Wandering into the Land of Home Improvement

Leave a reply

When we bought this house we knew we wanted, wait scratch that, needed to do the kitchen. While the house had the space and a layout that worked for us, and seemed to be in reasonable shape, we knew the kitchen was inadequate.

Both my husband and I cook. The kids need to learn how to cook. We need space that will let all of us work together without stepping on each other. This wasn’t going to cut it for us:

One side of the kitchen
The other side of the kitchen

So we planned and thought and made lots of drawings, and then went looking for a contractor. We decided we weren’t even going to try to do the work ourselves since we wanted to take out the load bearing wall between the kitchen and the dining room.
After a few quotes and interviews and poking around on Angie’s List we decided on a contractor, and ordered cabinets through him, since they had the style I really wanted. I could have gone with slightly cheaper cabinets by ordering them from Lowes or Home Depot, but then I would have had to have some shaker style kitchen and I really wanted something like this:

Corsica cabinets by Bellmont

To save money, and because I really wanted to have a hand in creating the kitchen, I’m going to be installing these resilient self stick tiles:

Roman Travertine tiles by Trafficmaster/ceramica

Get this, they’re groutable vinyl tiles! I can’t wait to play. And yes, I am going to be installing 12 x 24 tiles. Probably in a brick pattern. I don’t know why I’ve conceived a love of 12x 24 tiles, but I have.

We’re going with a quartz countertop, in a basic black, and simple stainless handles with just a bit of a curve. 
Two huge sinks, because that has always been part of a dream kitchen for my husband. And I’m getting a range with a baking drawer, to make hosting big parties easier. Not that I do big parties all that often. But now my Mom will be able to have some piping hot acorn squash ready when she wants it on Thanksgiving. 
It’s all supposed to be done well in time for Thanksgiving. I’m so excited. I can’t wait!

Style Review aka S.H.O LOAD blog hop

26 Replies

Welcome blog-hoppers to the land of random posts, and too long videos!

Ha.

Sorry. I’ve been staring at iMovie all evening, and I think it’s made me a bit loopy.

If you’re blog-hopping, you should have just come from Alison C.’s blog. If you’re starting here, don’t forget to check out everyone else’s blogs.

Lynnette
Leslie
Katrina
Kelli P.
Alison D.
Cathy H.
Dani
Heather H.
Alison C.
Heather D.  (wait that’s me, you’re already here!) (Welcome!)
Danielle H.

I’m not going to tell you how to prepare. I’ve already done that. Most of you are old hands at LOAD by now anyway. You’ve all found your way to LOAD in one way or another, and found a very welcoming community. You’ve figured out how to make it work for you, and why you keep coming back to this fun and rewarding challenge.

You’ve got this challenge mastered.

That’s wonderful.

There’s more though. Have you gone back and looked at how LOAD has changed you? Or, perhaps to be more specific, how LOAD has changed your scrapbooking? I thought it might be interesting, and put together this slide show of most of my stuff. It’s not everything, not by a long shot, but it is a significant chunk. It’s interesting to see the evolution from my very simple first page, through Cathy Zielske’s Design Your Life and Everyone Can Write a Little classes, and Stacy Julian’s Library of Memories class, to my first of many LOAD challenges.

They’re all in there. Please forgive the length and the endlessly repeating piano loop. It was either that or banjos. That’s what I had to work with in iMovie.

You may want to go visit Danielle H. first, and then come back to watch this. The piano may put you to sleep.

Big Ideas

6 Replies

One of the things I love about scrapbooking is that it’s not really about the paper. It’s not even about the photos or the stories. In many ways it’s a philosophy, at least it is for me.

Scrapbooking is a way for me to think about the here and now as, not perfect, but just right. It’s a way for me to appreciate and save the little pieces of life that matter. The hugs and hands held, the silly stories and the stories that make you cry.

I have known from a very young age that life is impermanent and imperfect. Every hug could be the last one, every day is vastly different from the day before, and from what I thought it might be or even could be.

Maybe that’s why I love the way Lain Ehmann and Stacy Julian and Cathy Zielske teach scrapbooking. And the lesson from Amy Sorenson in this year’s Big Idea Festival at Big Picture Classes is another one of those perfect, deep reasons that empowers and drives my creativity.

Amy talked about how we’re always looking for that happily ever after moment: that moment when everything is perfect, or everything is done, or every piece is in place in order to begin some new project.

The thing is, there is no happily ever after. There’s no point in time that’s perfect or just right. There’s only right now, and that cliff right over there that you need to jump off of to get started and do. If you never try something, you will never fail, but you will also never succeed. And if you don’t look around, take the plunge, do the uncomfortable scary thing, the only thing you’ll have to look back on are regrets.

What’s more important? A life filled with safety and sameness, or one filled with challenges and love? It’s so easy to live the first. I aspire and try for the second. I don’t always succeed, but that’s good. At least I am trying.

And every once in a while, my scrapbooker’s eye catches messages from the world around me that remind me how wonderful and precious every moment is.

Where’ve you been?

2 Replies

Oh wait, that should probably be “where’ve I been?”

Well, if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or hang out on ScrapHappy, you probably know where I’ve been. Moving!

We said goodbye to our lovely house in the Pine Hills, and our wonderful neighbors, and moved a whole 3.5 miles away to Guilderland. Except the post office tells us we’re still in Albany. 😀

Hey, this way my husband gets to say he’s still in Albany, and I get a different school district. Don’t get me wrong. I loved Albany. It just wasn’t a good fit for my geeky, pun-loving, history adoring no.1 son.

So. We moved.

Instead of living in a 100+ year old house with a decidedly arts and crafts bent, we’re living in a mid-century split level (if one step difference counts as a split level) with an upstairs.
We’ve got a garage and a driveway. That means room for 5, count them, 5! cars. As opposed to renting a parking spot across the street. Five steps to get into the house, instead of 15! No sidewalk to shovel. Instead I have a driveway. Which, since I won’t have the whole neighborhood trooping over it before it even stops snowing, will be much easier to shovel. Since I have no stairs!

Although, I thought the heavy, clay filled soil at our old house was bad, the soil here is even worse- it’s all sand. Jonathan and his compost pile have their work cut out for them.

We miss our old neighbors. We’ve somehow managed to go the whole summer without getting together, which is sad. At least we have some wonderful, welcoming new neighbors. I really hope I can manage to introduce the old and new soon. I know! Party at my house! After we get the kitchen remodeled.

Now that’s exciting!

(Oh, and check out my new craft room!)

Finding your creative self (aka LOAD Blog hop 212)

39 Replies

Welcome all you blog hoppers! And any random non-blog hoppers out there. 😀

Hopefully you’ve come from Gayle’s blog on your trip through LOAD-world. If you haven’t, start with Margie, and make your way back here. 🙂

First, if you want to know what I think you need in order to successfully complete a LayOutADay, check out this post from last year. And! The post immediately before it talks about the first time I did LOAD, so it might help you figure out what to expect if this is your first time attempting LOAD. But that’s not what I want to talk about this time around. This time I want to talk about how, by doing LOAD, you become a better scrapbooker, and you discover your own strengths (and weaknesses) by committing to a month of dedicated creativity.

It’s true. It really is true.

Have you seen this poster?

I saw it on Pinterest a few months ago. And then, Stacy Julian linked to the interview with Ira Glass that this quote comes from, and everything clicked.

Do a lot of work. On a deadline. Create a volume of work. As you make more, and learn more, your output improves, until it meshes with your own taste and style.

That’s LOAD!

LOAD is how you find your creative style. Or one way to find your creative style. There are other ways to commit to a creative life, but this one works for me.

So this is what you need to do. Commit to making a page every day for the month of February. Don’t allow yourself to make excuses. No “I’m tired, I’m sick, I’m too busy,” excuses. If you really want to scrapbook, make, no scratch that, TAKE time to do it. It doesn’t have to be a lot of time. In fact, having too much time can get in the way of finishing a page. Just make a promise to yourself to do it.

Of course there are things that can get in the way of finishing a page. Important, life altering things. Only you can decide if the excuses that get in the way of creating are important enough for you to walk away from the crafting table. But everyday life? You shouldn’t let that stop you.

Listen to Lain’s prompts. Do they speak to you? Do they inspire you? Then work with them. If the prompt isn’t working for you that day, work on something else. A project you’ve been working on for ages. A story that’s just begging to be told. A photo that just grabs your heart, and you need to showcase it. Do something. 

Some days you will love, love, love, what you have made. Other days, it will all seem to fall apart as you go, and you’ll be disappointed in the final product. Don’t second guess yourself. Just move on to the next page.

Keep everything you create in one place. Make a big pile. Keep it in a binder for your brand new pages. Your pile of pages will grow. You might even make a dent in your stash. (I’d have to do hundreds of pages for that to happen.)

And at the end of the month, look at what you have done. What pages are your favorites? Why? Do you have any pages that you dislike? Again, why? What are the common threads that run through your pages? How are they alike? What makes them different?

By answering those questions, you will discover what kind of scrapbooker you are. Are you a story teller? A technique lover? A fan of color or monochrome?

Only by creating a body of work, and then going back and examining it, will you be able to find your creative process and style. Only by committing to creating do you build a body of work.

If you haven’t signed up for LOAD 212 yet, what are you waiting for? This is the quickest and easiest way to build a body of work.

So commit. Create. Explore. Find yourself.

Next stop? Gina!

And here’s the links to everyone’s blogs, so you can hop and skip among them if you’d rather.

Margie
Kelli
Jennifer
Lisa
Monica
Kimberly
Eileen
Danielle
Pam
Katrina
Cate
Gayle
Heather (that’s me!)
Gina
Kristie
Janet
Lydia

Family News

2 Replies

So have I mentioned that my sister is expecting her first baby at the end of February? Well, she is. And she makes a mighty cute pregnant lady, if you ask me.
Both she and her husband are reading baby books and baby blogs and talking to all their friends with kids to get ideas, advice, and recommendations on what they need to have, and what they need to do, and what they can expect. Of course, you never really know what it’s like to be a parent until you have your own child, but it never hurts to be informed.
Our brother has started a betting pool on when the baby will come. I’ve called dibs on February 29th. My sister is hoping for the 15th, since that was our grandfather’s birthday, and he was a pretty awesome guy.
I’m really looking forward to meeting the next member of our family. I know my sister is pretty excited too.
belly!

Here comes December!

2 Replies

December is right around the corner, and I’ve filled it up with lots of inspiration. This is the fourth year I will be doing a December Daily, and I wanted lots of different ideas to keep myself going and inspired this year.
December Daily 08 cover

First of all, if you have no idea what a December Daily is, check out this post from Ali Edwards, who is responsible for me starting this project originally. My kids are responsible for me continuing to do this. They LOVE the books I’ve made, and are disappointed if I even consider not participating each year.
decdaily2010cover

The thing about great ideas is that they are fun to share, and modify to make your own. Ali’s project was originally inspired by Shimelle Laine’s Journal Your Christmas class, which she has been running for years. I will be joining in for the first time this year. I am so looking forward to it, since my favorite part of the December Dailies I have done previously was the words. Shimelle is wonderfully inspiring, and if you haven’t explored her blog, please do. She’s got so many great ideas.

I will be getting more inspiration and instruction from Katrina Kennedy’s Capture Your Holidays Through the Lens. My photos throughout all my December Daily books are okay. Some are wonderful, some are horrible, and some just are there. I’m hoping to improve the overall quality of my photos, as well as come up with some different ways to photograph the holiday season by taking Katrina’s class. She’s taught at the TrueScrap events, and her instruction is always enlightening.

Last but not least, I will also be taking BPC’s 12 Days of Christmas. I love the idea of spending the 12 days before Christmas gathering photos and ideas and product and then turning it all into pages beginning on the 25th. This is a great introductory class for people who have never taken a BPC class before, since twelve different instructors will be running the class.

In addition to these classes, I will also be following along with Tim Holtz’s twelve tags of Christmas. Each year he introduces new techniques and projects that are a great supplement to any holiday crafting project.

Wow, you say? How can I manage to fit all these classes into the normal craziness that is December? Well, these are all classes that will help me complete my December Daily project. There will be photo ideas, journaling ideas, and technique ideas. Any time I run out of ideas, I will have lots of resources to rummage around in. I don’t expect to finish these classes, but rather to use these classes to improve and expand my December Daily. It’s going to be fun!

Here’s a quick peek at what I’ll be using for this year’s book.
IMG_0332

Hope you’ll join the fun and play along!

I am the typo queen!

Leave a reply

I make a lot of typos. I correct them as I go, but when I am chatting or texting, typos just proliferate and bloom and take on a life of their own.

At least I have yet to send out an email with my name misspelled. Which I do just about every time I type it.

Hetaher
Hather
Hetahr
Heathr
heather
Heather

See what I mean?!

10 Years

Leave a reply

10 years ago today, I was very, very pregnant. As in 5 days late pregnant.

I went shopping with my mother, and everywhere I went, people asked when I was due. I took great pleasure in telling them, “5 days ago.” What is it about the idea of a pregnant woman going into labor that makes everyone so nervous?

The very last thing my mother said to me when dropping me at home was, “Don’t have him tomorrow. Then he’ll have to share his birthday forever.” I think that idea appealed to him, since I woke up in labor that night and finally met him mid-morning.

10_12_01 5.26.02 PM 12 (1)

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day I became a mother. Tomorrow is the day I discovered life is nothing like what I expected, but everything I hoped for. Tomorrow marks the day I began an entirely different set of classes, where you were my teacher as much as I was yours.

Tomorrow you turn 10.

Happy Birthday big kid.

100_7576

I love you.

Tips for Stamping Success and Chocolate Pudding Pie!

Leave a reply

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’ve made just about every mistake there is to make while stamping. Blurred images? Incomplete ones? Ones that just look awful, even though I know there was enough ink on the stamp? Done it. And I have been doing this long enough that I know why I did not get the image I wanted. It can be frustrating to be unable to produce a beautiful image. Here are some simple things you can do to increase your odds. You may think these are all obvious, but anytime you don’t get a good image, it’s probably because of one of these things.

1. Make sure your desk is smooth and clean. You don’t want glitter, or uneven layers of paper under the image you’re stamping. You will get voids and lines in your image if you stamp on an uneven surface.
2. Make sure you’re stamping on smooth cardstock. Even a little bit of texture can affect how well the image transfers to the paper.
3. Use ink that is appropriate for the surface you are stamping on, and the material your stamp is made of. I love Tim Holtz distress inks, but they have a tendency to bead up on photopolymer stamps. That will get you a splotchy looking image. Dye inks can bleed into very porous papers. Pigment inks take a long time to dry, especially on non-porous papers, so can smudge after the fact.
4. Press straight down, and then pull straight up. Don’t rock your stamp. Rocking will give you some ghosting around your image.
5. Don’t press too hard on photopolymer/acrylic stamps. They have a lot of give to them, so when you press hard, you get the sides of the image and not just the surface.
6. If you aren’t getting good ink transfer, put a foam stamping mat under the paper. That way you will be able to press harder without mashing the stamp. If it’s a big stamp, stand up and press all over the image, not just in one place.
7. Lastly, make sure your stamp is clean. Not every last bit of ink is gone clean, but no glitter/glue residue clean.

If you make sure you’ve got these basics covered before you start, you should have a wonderful image every time you stamp. Unless you’re like me. (Please note the remnant of glitter on the “n”, and the “e” I had to restamp when I did not press straight down the first time.)
choco pudding pie