Slacker

Yes, I'm a slacker. It's been awhile since I've posted, but in real life I've been somewhat productive. While away from the blog, I've been helping fellow YaYa Kimberly with some home remodel projects. So far, I've taken down old 3X3 blue tiles circa 1970 out of a bathroom, and yesterday did lots of priming walls. What a difference a fresh coat of paint makes! I will share one "adventure" that happened at her house last weekend. I went to the restroom only to find myself "trapped" inside when I tried to leave. The door knob was messed up (partially hanging from the door). I tried for a couple of minutes to jiggle the knob, and the lock. I even tried to unscrew the screws with my fingers (like I said, they were sticking out already). The whole time muttering to myself, "Seriously? Seriously?". Typical me to get stuck in a room... Finally my knocks on the door were answered. Eventually Kimberly and Floyd (the floor guy working in the kitchen) heard my cries for help. After some fruitless tries of jiggling the door knob, and even a couple of TV cop tries of breaking down the door (them, not me), they were able to squeeze a screwdriver under the door for me to use. Thank goodness for the 70's when doors had to have the bottoms trimmed to accommodate shag carpet! With a little coaching from Floyd, I got the screwdriver between the door jam and the door and was able to spring myself free. Too funny. My dear friend Kimberly was there with camera in hand to document the event, and no, you won't be seeing those pictures here.

Anyway, here are some cards that I made last weekend. They're very simple, I just needed to try out some of my new PTI order stuff.

First is the PTI card made with the Remember set and all that beautiful poppy red. We did a little comparison, and the PTI pure poppy is VERY close to SU real red. I think the linen vellum gave a bit of a 3D effect to the flowers.

Recipe: SU kraft cardstock, PTI pure poppy ink, cardstock, linen vellum, ribbon, stamps

This card is pretty boring, but I just had to use this scrap of SU summer picnic DP. Love it!

Recipe: PTI pure poppy cardstock, ribbon, SU summer picnic DP, Cornish Heritage Farms Motivational Centers sentiment.
Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend, and happy crafting!

A day off

I got an extra day off today which gives me a four day weekend! Woo hoo! So what to do with an extra day??? It rained (we so needed it), so I had to have a little nap. Also, that freed up a guy to come put up a ceiling fan (in the room where the light fixture was was off to one side). What he discovered in the ceiling was wood slats (he described it as having hard wood floors, but on the ceiling) covering up a plaster ceiling, above the drywall ceiling that we see in the room today. The wooden slats had shrunk over time, and someone had put concrete mortar between the slats. So the project wasn't quite as big of a deal as we thought it might be
Here's the new fan, and kind of behind it you can see the whole where the old fixture was. Hopefully my painter guy can fill that in. I'm not sure what we'll be able to do to mimic the new texture.


I also tried my hand at the color challenge over at kwernerdesignblog.com. I substituted PTI summer sunrise for SU summer sun since I didn't have any summer sun. Once I had completed the whole thing, I realized I had left out one of the challenge colors (pumpkin). Oh well, here's the card.

Recipe: SU basic black cardstock, PTI bitty baby blessings DP and summer sunrise grosgrain ribbon, SU chipboard stars covered in rose DP, Making Memories shimmer stickers.

Thanks for dropping in!
Lisa

Crafting Smorgasbord

This weekend, fellow YaYa Stacie (check out her blog here: http://staciehoo.blogspot.com/, had some friends over for a "Splatters Platters" party to benefit The Centers for Children and Families. For a set price, we were provided with a platter, and all the paints/ brushes to decorate to our heart's content. Of course, there was extreme potlucking as well (that's in the unofficial bylaws of the YaYas...something about crafting and extreme potlucking). It was so neat to see the designs that everyone came up with. You can check them out on Stacie's blog. I can't wait to see them after they're glazed and fired.
By the time I got home I was pretty tired so I took a little nap. When I woke up I was drawn to the craft room. I broke out my PTI Floral Frenzy set and had some fun. Here are some of my creations.

I really like how this one turned out.
Recipe: Cardstock SU Kraft, PTI white, Stamps PTI Floral Frenzy, Ribbon PTI Summer Sunrise and dark chocolate, Ink PTI summer sunrise, dark chocolate, and SU old olive.

This next one is kind of blah. I do like the look of the sweet daisies, but I think it needs more color/ layers.

Recipe: Cardstock SU Kraft, Stamps PTI Floral Frenzy, Ink StazOn Cotton white, SU Old Olive, PTI summer sun.

As you may know, in the past I was a paper hoarder. Only recently with the help of some of my fellow bloggers have I really started using my decorative paper. Kristina (http://kwernerdesign.com/blog/) has especially helped me to use more DP.
I think this is a partial case of someone's sketch challenge (the curvy cut to the DP). I love how the sentiments curviness works with the cut in the DP.

Recipe: Cardstock SU wild wasabi, DP SU spring silhouettes, ribbon PTI aqua mist, ink Palette Noir, sentiment SU Elegant inspirations.

So, If you've read this far, I'm sure you're dying to know the house update. I've got someone lined up to paint ceilings starting next week. He is a painter during his daytime job, and does some jobs "on the side". He'll be coming over after work to paint. I also got some bids on windows (and had some major sticker shock). I think I'm going to try to save money for another couple of months and then get that done. I had one quote that was twice what the other was...that guy was really trying to make a sale, and apparently thought I was incredibly stupid.
Anyhoo, that's all for now. Happy crafting, and have a great week!

Halleluja, Amen!

This post has nothing to do with crafting, but here goes. The title to this post is appropriate because "Halleluja, Amen!" the ceilings are done (except for painting), and this is what our choir sang this morning at church from Handel's Judas Maccabeus (sp?). On the note of singing, check out my friend Matthew in this YouTube video. He sings in our choir and is awesome. He's the one on your right, and he sings first.

He's a Supah Stah!
Have a great week! If you've got a ceiling painting connection in Little Rock, "call me and let me know".
Lisa

Another card and a ceiling update

This morning we had a "virtual birthday party" for my friend Pig (The Crafty Pig from SCS). We tried to do a video conference with Yahoo messenger and our webcams. We did get to see and hear each other on and off so that was fun. I've still got to put some numbers on my clock and get the clock mechanism working. I used my fave Wild Saffron DP from K and Company. I'll post a pic when I get that finished.
Speaking of Wild Saffron paper, here's a card I made with some of the paper. I used Taylor's sketch here:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg413dOD0mp0zR678NM5Qq3CKW2BXHhxAmSlKqd7cCmleYGTWo4PVHWHOBTqpQlSBfd9OqaQs_5BB-mlejUvnFpt2_Zw7TY3ZCiDlY3CYRdO491oMKg8NA747aAORyaqiJk20_XIkajNjMf/s1600-h/TECC26-(sketch).jpg

Recipe: Cardstock So saffron SU, Dark chocolate PTI, Blue bayou SU, Stamper's select vanilla PTI, DP and stickers Wild Saffron collection K and Company, ink dark chocolate PTI, sentiment SU Warm Words.
Here's the update on the ceilings. Todd is here as we speak working on them. So far he's done the master bedroom and bath and kitchen. I think he's going to do one more room and then come back tomorrow. Here's what it looks like so far (it's not painted yet, it will be GORGEOUS when it is:

The pattern is called "California knock-down" or "Bungalow knock-down" which should be period correct for my 1920's craftsman home.
I can't wait for it all to be done!!!
Lisa

It's DONE!!!!

A super gi-normous thank you to Edwina, Luke, and Marshall. The scraping is done. All of it. The whole house. Here are some pics of Luke and Marshall at work.


Here's what my bedroom ceiling looked like after they attacked it.

I'm not sure if any of you are aware of this, but scraping popcorn ceilings is just a teensy bit messy...

Actually Edwina was awesome. Not only was she the foreman/ contractor overseeing the job, but she also helped with the massive task of cleaning up. I really just have the living/ dinning rooms to clean up and then drag everything back to where it belongs. Sounds like I'll be having BIG fun tomorrow!
THANKS EDWINA, LUKE, AND MARSHALL!!!! YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!!!!

A productive day

So it's been awhile since I last posted. Since then, I've painted my master bathroom. I'm really pleased with how the color came out. Sorry, my pics aren't the best, but it's apple green with white trim.
This morning, I put up my cute little mirror with a shelf that I bought at Tar-Zhay (that's Target for those of you not in the know).



Then Debbie and Kimberly came over for some crafting. The first card is my homage to Kristina Werner at http://kwernerdesign.com/blog/ . I love her cards! Check her out. This paper is too cool, it's kind of a flocked, velvety paper. It kinda reminds me of old wall paper.

This next card is for the July YaYa challenge. Kimberly made all the YaYas a bucket with a year's worth of challenges, one card each month. We all start with the same idea, similar supplies and then come up with totally different creations. It's a lot of fun. This month Kimberly gave us a bunch of random papers and embellishments to use on a card. I used the pretty decorative paper and the flower ribbon to create this. The cardstock and stamps are from Paper Trey Ink.
This final card is made with the Summer Picnic decorative papers from Stampin' Up. The ribbon is from Michael's and the sentiment is from PTI.

After crafting, Kimberly helped me put up the medicine cabinet. Whew! Talk about a job. That thing is HEAVY! I used a drill and everything...you would have been SO impressed. Thank you Kimberly!!!

Luke and one of his school friends are supposed to come over next Friday to scrape ceilings. I can't wait to get this done, just a couple more things and I'll be done with the latest round of remodeling.

After the day-o-crafting I went over to my sister and brother-in-law's house for boiled spicy shrimp, potatoes, and corn on the cob. Yum! My nephew and his cousin were running around 90 to nothing, shrieking for most of the evening. I think they will sleep very well tonight.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Lisa

Update and a challenge card

Yea! I now have 2 new lights in my master bathroom, 4 can lights and a pendulum in the kitchen,


2 new fans in my living/ dining room and a programmable thermostat.

Thanks to Josh and Monica. We were unable to do a can light in the pantry and a ceiling fan in one of the other bedrooms because there is CONCRETE up in the rafters. This must be some kind of weird, old house thing. Josh said he would be afraid to cut through that (and he didn't have the right tools) because it could crack the whole ceiling. He recommended having a contractor do that part. The pantry light I can do without (lots of light coming in from outside), but I would like to get the light/ ceiling fan centered in the guest bedroom.
Sorry, the pictures are kind of dark because it's getting dark and rainy outside. I'll have to take pics when the whole process is done. Hopefully, we'll do some ceiling scrapping tomorrow and then get the retexturing sometime in the near future. I can't wait til my house looks like a house again!
Here is a challenge card. This is done with acetate, and I guess it could count for the 2 kinds of dp challenge also. The image is from the Bundle of Joy set from http://whippersnapperdesigns.com/. The paper is from http://www.stampinup.com/us/enu/default.asp sky blue designer series paper.
Happy crafting!

Remodeling

One of my most un-favorite things is remodeling. Living in an 80+ year old house it's inevitable that there will be some projects to undertake from time to time. I love the results of remodeling it's just the getting there part that I don't enjoy. Since I bought this house almost 10 years ago, I've made lots of cosmetic changes; painting a few rooms, new kitchen counter tops, flower beds, painting the outside of the house, etc. Here's the outside pre and post painting. The flower beds are MUCH more grown up now.

The time has come, after living here almost 10 years, to scrape the popcorn ceilings......aaaaaaahhhhh....doesn't that strike terror into your heart???

I had actually even started to scrape some of the ceilings (just the kitchen and master bath) about a year ago and just never got going again to finish the job. I got a few quotes on what it would cost to have someone come in and do the work (scraping the ceilings, retexturing, painting, and installing several lights/ fans). The prices were pretty steep for just the scraping. So now I have enlisted the help of my friend and fellow YaYa, Edwina. She's providing ceiling scraping labor in the form of her son (and my sorta-kinda-but-not-really boyfriend) and a friend of his. They are high school students and just a bit less expensive than the "professionals".
To top it off, I have a leak in the roof that has created a gross mold spot in my master bathroom. Yuk!!!

Monica at work heard the prices I was quoted for the electrical work, and promptly called her husband (an electrician) to do a price comparison. He says he can give me a much better price.





Out in the backyard, I've decided to get rid of the pool. I had started taking apart the deck myself (can you believe it???) when Leigh, my fellow YaYa and next door neighbor called up asking what I planned to do with the wood. I really hadn't thought ahead that far, except that I wanted to get rid of it and would probably have to pay to have it hauled away. She said if she and her husband, Aaron, could have the wood, he would take it down for me!!! Hooray! I get out of the heavy labor, and save the cost of hauling it away. Here's the swamp and what's left of the deck:

So, as you can see, I've got a lot of projects about to get under way. Can't wait to see the final results.

More and more I learn that The Beatles had it right, I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends....