build

When building my Kendal Extra Wide Dresser, I was also simultaneously building another smaller Emerson 3 drawer dresser.  This classic dresser style is so versatile and can be used in just about any setting for either children or adults and is a great project for someone just getting into woodworking with maybe one or two previous projects under their belt.  While I stained the Kendal dresser for a more rustic look, my plan for the Emerson is to paint it white and give it to my daughter to compliment her multi-colored room!

Emerson DIY dresser exploded view with measurements
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Create Home Improvement

Finishing my Garden Pathway: Day 5

My summer (and my pathway) got away from me a bit with a few unexpected events that took up a handful of my weekends.  But such is life and projects will always be there!  So after my brief hiatus, I was able to finish up the project.  I’m labelling this “Day 5” and so it is, but it certainly wasn’t 5 consecutive days!  I do have longer term aspirations that include raised beds for flowers, herbs and edibles complete with benches and lights, but that will have to wait for more time and more money!

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Making a Garden Pathway: Day 4

I kicked off another weekend by putting a few hours in on my pathway.  I’m continuing to make slow but deliberate progress!  I’ve made a few decisions that have changed my original plan.  First, I decided that I really don’t like the flagstone in the pathway and I plan to repurpose it to build some stairs and a veranda next to the patio by the big rocks.  Also, I decided that I really don’t like the bright white pea gravel as much as I’d like a more brown color.  Lastly, I’ve decided that the pea gravel by itself rolls around a bit too much, so I want a bed of crushed gravel to create more of a substantial base so that the gravel locks together more!

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Making a Garden Pathway: Day 3

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I’m making some great progress on the patio!  Getting up and at it before the heat really cranks up is the key, I’m finding out.  Even at 7:00 in the morning it’s 80 degrees and at least 80% humidity.  I’m soaked with sweat just walking around planning what I’m going to try to get done this morning!

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Create Home Improvement

Making a Garden Pathway: Day 2

Mud & pea gravel definitely don't make for a nice garden path!
Mud & pea gravel definitely don’t make for a nice garden path!

Today is actually not the 2nd consecutive day of my garden pathway!  I didn’t have quite as much time to invest this weekend and ran into a bit of trouble, so most of my work this time was repairing a section of the path and figuring out how to make a nice terminating end by the fence, which I hadn’t really thought through until I got into it.

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Making a Garden Pathway

I have a fixation with pathways.  While others entertain themselves with the latest series’ on Netflix, I sit in front of my computer looking a aspirational landscaping pictures on Pinterest (or surfing documentaries, but that’s another story).  It’s hopeless.  I definitely need some help!

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Create Plans Woodworking

DIY Farmhouse Bed – Full Version

Working on a full size version of the rustic farmhouse bed that’s lately been getting a lot of traction.  Here’s a SketchUp model of the overall dimensions and I will soon have a detailed assembly schematic and cut list.

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Content Marketing Create Learn

How to Embed Interactive Calculations in Adobe PDF Documents

So I’m the poster child for writing niche content these days!  Here’s another one for those of you who want to put interactive calculators in your PDF documents, but need some more advanced functionality than basic arithmetic functions.  Like, who would read this stuff anyway??

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Art Content Marketing Create Marketing

Creating a “Torn Paper” Frame Effect in InDesign

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One of the recent issues that I ran into with InDesign is that the program doesn’t have the same brushes and advanced masking capabilities that Photoshop does so when it comes to creating a document element like an object frame that looks like it was made from torn paper, InDesign presents us with some challenges.

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Create Woodworking

Two Recently Updated Woodworking Plans

Updated-Plans

I recently updated a couple of my woodworking plans with more detailed and thorough assembly instructions and updated the cut lists.  Since I wrote the original plans a couple years ago, I thought it might be helpful to post new links to them.