Painting the Kitchen (in My Dreams)

Several friends and family have expressed interest in seeing our projects and some before/after shots, so, I'm going to attempt to chronicle our progress. Here's a few things for starters, even though we don't own it yet...

We've been pondering paint colors (because it needs it bad) and so I did some digital mock-ups...
This is something like the current kitchen (sans the terrible chicken wall border, rusty porcelain sink, and dingy grout):

The counter top and backsplash are white tile, which, while I'm not a fan of white, I am a fan of tile. It's real. It's not some fabricated, plastic-like surface. So, we're planning to keep the tile the way it is and (being the dark souls that we are) paint the white trim and white cabinets a dark, dark brown. Also the wall color, the salmon, it's got to go. Here's what we're thinking:

We'll see if it ever pans out quite like this. :)


I made my digital creations on Lowe's Virtual Room Designer. It's awesome.
Doing the dark brown with the white tile was largely inspired by this photo.

We're Buying A House! (Soon) (Hopefully)

We have been browsing houses for about two years, looking through everything in our price range (and quite a few that weren't) and only found three that interested us enough to schedule a viewing (although we've done countless drive-bys). To say we're picky may be an understatement. However, we don't mind doing work when we find potential...

That said, we think found what we're looking for--or at least close enough, and as picky as we are, close enough is really close.

The bank says we're good to go, offer has (finally) been accepted, we're anxious to see how the inspection(s) go(es), and closing is scheduled for mid-January. Exciting.

Cards: Happy Birthday [Sister]

Sister's bday.

Made with dark blue, hand cut cardstock (the card and the center oval-traced a stencil), a page from the 'scrabooking calendar' (you can see it in the background here!), Happy Birthday sticker + red, yellow, blue paint markers to liven it up a bit, and the golden ribbon tied around it (actually, I think I had two pieces, glued each end on one side and tied each end on the other). I stuck the red square on the inside to write on, but unfortunately, I forgot to take another picture until I'd written on it.

Okay, that's all I can handle for now. I have like 8 more though. Another time...

Cards: Delight in the Day

Feeling creative, nothing particular going on. Sent this to my grandmother.

I really don't remember anything about the inside.

Made with pre-cut and pre-scored cardstock (from a great little pad of cards by Making Memories Wholesale Inc.--I'm not even sure where I picked it up.), a page from the invaluable 'scrapbooking calendar' (which I've found enough motivation to find and source, it's the 2004 calendar from Accord Publishing Ltd.), tan bias tape from my sewing collection, random 3D star stickers, a "Delight in the Day" vellum clipping with some woven-print (?) paper behind it, mounted on foam sticky blocks.

I took the general design of this one out of a picture in a magazine (I would have never thought to cut the bottom like that on my own). When I finished this one, I felt pretty awesome.

Cards: Happy Birthday Ya Monkey

I made this for a terminally ill friend of the family. I'm glad I spent the time.

Made with yellow cardstock (hand cut, not my favorite thing to do), a page from the aforementioned 'scrapbooking calendar' (the monkey + the stripes were one page; I xacto-ed them apart and put foam stickys under the monkey to raise him. I also used some colored pencils and markers to brighten his cake and hat.). The inside is all stickers and some marker text.

Cards: Stay Warm

This was my first real attempt at anything more than gluing magazine clippings to printer paper.

Made with pre-cut and pre-scored card stock, scrapbooking paper (red), and part of an old 'scrapbooking daily calendar' that I acquired (snowmen), some letter stickers (winter), and stencils + pencil + paint pen left over from high school.


I don't recall what was on the inside, but I think it was very plain, likely nothing at all other than some hand writing.

It was supposed to say "STAY WARM this winter," but my 'this' turned out irrecoverably badly. So, I just stuck some more snowmen over it (but not very well, apparently).

Cards

My recent hobby of choice and creative outlet has been making handmade cards. I have a ton of random scrapbooking things and have recently invested in some (cheap) stamps and ink pads. I've tried to take at least a picture or two of all my homemade cards thus far along the way. I figured I might as well make use of my pictures and post some. I think I'll do them in individual posts. Incoming...

New Glasses

I bought new glasses recently. Buy one, get one. I need to upload pics of the frames to use elsewhere, so I'm just going to post them here. Enjoy my new glasses...