Home Front Blog Hop winner

LotsToScrap said...

Totally worth it!!! I loved having done the work ourselves. We moved away 12 years ago and just this year I made a big 12x12 chipboard tribute album for that house! So, enjoy~

November 16, 2009 2:10 AM

Congratulations!!! Please send me an email april@studiocalico.com to claim your prize.

my home front

I'm kind of homeless right now, since Greg and I are remodeling a farmhouse that sits on 80 green acres in south-central Kentucky. The land is beautiful and peaceful and I'm hoping the house will be one day as well. Right now, it's full of the raucous of nail guns, air compressors, and loud music as the construction workers hack away at the old and bring in the new.

The one aspect of our home that's been given the most attention so far is our floors. Almost the entire house is now covered in beech, which was reclaimed from a tobacco barn in Horse Cave, Kentucky. I love that the wood shows history with the old nail-holes and wide planks. Greg loves the grain and the different look each board has. He's been so particular about the placement of his "cool boards" to make sure they're in prominent places for all to see.

I think what makes me most happy about these floors is that they'll be there for as long as we live in the house (which is where we will stay until we move into an old folks home). The paint on the walls might change over time, but these floors are here to stay. We'll eat lots of holiday meals on top of these floors, have lots of friends and family walk over them throughout the years, have the dogs chase the laser light over these floors, and hopefully have children to crawl over them as well. So, right now, these floors represent home to me.


All this talk about home, and I almost forgot the reason you're here. Below is a layout I made using the Home Front collection by Studio Calico. I love that it mixed so easily with the holiday line by Basic Grey. I hadn't intended on doing a holiday layout with the Home Front line, but in the end, I love how the colors turned out and how it looks slightly like a Christmas page without screaming it.



You might be guessing not that the reason I'm not ready for the holidays is because my house is not ready, and you'd be correct in that assumption. heehee.



To create this layout, I cut large rectangle from the 3 patterned papers I chose. Then, I randomly punched circles with my favorite large circle punch by Marvy. Next, I added the journaling and stitched around the outside of each rectangle. Last, I added the embellishments.

Now it's your turn:

Studio Calico is sharing part of their home with you by sponsoring a giveaway of their brand new line, Home Front. Imagine June Cleaver styled 1950s domestic bliss. Featuring optimistic colors and smooth vintage inspired patterns. You’ll find fresh stained wood grain, retro home décor, an exclusive SC cardstock alpha set, and much more. Home Front is versatile, colorful, and beautiful (can we say that?)….I think you’ll love it.



To win this collection, simply leave a comment on this post letting me know if you've ever remodeled a house and if it was worth it in the end.

To increase your chances of winning this fabulous collection, visit the rest of the design team below.

Celine Navarro
Davinie Fiero
Emily Pitts
Jenn Olson
Joy Madison
Kelly Noel
Lisa Truesdell
Maggie Holmes
Nicole Samuels
Nicole Harper
Stephanie Howell
Tina Aszmus

Winner will be announced Wednesday morning.


This collection is available at many online stores (stopandscrap, amillionlittlethings, and 2peas are the ones I know of off the top of my head) and maybe even your local scrapbook store (if not, there is no minimum order so please ask them to order it).

sneak peek

Some things that inspired me when making my layouts this month:

• Calendars. In this kit, there are some many calendar items: the stamp in the Percussion add-on, the calendar spots in the main kit, the months stamps, and the calendar paper by SC, I just had to use as many as possible. What I love about calendar embellishments is that it's okay to use them any time of the year and on any type of layout. I know lots of scrappers who date every layout (I'm not one of them, but I could easily become one). This is the perfect month for those type of scrappers at Studio Calico.
• Non-Holiday layouts with holiday-themed items. This month, I challenged myself to create all my layouts without a true holiday theme. So far, I'm doing well. I have one layout about Greg and my love for him. Another about the joy I hope to have in the future, and another about my friendship with Cara. Maybe I'll end up with a holiday layout in the end, but for now, I'm loving the challenge.
• Buttons. In the past, I've not been much of a button user at all -- especially big buttons (they're scary). But, this kit has a whole slew of them in the main kit so I'm trying to use them up. I've used buttons on 2 layouts so far and the earth has not frozen over yet, so I think I might continue using them in the future. Don't know what I was so scared of.

And, now, my sneaks:

This layout was made using the main kit plus the STRINGS add-on. The only items from the main are one sheet of paper and the calendar spot by Elle's Studio. You can also see a glimpse of what I believe will be a VERY popular stamp set.

All items in this sneak are from the main kit. I must admit, this kit has definitely challenged me, but I've loved every minute of it. One such challenge was the printed canvas by Donna Downey. I cut it up and sewed and sewed and I'm actually happy with the result. Fun stuff.

Lastly, this is my favorite layout this month. All the items here are from the main kit and the PERCUSSION add-on. I added some lime, blue raspberry and turquoise mist. And, I used my Claudine Hellmuth blank canvas paint on this layout as well....can't wait to show you this one. It will be a favorite of mine for a long time.

That's it for now. Be sure to leave me a comment if you have any questions.

house update

It's been awhile since I posted updates on the remodel mainly because progress has been steadily at the pace of a turtle. We've had sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much rain, but still, lots of the work is indoors, so that excuse is pretty much lame.

The main change to the front of the house is the dormer. Before, the house had a Cape-Cod look with 3 dormers. We combined the 3 into one, which really gave us more space upstairs plus I like this look so much.

It's hard to see from this photo, but I got my cedar shakes. They are so pretty. The lumber guy tried to talk us into hardee shakes (the same cast material as the siding), but I wasn't going for it. I wanted cedar all the way.

Also hard to see from this photo is the metal roof on the dormer. Boy, we went round and round on that decision. Lots of talk about standing seam vs. screw on.... Lots of money difference between the two as well. We ended up going with screw on because we found a roofer who would guarantee it not to leak. There's advantages to the standing seam, but for us, it just wasn't worth the cost. If you have any questions about it, I'm competently educated on the matter so feel free to ask in the comments section below.


This is the left side of the house. We changed the windows in the kitchen (the row of 4 on the left) and added some in the laundry room (the 2 on the right). In all, I'm very happy with our window exchange. Originally, we didn't think we'd have to replace the windows, but so many of them had broken seals and likely the ones without the broken seals were soon to follow, so we took the plunge with these casement windows by Sun. They offered a huge deal, and we were happy to help them out with a sale.


This is the right side of the house. See how we bumped out the master bath and added a window (actually we added 2 windows, but the other isn't visible from this angle).

You can also see the painting in progress here and the beautiful maple tree (I'm right, right? It is maple?).


This was also taken from the right side of the house. Just another view that shows the back porch and the area we added next to the garage. The wood door you see and small window are the mud-room and a bathroom that's extremely accessible to the outdoors. I think that will come in handy for sure!


Another rear-view shot. The smaller windows in the corner of the house and garage are the breakfast area. We're going to have a banquette there. Already, I'm loving the light in there.


The last outdoor shot, I wanted to show you our paint colors and stonework. So happy to replace plastic lattice and concrete blocks with this stone. Who cares if it's fake stick-on stone? It's better than plastic lattice, right?

Don't rain on my parade, okay. I like the look.


This photo is of the breakfast area into the kitchen. I totally spooked G when I took this photo. He was listening to his iPod and cleaning and all of a sudden, there I was with the flash going off. LOVE scaring him!


Here's my kitchen after the plugs on the chimney were moved to the appropriate place. Man, you wouldn't think you have to sit on top of bricklayers and tell them where to put each brick, but apparently with ours, I had to. They were there to fix the fireplace (remember the drywall-stuck-to-mortar-mold-issue?). They took off all the drywall and added another layer of brick to even it up a bit. To keep with code, we had to put outlets in the wall (silly government rules), since it was part of the kitchen, so I told them to put these outlets the same height as the others in the room. Seems logical, right? Well, not so much. When we came back on Saturday to check out their work, they had placed the outlets two full bricks higher than the other outlets in the room. Oh my! It looked so odd. Luckily, they came back on Sunday and fixed it, so I could sleep that night and not worry about it any more.


I finally like my entry. Instead of the solid door, I have light coming in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Plus, the walls/columns are equi-distance from the front door. My mind is so symmetrical, that having an off-center door, just isn't a good thing.


Here's another shot of the dining and entry way. You can see the wall is gone, so the area looks so much more open. I'm loving it already!

At the end of the hall, in between the kitchen and dining room, is my laundry room. Ah....so much light! We have some real interesting tile planned for here. I can't wait to show you!


Now to the master bath. You can see the two windows we added. The clawfoot tub will sit in between them. Then on the right where the purple board is, will be our shower.


Another shot of where the tub will sit. Right now it's in a crate in the garage, just waiting for it's new home.


A shot of the sink area in the master bath. We'll have his & her's sinks on opposite sides. Then, the toilet will be behind the doorway that you see there.

Friends...Let me tell you. If you want a happy marriage, you need a toilet behind a door in your master bath. Just trust me.


Now a shot of what you see when you enter the bath from the master bedroom. Straight ahead is the closet. To the left is the tub and shower. To the right are the sinks and toilet.


I'm omitting showing you the bedrooms, because frankly at this stage, they just look boring. So, onto the upstairs guest bath (the hall bath upstairs was too dark to photograph).

Here's the sink area. I have something special going here. Oh, and the tile. Just wait till you see the tile. This was the only real area I splurged with tile and it's the perfect spot to do it in. It's the guest bath, so it will look nice and impress the guests. AND, it's the smallest bathroom in the house, so it justified the per-foot-price.


The black hole on the right is where the shower will be and next to the window is the sink area you see above.


This room was a bedroom with 2 dormers. Opening it up made it big enough to become a TV and game room. I can tell this will be one of the most used rooms in the house.


The only thing I don't like about the room is there's only one way to arrange the furniture and it looks like I'm going to have to get a sectional. I don't necessarily mind sectionals, but I don't like being forced into getting one either. Oh well. Lots of people have it much worse than I, right?


This is one of my favorite areas of the house. Before this landing at the top of the stairs was a very narrow walkway with an attic on the left. We decided to knock out the wall and open it up a bit and make the space more usable. You can see the exposed chimney and a support post in front of it (boy would I have liked it so much better if we didn't have that, but it would have cost a whole lot more money to remove it, plus we would have had to cut a hole in the side of the house to bring it in.). Anyway, a book case will go in the in-between spot and a desk to the right with 2 places to sit.


To the left of the chimney will be a bookcase and magazine rack. I'm super-excited about that.


Well, I've shown you the most interesting places in the house so far. Let me know what you think.

happy halloween

I was visited by a fairy tonight.


A fairly who flitted about on top of the hay bales.

A fairly who turned and posed so I could photograph her wings.
A fairy who fell off the hay bales while flitting about, but was caught by Greg, then giggled and got back up to flit again.

Then as she left, she said, "Thank you Geg, I had fun taking pictures wit you."
And as I showed her a couple of the photos, she said, "Oh, so pretty," as she did a spin to watch her skirt fly. Such a girly girl.
While waiting for the fairy to visit us, G and I tested the lighting with a few of our own.
My pants got REALLY wet from sitting on these hay bales. I had a photo to prove it, but I was too chicken to post it.

And after the fairy departed, we took a ride around the farm on the side-by-side. The light was absolutely gorgeous tonight.



happy halloween!

playgroup at the orchard

Lots of photos, so I'll let them do the talking.














Cara & Lorie on the "Cider Slider." Every time I see this it just makes me smile.










Whew! We had a great time. Cara left with a big bruise, but other than that, we all made it home in one piece.

happenings

When I'm stressed and worried about forgetting something, I make lists. I usually draw little check boxes next to my "to do" items and then check them off as the day goes on and admire the list when every box is marked. Today, however, I only got to check one thing off my list. I did so much today, lots of things to work towards checking off the items on my list, but only one completed item. So, at the end of the day, I looked at that lonely check mark and realized that it's not that I didn't do anything, I just need to write out all my tasks step by step so I can check off more things during the day. heehee.

Since a lot has happened since I posted last, this post will just be a list so I don't forget anything and so I feel accomplished today.

1. Launched the November kit at Studio Calico. This was a huge feat as it was the first time I put together the slideshows and during that same time period, made sure all the shop items were correct, inventory was done, kits were packed, email newsletters were sent, AND the new kit photos worked correctly (which seems simple, but after you edit every photo 3 times, you realize the job isn't that simple after all). Of course, I couldn't have done it without Lorie, Stephen, Cara, Kristen, Mom, Kennon, and Maggie (who took all the kit photos this month).
   

2. Granny #3 who I call "Bertie." Her real name is Berta Faye, but she is my "Bertie." When I was born (along with my twin sister of course), my mom had to have emergency surgery and afterward needed help taking care of us. Her mom lived hours away and my uncle was still in school, so that option was out. Dad's mom worked as a schoolteacher, so that was out as well. So, several ladies from church volunteered to come each day. It didn't take long until mom canceled all the other ladies and just asked Bertie to stay with us all the time. She chose us and we chose her. Apparently, we instantly fell in love and were much better, more contented babies when she was around, so ever since, she has been my grandmother. It's actually a longer story than this, but to keep with my list format, I'll expound more on that later.

After I left Bertie's house on Saturday, she had a mild stroke on Sunday. She's been in the hospital the past two weeks, but is going to be home soon. She's doing very well.

3. Jackson's Orchard. I was determined to make it there this fall since I haven't been since last year, so I went during playgroup time (several of the mothers from church with their young kids get together each Thursday), and took photos. I'll post those tomorrow, but here's one to whet your appetite.

4. House. We've had lots of things delivered, but they're all in crates so there's not much to look at. But, just as an update: The drywall is complete, the plumbing is complete (well, no fixtures are set yet), we're trying to decide on the stain for our floors (they go in next week), the brick on the fireplace is being fixed tomorrow, tile will start next week, and we're in the process of choosing paint colors.

5. Home Front. Putting the final touches on Studio Calico's first release to retailers. It will go live later this week for purchase, shipping mid-November (really, we're shipping earlier than that, but I like to over-deliver instead of over-promising). Email info@studiocalico.com to set up a wholesale account.

6. Recovering. I go tomorrow for a prerequisite to my next round of fertility treatment. Hydrosonogram. Sounds like something with water and I've chosen to be blissfully ignorant on the rest. It's unlike me to not thoroughly research anything that's going to happen to me, but I'm expecting this to just be quick and then I'll be on my way to the next round and back to my regular researcher self. Wish me luck.

I'll post the Jackson's Orchard photos tomorrow. Can't wait! But for now, this list is complete.

i'm sleepy

Last night was horrible.

Let's just say I'm used to sleeping without the back door being opened about 343 times during the night.

Let's also say I'm used to sleeping without 10 intoxicated 20-somethings outside, and in the bathroom across the hall, and in the kitchen.

Let's also say I'm used to sleeping without dogs barking at said persons.

Let's just say I'm old and cranky and I think "kids" should be taught respect and consideration.

So, at 4:00am, after 2 hours of partying, I marched outside and asked how long the party would be lasting so I'd know how long I'd be laying in bed awake, getting hungry, and fuming on the inside. The question was met by a thousand apologies and another 2 hours of partying, and door opening, toilet-flushing and barking. And at 6:05, my 4-year-old cousin woke up and the noise resumed. I welcomed that noise.

Now that my rant is over, here are my sneaks. This is your prize for listening to my complaints.


All items are from the STREET FAIR add-on + Bronze & Blue Raspberry Mists. The bronze just meshes with this add-on so so so well. I used "Going Gray" Stampin' Up! ink on the pumpkins.

All items from the main kit, MARKETPLACE, well except for the thread.


Again, all items from the main kit. I loved how this layout turned out.


All items from the BAZAAR kit. Do I spy wood veneer? Why, yes I do. Love that stuff!

Items from the main kit + Carter Stamps + 1 flower from the BAZAAR add-on. I used brown mist there, but I really wish I had used bronze. I also used "Going Gray" ink by Stampin' Up!


This ended up being my favorite layout. I love the photo on this layout and I loved how it turned out. Can't wait to show you the whole thing.

tour de grandmothers part 3

Grandmother #2 lives in Corpus Christi, so mom and I headed down there on Saturday afternoon. It was three hours away, so we had to stop for Sonic drinks twice along the way :)

Then, when we got to Corpus, my cousin Shana was waiting for us to take her to Sonic for happy hour.


In all, I think we went to Sonic 5 times in 4 days with Shana as an outing. Sad but true.

Apparently, in Shana's world, the only reason to go to church is that it's followed by a Sonic drink. I can relate to her philosophy. Happy Hour certainly gives one a sense of purpose in life.

Back to the visit. On Saturday, we played Skip-Bo and visited.
Sunday was church and more Skip-Bo.
Monday was bowling and more Skip-Bo.


Mom getting all suited up and talking about how nice and new the shoes were. Seriously.

Shana bowls in Special Olympics and her average is a 72. She uses a ramp, but not the bumpers and it's actually more difficult to bowl that way than normal. You'd think the ramp would help, but actually, it has more to do with the weight of the ball and the position of the holes. Trust me, she knows all about it, but she also thinks the color of the ball matters, too :)

Okay, so this is not the best photo, because I handed the camera over to mom without changing the focus setting, but it's the only one I have to illustrate my point. After 2 days, I guess Shana hadn't noticed my long hair, but literally as soon as I stepped down from bowling my first frame she hasn't stopped signing about wanting long hair since. I suppose she noticed because my back was to her, but anyway, I must have told her 50 times that she had to be patient and it takes time for hair to grow. I almost went out and cut mine just to even the playing field :)

Mom's rear. This is the reason she can say I need to lose weight. She's not a hypocrite, I tell you.

I tried to get a photo with Granny's mouth closed, but it just wasn't happening and this was the least awkward of the photos.

Shana, trying her luck with the yellow ball. (Aunt Jeana is helping)




My goal was to break 100 and I did. Check out that strike-spare-strike run in the 8th, 9th and 10th frames!

Mom still beat me with 148 and Shana beat her average by 2 points, so we were all happy except for my aunt Jeana.

Tuesday, we took photos and said good-bye and this is what happens when you try to get a serious photo with my mom's side of the family:


Then, Granny made a comment about a memorial service she went to. She said the wife couldn't find a photo of her husband without her in it....kind of a sweet comment. But, then we decided, we should head off that problem and go ahead and take a funeral photo for Granny. This was the result.


Kind of morbid, but we were having a good time.


All these photos are posted SOOC (straight out of the camera). I would have edited more, but I don't have actions saved on this computer. But, anyway, at least my lighting in most of them was okay. Getting better at shooting in manual thanks to Maggie.

potty humor

This falls under the category "tour de grandmothers" but I just couldn't resist titling my post "potty humor."

Ever since I got to Texas, my hiney hasn't known what to do. At my granny #1's house, the toilets are all elevated, which is nice, but for a hiney that isn't well-educated, it doesn't know what to do. It feels like it might be peeing on the lid at some times and then when it travels to granny #2's house, it feels like it's sitting on the floor with a regular height toilet. Then, when it goes back to granny #1, it plays the mind games again. What's a hiney to do?

Then, add in the fact that granny #1 has broken the toilet seats so often that my uncle got her a heavy-duty toilet seat, and the potty humor is in full force. Take a look at this bad boy!

See the wingspan and contour on that thing?
tThe rim measures at least 7" and if I thought I could have gotten a ruler into the bathroom on this covert operation to photograph the potty, I would have just to prove it.


And, last but not least, I have to mention the carpet in the bathroom. Who puts carpet in the bathroom? My grandmother. The good thing about this house is that the last house had blue carpet.

The more I learn about getting older....I guess I shouldn't finish this sentence.