It's that time again

School is back in session! Today was Jack’s first day of first grade. He asked me about 1000 times how many days till school started this summer, and the long awaited day finally arrived with all the fanfare of a crisp PNW September morning. Last year I walked him to his classroom door every morning and gave him a certain number of hugs each day, agreed upon during our walk to school (“mom, I want 5 big hugs today” — big hugs are ones where I lift him off the ground). This year he wanted to walk in the doors all by himself, but we convinced him to let us tag along to get a glimpse of his new classroom.

Last year was hard. Despite having been to three years of preschool, and being in classes that were around the same length of a full day of public school, he had a really rough transition and I may or may not have cried in the Principal’s office on multiple occasions, including before the school year even started (thanks, Kindergarten Jump Start). He’s what Dr. Becky calls a DFK— a deeply feeling kid. If you aren’t familiar with Dr. Becky her work has been super helpful for us with learning how to better support Jack as parents. Loved her book and she has a great podcast too. I digress. Jack has really strong opinions, an intense sense of justice, and a really hard time being wrong. So all those things butted up against the reality of being in a school setting with lots of new kids, lots of daily transitions, and lots of conflicts with other kids. But his school was so supportive along the way, in a way I didn’t know that was possible at public school (and probably isn’t possible in a lot of school districts in this country).

Growing up in a private school setting from 3rd grade on, I got a sense of public-school-bad, private-school-good. The messaging was sort of that public school had less academic rigor, less support because so many kids attended them, and enrolled more “troubled kids,” whatever that meant. I haven’t been tempted to send Jack to private school, mostly because I have no interest in sending him to a religious school like I was, and also because we just straight up can’t afford it. But I was nervous last year sending him to public school because I still had those outdated messages swirling around in the back of my head.

Turns out, they were all wrong. I’ve been super impressed with the Tacoma Public School system. Jack’s elementary school was so willing to work with Jack to figure out how to support him. The principal was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, the staff all knew Jack by name and they were so nice to him all the time.

So this year, I’m still worried that he might have issues and have moments where dysregulation causes behavior that lands him in the principal’s office, but it’s also nice knowing that this school is so supportive of him and actively want to give him the resources he needs to succeed. And it goes without saying that I’m thrilled to have him in a school district that supports LGBTQ+ students, and puts a huge emphasis on social emotional learning. I know we’re in a little blue oasis up here in the NW in some ways, but this is one way that feels really important right now, especially considering what’s happening in school districts around the nation.

Anyway, cheers to the new school year. Cheers to watching your kid grow up right before your eyes, and CHEERS to having 6 whole hours of time during the day where I don’t have to be a hands-on parent and can do stuff that I like, woo!

Making Space

I’m not a stop and smell the roses type of person. By the time I’m mid-way through one thing, my brain is already scheming up the next thing I want to do or make. Living in a fixer-upper there certainly isn’t a dearth of projects in the pipeline, but something I’m doing this summer is spending time enjoying the fruits of my labor. In the DIY content creation world we’re always pumping out projects and room transformations and tutorials and tips, but slowing down and taking the time to slow down and enjoy the projects I’ve poured so many hours of my life into? Okay now that’s a challenge, lol.

Here in the Pacific Northwest it feels like we spend 9 months of the year waiting and pining for the 3 months that make living here tolerable. Maybe that’s a little overdramatic, but the three months of summer here are truly glorious and the winters can be quite difficult. In some ways I feel pressured to do projects during the summer because it’s somewhat miserable doing projects in the winter when it’s rainy outside and freezing and I can’t do anything outside. But on the other hand I want to just soak up every moment of the sun and warmth, like a lizard laying on a hot rock in the desert.

Summers definitely feel different as a parent to a kid in school as well. Jack’s first year of real elementary school just finished, so the structure of my days is completely thrown out the window. Having six hours a day to do work, get household duties completed, and build things? Gone for three months. And instead of resisting and pushing against the tide of summer and all these schedule and lifestyle shifts, I’m choosing to lean into them.

The privilege of taking the summer “off” work (heavy quotations because parenting is a full time job), is certainly not lost on me, especially in the cultural climate we’re currently surviving within. Being able to spend the day running to Home Depot to grab a sprinkler so my kiddo can frolic in the cool water while I sip a Starbs frozen bev feels unbelievably luxurious, and my summer spiritual practice is dropping into that gratitude.

The freedom from my usual grind is also allowing me to push the boundaries of my creativity in ways that are feeling exciting and unexpected. A couple years ago I was thrust back into the joy of reading fiction thanks to Sarah J. Maas’ ACOTAR series (and subsequently all her other books as well), and then this summer I’ve been revisiting some of my favorite Sci-Fi novels that I devoured as a kid. A little door inside me that had been closed and forgotten about started to creep open and, well, I’m now in the throes of plotting out an outline for a Sci Fi novel? I don’t know, guys, but I’m letting it happen and it’s been pretty fun. I also accidentally planted about 100 pumpkin plants, so I’m about to have my very own pumpkin farm. I guess this summer’s lesson is in creating space for unexpected joys to come in and take root.

The goth punk DIYer merch drop!

Look, I love a ✨ theme✨ okay? Case in point: last year’s DIY Summer Camp being vintage girl scout themed. For this merch drop I designed a full on goth/punk/tattoo inspired collection. Did I, mayhaps, create this entire collection just so I could have it for myself? Definitely maybe absolutely.

I think my favorites from this collection are the Handy AF beanie (I legit wear this one non-stop. It’s usurped the top spot in my beanie rotation), and the Black on Black #DIYthedamnthing cropped hoodie. I also grabbed the checker fanny pack and a button set so I could put my ✨pieces of flare✨ on the fanny pack strap.

And of course, stickers are a fun addition to any order!

The holographic Handy AF sticker might be my fave, but it’s a tough choice between that and the DIY Pinup girl. Pretty much all the new t-shirt designs are also available in sticker form (or even as mugs!), and Foreman Kiska got to be immortalized in her own sticker!

Romanticizing my life

I was watering the garden last night and the light was lighting, so I ran inside and grabbed my DSLR because for whatever reason phones are just trash at capturing the milky warm glow of evening. With content creation shifting to prioritize short form video, I so rarely capture life in still images these days. There’s a frenetic energy surrounding short form video creation. Clips are short to keep our short attention spans engaged, and even the audio is sometimes sped up so make sure everything fits into a minute long video. It’s left me feeling pretty exhausted and I’ve been wanting to embrace a slower pace of things this summer.

As I took these photos I realized I very rarely slow down to take photos any more. During my fashion blogging days, I was in the habit of taking photos nearly every day of my outfit. I was constantly thinking of beautiful locations to shoot in, taking photos of snippits of life, and each blog post was filled with written reflections. Now the writing I do is voiceover scripts for Reels, and short Instagram captions. Anyone who has been blogging since before 2010 has lamented the loss of long-form static media, and I’ve certainly made my complaints over the years as we’ve become beholden to algorithms to show our content to our audiences.

But this summer I’m disengaging. For my mental health and my creativity. I don’t believe artists (or humans in general) are designed to create at such a pace, and with algorithms and insights top of mind at all times. As I took these photos I felt like I was romanticizing my own life and TBH, I think I’m going to spend the rest of summer doing just that.

I feel like a bit of a remodel witch, spinning twine into gold with this house. Reno-Alchemy. Sometimes you can feel a little crazy when you can see something that doesn’t exist yet, but there’s nothing like the feeling of that vision finally existing in real life. I think stuff like this is why I have no interest in building a new house from scratch. The transformation dopamine is just too addicting.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Liz Morrow | DIY HQ (@liz.morrow)

diy globe hanging light

have a pretty big globe collection in my house and the one the started it all had broken off its brackets last year and looked a bit sad.  I thought it could use some new life so I turned it into a pendant lamp!  I get all my globes from thrift stores and pretty much every time I see one I get it.  Almost every room in our house has a little collection of globes now.  

My studio space is one of the few rooms in the house that I haven't really started working on.  It's sort of the catch-all because nobody ever sees it.  You have to go though our bedroom, upstairs, through our closet and then to the studio, so it's mainly just a place where I throw stuff to "organize later" (read: never).   What you don't see in these photos is the giant pile of mess just out of frame, but I promise it's there and it's scary.  I need to rip the ugly brown carpet out of the entire upstairs, so part of me doesn't want to bother cleaning it up because I'll have to take everything out of there to remove the carpet and put in new flooring anyway.  You can kind of see the carpet around the edges of the zig-zag rug.  It's bad.  I actually realized that I ripped the exact same carpet out of the Brave when I re-did her floors in May. The Brave looks so much fancier without that old brown carpet (it wasn't even the original green carpet, bleh), so I can't wait to get new floors in this attic space.  

When we looked at this house before buying it, I was entranced by this upstairs space.  I immediately claimed it as my studio.  I recently looked at a few homes for sale with my parents and in every single one I was enamored with the very top floor with slanted ceilings.  Maybe it reminds me of a treehouse or something, being on the very top floor, but I love me some attic spaces.  I'd love to put a dormer in to expand the space and bring in more light.  The room is pretty dark with just the one window on the end, especially in the winter, so it'd be nice to get a little more space and natural light.

What You'll Need:

rotary tool with cutting bit and/or utility knife

drill (or rotary tool w/ drill bit)

cardboard globe

hanging light cord (Ikea has the Hemma cord or here's one on Amazon.)

light bulb

safety glasses

First, remove the globe from its stand.  Depending on the kind of globe you have it might be a bit difficult, mine was kind of a pain.

Since your globe has latitude lines on it, you can use that as a line to follow when cutting your hole in the bottom.  I used 45º S for mine, but you can pick any, depending on how large you want the opening to be.

Using your rotary tool with a cutting wheel bit, or just using an x-acto knife, cut along the line to make the hole in the bottom of your light.  Make sure you use goggles if you're using a dremel because it'll fling particles up at your face.  I did most of mine with a rotary tool and then used an x-acto to cut any pieces that were left holding the bottom on.  

Take your lamp cord and put it at the north pole where it'll hang from and trace the circumference.  Cut your hole along this line.

If you'd like light to show through little holes on in the side of the globe, use a drill or your rotary tool with a drill bit and drill little holes!  I drilled holes along the edges of the continents for mine.  A fun version of this lamp could be painting the globe black and then drilling star constellations in the sides!

Once your holes are all drilled, unscrew the piece from the light cord that secures the shade and then push the threaded end of the cord through the hole you made at the top of the globe.  Screw that piece back on the threads from the inside of the globe to secure the globe shade to the cord.

Plug her in and find a place to hang it!  Hanging lamp cords usually comes with little hooks and cord holders to help hang it, but if you get another kind of cord, you'll need some hooks to hang it up.  I love this light hanging above my studio desk, it gets to hang out with the other globes that have parked themselves on the desk.