Scraplog

Scrapbooking: Max Turns 5

Happy Birthday to my dear sweet nephew, Maxwell!! He turns five today and as I think every year, where did the time go?! Especially when I consider that he was only 6 months old when we moved here to Tennessee and that feels like yesterday. Wow…

Here is the scrapbook page that I made for him:

He’s a super cute 5 year old and loved very much :)

In other news, I have been working super hard on Christmas items for every jot & tittle and I wanted to have them in the shop by yesterday but… as you can see, that didn’t happen. So my next goal is Monday. With that said, here is a sneak peek of some of the paper for the new Christmas mini book:

I have been super into triangles and such so it became my inspiration. I actually had to do some research as to what the other shapes were called and see how they were different. All of the shape names were familiar to me but I couldn’t remember which was which beyond square and triangle. Names like rhombus, trapezoid and such were a complete mystery :) But now I have it all figured out since I have been staring at them for days! Haha!

So stay tuned, the shop update will be coming soon and you will be the first to know!

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An Interview

The internet is an amazing place… really! A couple of years ago I was introduced to Cris of the wedding blog Kiss My Tulle and we became internet friends. I have never met Cris in person and that is what I think is so amazing about the internet. I can be friends with someone I have never met!

A couple of months ago I did an interview for her blog and it is now up on her site. You can read it here.

I also did a quick little project for the blog which are some favors using some tags from my shop. Here are some pictures:

To make these they are super simple. I used this die cut and if you were going to make a whole bunch you might want to invest in one too. But, if you were only going to make a few you could just hand cut them (you can find patterns by doing a google search or check Martha Stewart). For these favors I used old book pages but you can use any paper depending on your decor. Fold the boxes and fill with candy or treats. Next, type on the tags (I used my typewriter) the names of your guests (or in this case, I used my family members names!) and then just tuck them into the top of the favor box. Super simple and oh so chic!!

Not only was I featured on Kiss My Tulle, I was also featured on Creature Comforts a couple of days ago. I was super excited because I didn’t realize it was going to happen. I was just innocently reading my blogs through my Google reader and I noticed the picture that I took last year of the paper leaves. Oh how happy :) Ez from Creature Comforts does a blog post every morning titled Inspiration Daily. I just never thought I would be the inspiration :) So thank you to Cris and Ez. It’s been a good week!

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Martha's Bathroom Transformation

Hey everyone, happy Thursday! Do you remember when I posted about my amazing friend Martha who organized a gardening work party for my birthday? Well, I had a chance last week to do something for her.

Another friend, Karmen, asked if I would want to help her do a little surprise makeover on Martha’s bathroom while she was at work. I jumped at the chance because I wanted to help Martha out and also because I love before and afters. Fun, fun, fun.

Martha’s house was built in the 60’s and the bathroom still holds that… um… charm. And that charm needed a bit of help :) Here are some before pictures:

At this point we had already started a bit of the work. I almost forgot to take before pictures! I forgot my camera but I just happened to have my point and shoot in my purse. Whew! Close one :) We enlisted Jason to help us patch the walls because there were several places that needed help including a large crack in one corner and I don’t have any expertise in drywall repairs.

We also had already taken off the cabinet doors in order to repaint them.

And yes, these lovely shower doors had swans on them. Swans!

So what do you think? Kellie and Karmen to the rescue! We spent most of Friday picking out paint colors and shopping for everything we would need. Then, when we got back to the house, we also painted the vanity and all the trim. Then we had to skedaddle before Martha returned home from work.

Over the weekend, Karmen re-grouted the vanity so we would be ready to rumble come Monday morning. When I arrived on Monday, we realized we had a lot to do! So we quickly got to work. We painted, (1 coat primer and 2 coats paint), spray painted the mirror and wall vent (not shown), removed the shower doors and track, made a trip to the store because we forgot something, hung a faux wood blind, rehung the mirror, hung artwork, cleaned up all of our mess, replaced the cabinet knobs and hinges, rehung the cabinet doors, and put everything back together before Martha got home at 4:00! What a day! But, the results were worth it!!

Can you believe this is the same bathroom? We were super excited about the results and so was Martha. My only regret is that we didn’t pick larger frames for the pictures but by the time we realized it, it was 3:30 and we had no time to go to the store. Oh well, it works :)

As I said earlier, we actually removed the shower doors and the track from the tub. Karmen and I were both a bit nervous about this but it was surprisingly easy. You just take off the top rail, take out the doors, remove the screws from the tracks and then using a hammer or crowbar, yank the tracks off. We thought the tile might crumble but thankfully it did not. After a really deep cleaning (and scraping of the old caulk) all that was left was a few small screw holes in the tile which we filled with new caulk. This little project was probably the best thing we did and, along with new paint, made the biggest difference. Now that I have tried it out on a friend’s house and I know it works, I want to take off my shower doors :) Haha!

So there you have it, our bathroom makeover that we did in less than 2 days. Pretty cool huh?!

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Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a reader, Annie, who bookmarked my post about the first time I drew on my walls in my hallway. She loved it and recreated her own version in her apartment foyer. She sent me a picture and has allowed me to share it with you!

Didn’t it turn out wonderful?! When I did this project I had lots of comments that people thought it looked hard but Annie even said the hardest part was to find the gold paint pens that I used (which by the way are from here) If anyone else wants to try this super easy and fun project, I know that my Michaels here in town has the paint pens, maybe other Michaels do too :)

Thanks for sharing Annie! It looks great!!

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Spray Painted Travel Case

Last summer my Mom and I found the end tables that are in my bedroom at a yard sale for $30 for both. They are faux bamboo and fabulous! After a quick job of spray painting them silver, they were just what we had envisioned and were now chic and updated. I would love to show you the before picture but I actually had it saved on my laptop and it died a few months ago along with the before picture. Sad day.

Although I love my new-to-me end tables, they only had one little drawer in them. I usually like to keep a few things in my nightstand and so one little drawer wasn’t going to cut it for me. My solution for this little inconvenience came in the form of a travel case that I had picked up at a thrift store for $1 a couple of years ago.

It had super cute lines and the price was right but it was a bit banged up and not the right color scheme for my room. So if you were me, what would you do? That’s right, I spray painted it! I grabbed my can of white paint and sprayed a few coats on it and it’s as good as new. I set it on the shelf of my nightstand and now I have a bit more space to store a few more things like books and papers and such all while keeping it hidden in a cute container :)

I have another one of these travel cases that I think would be super cute to use as a charging station. What do you think? After painting it, I could just drill a hole in the back and feed a power strip though it and ta-da! You have yourself a charger station for your ipods, phones and the like. Good idea?

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