Ink It Up!

Good Morning!

I decided to start a card swap now that I have members in my SU! downline.  Here's what I sent to them:

If you don't already know, I LOVE banners.  I've had this Bingo Background stamp for quite awhile and have NEVER used it.  I just started experimenting and here's what happened.  Sometimes experiments are a good thing! ;)

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 12th Day of Christmas....

Well, that's it!  I hope you've been inspired to capture some of your Christmas memories and traditions.

Come back tomorrow when I move from Christmas to Valentine's Day!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 11th Day of Christmas....

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 10th Day of Christmas....

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 9th Day of Christmas....

On this layout I used my new new-to-me-because-my-husband-bought-it-from-my-sister-in-law-and-gave-it-to-me-for-Christmas-because-she-didn't-want-it-anymore-and-I-begged-him-to Silhouette! (see the word Christmas)

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 8th Day of Christmas....

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 7th Day of Christmas....

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 6th Day of Christmas....

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 5th Day of Christmas....

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 4th Day of Christmas....

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 3rd Day of Christmas....

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 2nd Day of Christmas....

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

On the 1st Day of Christmas...

Good Morning!

One of my main focuses for 2012 is spending money purposefully.  My plan is to spend less on craft supplies, and instead take classes that help me use up what I already have.

I realize that we're half-way through January, but I just finished a great class at Big Picture Classes called 12 Days of Christmas.  It actually ended on January 6th but life took over so it took me a little bit longer.  I finished the last two layouts yesterday.  It was really a great concept.  Let's see if I can explain it.........actually, I'll let them explain it:


For the 12 days leading up to Christmas, you will receive an email from a BPC teacher with a photo prompt and a list of supplies to gather. Preparing specific holiday pictures and products as Christmas approaches will help you focus on the present moments and the joyful anticipation in a more thoughtful way—without feeling any pressure to scrapbook right away!

Then, starting on December 25th, you'll get to "open" a new handout each day, designed to guide and inspire you in pulling together pictures and products to complete a dozen different layouts.

I really had a great time with this class.  The supplies were easy to put together.  You didn't get a photo of the completed project at first.  Just a teaser photo, the subject of the layout, a list of the photo sizes you'd need and the suggested supplies to complete the layout.  And I didn't buy a single thing.  I shopped my own supplies.  And if I didn't have exactly what they suggested (like Washi Tape), I improvised.

This also was a great exercise for me because while I like all the layouts I completed, I like some a lot more than others.  I'm realizing my preferred scrapbooking style.  Clean and simple.  It's fun to experiment with different styles, though.

For the next 12 days, I'll be sharing my finished layouts with you.  I still consider myself a beginning scrapper, so most of my layouts follow the teachers' pretty closely.

So here's Day 1:

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

A Different Kind of Creativity

The past month has been hectic, crazy, productive and fun.  I've been too busy living to blog but things are slowing down at the moment (well at least for the next 30 minutes), so I thought I'd share one of the things we've been up to lately.

I've wanted to change my living room for quite some time now.  I was really craving a fun and colorful room in my house of brown.  So, I just took a leap and decided to make that colorful room the first room you see when you visit my home.  Call me crazy, but I just had to!

So I started with this:

This is what our living room has looked like for the past 9 years.  Not horrible, but that poor old couch had become more of a butt trap than anything else.  I always felt so bad if we had older people come to visit because it took at least one other person to help them back up!  LOL.

I knew I wanted to paint the walls a fresh, bright color, but wasn't going to do that while we still had the old couch.  I also knew when we replaced the couch, I would replace it with a love seat because that room is so small.

I finally found the chocolate brown love seat I was looking for and at a great price!  Now to get those walls painted.  I HATE to paint.  I love the end result, but it makes me completely exhausted just thinking about it!  So I hired it out.  My friend's son "volunteered" to come do it, so he and my daughter spent a couple of hours during Christmas break to do that for me.  So worth the $20 and pizza lunch to not have to touch a roller.

So here it is today:

I love how the chocolate contrasts with the aqua walls.  This is definitely not an "after" photo.  Still lots to be done....need to get a different (lighter colored, smaller) coffee table, and put some art on the walls, but I love being in there now.  Such a fun room to be in while the rest of the house is more serious.  And speaking of serious, after 9 years of planning, plotting, and saving, here's another thing we added to our house appeal:

We finally got our fireplace!  We love the warmth both physically and visually it adds to our room.  We also love that the furnace doesn't come on at all when the fireplace is going.  We decided to make it extra tall to help make the room visually taller.  It worked!

We'll be painting the rest of the room that khaki color (unfortunately, I'll probably be helping with that).  I'm looking for an old 6-pane window to put above the mantel as a backdrop for candlesticks, photos, and whatever else strikes my fancy. :)  Our daughter said, "now we need to get new couches because those don't look good anymore".  I totally agree.  But, that'll have to be another wait while we save some more. Oh, but see that black ottoman?  It completely holds all our Rock Band stuff!  Yep, 2 guitars, drums, pedal, etc.  Love it!

Well, looks like my 30 minutes are up.  Time to go be taxi mom again....

Stay tuned because Christmas isn't over yet!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!