Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Well, the move is almost done and I am still trying to find places for all the stuff I have!  The craft room hasn't been finished yet, so all my crafting is in limbo.  I did make a few candle cards for some of my peeps, but that is about it. 

We have had a great Christmas!  My daughter and brother came in and we went to my SIL's house to eat and see the cousins and great-neice and nephew-so cute!  I will post below the decorating I did this year-it is always fun to see how you can tweak your stuff for a new house!

We begin our move today!

I am one part excited and one part dreading the move.  Always fun to get a new home and start making it your own.  Always exhausting and soooo tiring on an ever aging body!

We are moving into my husband's family home.  His mom had Altzheimers and is in a nursing home.  Fortunately, she is happy to be there and is happy we are moving in.  The home place has a beautiful setting and unique style that I think I will love (except for snakes-I hate snakes).  You have seen some of the renovations on the scrap shack or creative cottage-not sure of the name yet.  Well, the interior of the home is 1970s chic-what were they thinking with all that harvest gold, dark brown and avacado green?  Yuk!  I have had to remodel 3, yes 3 homes from harvest gold fixtures and now I have that brown to deal with.  Soooo dreary!  But I have learned not to jump on every new fad that comes out.  Nothing can go wrong with white, black and maybe stainless, although stainless=polishing!

The photo above is of the home and here are a couple of photos of the view.  Lots of yard work to do, but it is beautiful!

Progress

I told you that it got better-and it really did.  Now, I have a new tin roof, new walls and exterior siding!  I'm getting weatherized so I can at least move in and store my stuff.  I should get the door, completed siding and start of a bathroom this weekend.  Yea!  Here are the new photos.

Like I said, down to the studs and we replaced many of those!

Looking promising, huh?!  And I can walk away and leave my mess and no one has to see it but me!!

My new space!

I thought I would share a little of what I am in the middle of right now.  My dad died in January of 2009 and we sold his home this summer.  So my brother and I had to go through the task of dividing all the personal property of our parents and putting it in two different storage facilities in two different towns.  We had to move furniture out of a 2800 sq. ft. home in Spring, TX to LA.  I won't go into the details, but let me say that it has been quite the long, drawn out saga! 

In addition to  this, my dear mother in law has Altzheimers and the family had to put her in a nursing home this past spring.  Their family home is on about 8 1/2 acres of which 5 acres is a pond.  We will be moving into this home sometime this month.  Yes, horrible timing with the holidays, but my dad's house selling delayed the move a bit and then, well things just don't move fast do they?

There are two buildings on the property besides the house.  One is a one bedroom apartment (the Honeymoon Cottage since several of the newlywed couples moved in for a while after they married-including us) and a 12x24 old radio transmission shack.  I am making that shack my new crafting cottage.

My dear husband and sweet brother in law have been working hard to turn this old building into a craft room delux for me.  They tore everything down to the studs and are rebuilding from there.  Needless to say, I am very excited!  This past weekend, we brought in some experts and a ton of progress was made.  My DH and BIL worked with them and so much was accomplished.  I will try to keep you posted with photos, but here are a few that show what has been done so far.  Excuse the photo quality-they were mostly taken with a phone.

The back

One side with out exterior wall-during demo.

 Inside view-very little insulation

 The visitor-chicken snake-that was kept a secret from me until someone finally spilled the beans.

 From the front door.

I'll show more demo tomorrow and then move on to the progress.

Winner, winner!

And the winner is.......

Brenda said...


Very nice layout!!

brz352@yahoo.com

50 and Fab birthday party invites

I have a friend, Mary, who is about to join the 50 and fabulous gang and we are giving her a party!  She is Irish, so we used the whole shamrock theme.  The photos are not as pretty as the invitation-I really need to take my photos in the day time and not at night-LOL!!  Happy Birthday to my dear friend!

Inside:

Thanks for the great comments!

                                                                                                                                               Photo by Jesse Reich of Tulsa, OK
Digital album cover/layout using CM SBC 4.0.

Thanks to all my scrapbooking sisters for the wonderful comments made about my layout.  I did keep it simple to spotlight the cart and the paper pack and give an easily reproducible (is that a real word?) item to help inspire those holiday layouts.  I love to do the extremely decorative layouts as well, but I don't put them in a scrapbook.  To me, those LO are more for home decor and special events or techniques.  I will usually scrapbook those same photos on a less decorative layout for my scrapbook.  In my family albums, I want the photos to be the first thing you notice on my pages.  I use CM scrapbooks exclusively for my family memories and I don't want to include items that can put dents or scratches on them by rubbing. The best part of our craft is that everyone can do it their way!  It is your book to do as you wish.  Don't you love that freedom?  I think there is a place for all the artistic and decorative items around and I use them often-at least I've spent a small fortune on them!  I still have so much to learn about the techniques and tricks of the media.  Isn't it fun?

Winter/Christmas Themed Blog Hop

Winter/Christmas Themed Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Winter/Christmas Themed Blog Hop celebrating our favorite time of the year. This Blog Hop is hosted by Paulette, from Around the Bock with Scrapalette. You can start at the beginning of the hop at http://scrapalette.blogspot.com/.

My project for the hop is a two page layout using the new CM Cricut cartridge, 'Tis the Season and the CM Christmas paper line, Noel.  I love, love this cart and I am just as crazy about the new paper line by CM.  It is just so pretty and it has lots of gold foil accents throughout the pack.  The paper is doublesided and one side has gold foil highlights. There is a paper ribbon pack, sticker sheet that includes a pretty alphabet and a gorgeous album to match.  I did use some Core'dinations gold paper in addition to the pack for the cuts.  All cuts are at 3 inches with the exception of the tree which is cut at 6 inches.

Some blog candy:  Since I love this paper pack sooooo much and since this is such a special blog hop, I have decided to give away one of these paper packs to one of our visitors.  Please leave a comment or follow my blog and I'll let the random generator pick a winner.  Deadline for comments will be Sunday night at 11:59 CST.

If you would like to order the paper pack or CM cart, feel free to send me an email, comment or message.  I will be sure to give you a special deal!

Thanks for hopping by, your next stop is Madylyn
at http://inspiredbycolor.blogspot.com/

Here is the entire Blog Hop list:

1. Paulette at http://scrapalette.blogspot.com/
2. Debbie at http://bugginattheseams.blogspot.com/
3. Carolyn at http://cccscraproom.blogspot.com/
4. Brenda at http://happyscrapper64.blogspot.com/
5. Maria at http://stampcutcreate.blogspot.com/
6. Chris at http://scrappin-nanapuddin.blogspot.com/
7. Cindy at http://www.inlovewithpaper.blogspot.com/
8. Michele at http://www.michelegreen.com/
9. Lisa at http://addictedtothecricut.blogspot.com
10. Dana at http://papermemories4u.blogspot.com/
11. Nancy at http://lanancyworkshop.blogspot.com/
12. Madylyn at http://inspiredbycolor.blogspot.com/
13. Wini at http://www.looneybugdesigns.com/
14. Renee at http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/
15. Tammy at http://www.scrapcavecreations.com/
16. Debbie at http://debbieduddles.blogspot.com/
17. Kim at http://blingdazzler.com/
18. Brandi at http://scubascrapperbrandi.blogspot.com/
19. Sharon at http://designsbysharon.blogspot.com/
20. Liz at http://liz-lavendarandroses.blogspot.com/

I've been playing!!! So much fun....

I love the holidays and colors of fall, so I tend to really like to play around with the colors and crafts of fall.  I saw the trick or treat pumpkins on Joy's blog, Obsessed with Scrapbooking, so I tried my hand at them.  Love them!  The polka dot pumpkins are all mine.....easy peasy!  You could use white or black pumpkins and black, white or orange vinyl and your circle punch or trusty Cricut machine.

Happy October, Happy Fall!!!

Fall is hands down my favorite time of the year!  School starts, temperatures drop (finally), holiday season begins and the colors around us are so rich and glorious!  God does beautiful work-He is the original crafter! 

We watched the Florida vs Alabama game last night and I got a little crafting in while I watched. By the way, GEAUX LSU TIGERS!!!!! I thought these turned out really cute and were really pretty easy. I used chargers from Michaels ($2 before a coupon for 25% off) and vinyl from Expressions Vinyl at $1.89 plus shipping a sheet. These cost about $2 a piece to make.  Let me know what your think?

A few more fall layouts-easy ones!

Just a few from the last couple of years.  I love fall colors and I tend to do the fall layouts as soon as I have photos or maybe even before!  Sorry these photos are not the best.  I really need to set up a better system for photoing my projects.  All paper here is CM.

Autumn Blog Hop from the Cricut Circle members!

Welcome to the Fall Blog Hop with Circle Sisters!

You should be coming from Madylyn's blog Inspired by Color . If you've just  happened to come across my blog, please check out each of the ladies' blogs listed at the end of my post. You will want to start at Kristen's blog for the beginning of the hop.

My project for today comes from the Art Nouveau cart recently released.  I absolutely LOVE the art on this cart!  It is unique and quite different from any other cart I have.  I had to have it as soon as I saw it!  The cart has lots of beautiful images that are rather art deco in design.  I chose the acorns cut, cattails cut and woman 1 to make the layout below.  Cardstock is from Creative Memories and Bo Bunny.  I did a bit of shading with Copic Pens and used a Viva Decor pearl pen to add some interest.    Thanks for looking!

Now on to the other blogs for some more fall inspiration!

1) Kristen  http://fantabulouslypink.blogspot.com/


2) Michele  http://www.michelegreen.com/

3) Roberta  http://www.txscrappermom.blogspot.com/

4) Mary  http://www.marebearscraps.blogspot.com/

5) Renee  http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/

6) Carolyn  http://cccscraproom.blogspot.com/

7) Gamma  http://gammascreativecorner.blogspot.com/

8) Colleen  http://www.scrappycol.blogspot.com/

9) DoodleDiva  http://www.doodledivadesigns.com/

10) Kimbe  http://kimberliscreations.blogspot.com/

11) Lisa  http://addictedtothecricut.blogspot.com/

12) Gonecampn  http://www.scrapcavecreations.com/

13) Momto2cuties  http://www.inlovewithpaper.blogspot.com/

14) Scrapalette  http://scrapalette.blogspot.com/

15) Paper Memories  http://papermemories4u.blogspot.com/ (New Blog)

16)Darcy  http://dlmbscrapping-time2create.blogspot.com/

17)Lavendergal  http://ibecircled.blogspot.com/

19) HappyScrapper64  http://happyscrapper64.blogspot.com/

20) Madylyn  http://inspiredbycolor.blogspot.com/

21)Nancy  http://lanancyworkshop.blogspot.com/

22)Debbie  http://bugginattheseams.blogspot.com/

23)Tracy  http://www.scrappininthewoods.blogspot.com/

24)Sharon  http://designsbysharon.blogspot.com/



Blog Hop Saturday!