Day 2

We have floors!

Day 1

Okay, so it's really Day 7, but it's Day 1 of the heavy duty work inside the house. To this point:

Wednesday, May 26 - We closed on the house. Had an exterminator do the termite booster for the ground surface and an interior treatment.

Thursday, May 27 - First load of flooring delivered, carpet and pad removed. Started cleaning the kitchen.

Friday, May 28 - Phone, internet, Fios installed. Finished cleaning the kitchen. Shopped for a couch.

Saturday, May 29 - Met landscaper at house for consultation. Spent a ton of money on plants.

Sunday, May 30 - Moved first load of kitchen stuff to the new house. Purchased new couch, to be delivered in (ugh!) 5-7 weeks. Purchased rug for studio (to protect my new wood floors :) ). Purchased pull out cabinet drawers for pantry.

Monday, May 31 - Moved second load of kitchen stuff to the new house. Purchased curtains and curtain rods. Purchase ladder shelves (on sale!). Hung curtain rods.

And, today, Tuesday, June 1 - Wood floor installation begins with leveling the slab in the Master Bedroom, trimming the overhangs off the stairs, and notching baseboards.

Looking forward to actually seeing some wood on the floor tomorrow!

Method Playground Challenge 69

Method Playground Challenge 69 is a scraplift challenge! Here is my take on the original. Click here to see the original and all the other Design Team scraplifts!

More

Okay, I can't post photos of the front of the house for personal security reasons, but I can share a few shots of the inside and a few judicious shots of the outside.

First, this is the 44-inch Live Oak in the front yard. The current owners had added these fake decorative trim pieces to the house. Well, they're made of Styrofoam and we had a woodpecker make herself at home. Here she is sticking her head out to see what I was doing in her driveway.

Here's the tile medallion in the front entry.

My new kitchen:

The upstairs bath (totally forgot to take a photo of the Master bath):

And the backyard (with a second Live Oak):

And, because this is supposed to me a mixed media scrapbooking blog, here's a current project I'm in the middle of:

Come in, Come in!

Okay, I promised pictures right?

I'll start with the soon-to-be scraproom (I call it my studio) and I'll post pictures of the other parts of the house tomorrow.
Photo taken from the door. The room is about 14x16, 225 square feet. We are removing the carpet in putting in hardwood floors.

There are two 51-inch windows, one facing east (on the left in the photo above), one facing south (on the right in the photo above). View to the east:

View to the south:

There is a giant walk-in closet:

And direct access to the upstairs bathroom:

Now, the plus side to a engineer scrapper......ROOM LAYOUTS! Here is my first, very preliminary, attempt to layout my dream studio (click for larger):


Suggestions are ALWAYS appreciated!

Two Weeks from Tomorrow...

Sounds like a disaster movie doesn't it....

But it's actually good news.

Really amazing news, actually.

Two weeks from tomorrow, we are closing on our first home. Yep, we found it. We've actually been under contract for a few weeks at this point, but I didn't want to tempt fate by sharing the news too early.

But now we've been through inspections.

And the appraisal has come in.

And there are not many hurdles left to jump.

We're about to be home owners....

Now stop thinking about disaster movies.....I'm nervous enough.

(pictures soon, I promise).

Easy Twisted Paper Flowers

Here's a quick, cheap, easy way to may your own flower embellishments.

Step 1, tear a sheet of vintage paper (dictionary, book, music, etc.) into strips lengthwise. Strips should be 3/4 to 1-1/2 inches wide.
Step 2, rub Modge Podge onto a strip with your fingers. No need for complete coverage, you're just trying to make the paper easier to work with while adding strength and structure to the finished embellishment once the glue dries.

Step 3, while the glue is still wet, twist the paper strip from both ends.

Step 4, while the glue is still wet, roll the twisted paper strip, starting at one end, into a swirl/flower shape. Add a bit more glue to the outside end of the paper strip and tuck under.

Step 5, color with ink, paint, glimmer mist, etc. and add a center embellishment if desired. It's that easy!

Document

I am documenting our hunt for our first house.

I started with a $1 chipboard house book from Michael's. I had the idea of creating a mini-book that actually looked like a three dimensional house.
I covered one side of each house shape with white cardboard backing and the other side with the corrugated part of the cardboard. I liked the "moving box" look and texture these papers provided.

I used my bind-it-all to bind three of the four house "corners" together. At the end I will devise a way to close the fourth "corner".

The book still lies flat like a conventional mini-book.

Or it stands up like a conventional mini-book.

Here's a quick peek inside. I'll share more when it's further along.

Where oh Where....

Ok, time to fess up...

I've been
hunting.

Nearly bought this one last weekend. Still considering and still looking. It's been sucking up all my free time (first time home buyers and all).

Be back soon with a mini-book that is currently in the works.

Found Embellishments

Many people these days are looking for less expensive ways to scrapbook. Sometimes I point people with questions about budget scrapbooking to my blog because, while I spend an obscene amount of money on supplies, my style can generally be duplicated with only inexpensive or reusable supplies such as paint, cardstock, book pages, cardboard, stamps, ink, fabric, and found or handmade embellishments.

For example, I found this gem in my local Sunday newspaper this morning:
Imagine this page trimmed into 12-inch strips, borders, or tags and used on a travel or life-journey themed page.

Now, newspaper is not acid free. I will spritz this page with a buffering spray (like Archival Mist) before storing it and before using it on a page. I will also not use original or non-replaceable photos on a page with non-acid free items (I rarely use original photos anyway these days).

Keep an eye out for other objects you can incorporate into your pages for little or no money. I will continue to try to post what I find.