Adventures in Decorating - week 2

Adventures in Decorating - continued.... :oD

We made an appointment for the following weekend, Caroline had to reschedule our meeting. Jim thought it was very unprofessional. I was okay with it. Cheryl said that I was okay with it because I didn't want to start making decisions... she's probably right.

When we met, it was as overwhelming as I thought it would be. Caroline put together three color schemes for us to look at. One was peach/green/grey, one was blue/burnt-orange/tan, the last one was blue/teal/grey. The peach one was out. Looking at it made me think of a woman's powder room. The orange in the second one was SCARY! Our room right now is mostly blue and because of that it was easier for us to accept the blue. We pulled colors from the remaining two collections and ended up with navy/cerulean-blue/tan. It's an elegant pallet that we thought would look nice. Caroline called it "nautical beach":



Jim and I fondly started calling it "Old Sea Chest" haha! I was worried that it would be too dull, but Caroline said that she likes to design a neutral background for whatever colors we wanted to add in the form of pillows and nick-nacks. Okay... I felt better about it.

Then we got a whirlwind tour of possible furniture picks and window coverings. That was TOTALLY overwhelming! After a while everything started to look the same...

Caroline: "Do you remember that coffee table in the room with colors? This end table will match perfectly!"

Me: {{{blank wide-eyed look}}} Which table?

Caroline is going to print out our floor plan, furniture and colors, and we'll meet with her again next week.

{{WHEW}} this is happening FAST!

Adventures in Decorating - Week 1

We are actually 3 weeks into the process now, but I'm going to split this up into several post, or else it would be HUGE!!!

Background:
We have been talking about redecorating the house for over a year. Exactly one year ago, Chris helped me strip all the wallpaper out of the house. Within that year, I replaced the TV stand and rearranged the living room (which I am very proud of BTW). It's not much showing for a year of planning... the walls are still unpainted, the sofa and loveseat still need replacing, and I haven't found window coverings or dining room chairs. I tried going to a sofa store, knew exactly what I wanted and was talked out of it TWICE by the sales women. I ended up more confused than when I started. It's all so frustrating! At this rate, there is no way that I'd finish before the family Christmas party!

Well, three weeks ago the lady down the street told me about the Ethan Allen design center. She said that the service is FREE and that she worked with a lady there who was wonderful! Her house is bright with contemporary coastal color, which is beautiful (light blue, sage green, white). So, Jim and I decided to go down to Ethan Allen. We met the designer, Caroline, and she's very nice. I told her that I didn't want my house exactly like our neighbors. Their house is a show piece with everything in it's place. They have a "show" room (a front formal living room that no one uses) with sea shells and drift wood... it really wasn't US. Our design needs to be more functional and comfortable.

She told us that was no problem and that she would put together something that we could live with and LOVE. She stopped by to look at the house THE NEXT DAY to look at the room and measure.

She likes the way I rearranged the living room. (YAY!) She asked us which pieces of furniture we wanted to keep. We told her that we are definitely keeping the computer table, the end table, Jim's mom's picture, and my crafting supplies. (Uh, excuse the mess... I'm in the middle of purging, which you will hear about later.)



I also gave her pictures of rooms that I liked.



Caroline took those and ran with it... more tomorrow :oD

Wedding Card

I think this is my first ever wedding card! I have ONE wedding stamp, so I had to design the card around the stamp...



TWO cards, you ask? No, not two cards... Here is the card:





The card was too bulky to fit into the envelope, so I made a card box:





See, it fits in there perfectly:



Thanks for stopping by and hope you are having the great weekend.
USA vs Portugal game is starting... GO USA!

June Card Kit Reveal

Welcome to the Club Mojo April card kit reveal! We have 10 ladies in the club this year!!! These are all wonderful ladies who I've had the good fortune to meet at Scrappin' Mojo.

It's time for our Club reveal, and this month's card kit was put together by Diane!



And here are my cards!





Now some gift card holders using the cute little bags:











Lastly the Father's Day card for my dad... the OUTSIDE:







Thanks for the great kit, Diane!

Long time, no post....

My SIL and Mom mentioned that I haven't posted in a while. Well, nothing much has been happening... I've been injured, I tried running through it. It's my plantar fascia, and it got worse. So my personal physical therapist, Cheryl, convinced me to stop running until it's better.

On one of my non-runnng weekends, we went SUP-ing in Dana Point Harbor. We had to carry the boards from the shop to the beach... those things are heavy! It's a good thing that Jim came with us. I admit that I fell in. It's hard to balance when I can't put my full weight on my foot (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!).







Jim and Jena were gone camping for a few days, and it's as if all the critters knew that Jena was gone! We got a visit from Hoover:





And from Sylvester:



Here are some more pics that I took of Cheryl running... since I can't run, I have lots of Cheryl running pictures. Here's Cheryl smokin' Steve. Haha! Yeah, Steve, we are letting this one go viral, lol!



Here's a pic of me... no running, but I'm out there on my bike. I didn't take this one, obviously. I guess it's really trendy and cool to take slanted pictures now. So, do I look cool?



One last picture:



So, that is all that's up at our house.

We have adventures in home decorating coming up SOON!!!

Single Layered Debossed Card

I'm leaning more and more toward single layer cards... they fit in envelopes much better than the fully embellished ones.





I LOVE the debossed technique shared a PTI MIM. I used the Be Happy Stamp set and matching dies from PTI.

Check out this technique HERE.

Summer Cut

Jena is looking a little raggedy, and with the 100F+ days, she needs a cool summer cut. Here is Jena before...



Here she is after!



Jena LOVES her new haircut...

Look who's come to visit...

She has taken up residence in my hanging basket... can you see her?





The geraniums were really starting to come back nice too. Oh, well... She already has eggs so she gets to stay. :oD

HOT HOT HOT!!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Cheryl and I had a nice run in the morning with Run with Soul, and then to my folk's house for lunch and dessert. I hope you all had a great Mother's Day!

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Jim made enchiladas and my favorite, chile rellenos!
... and for dessert... chocolate wine and brownies, YUM!!!



Happy Cinco de Mayo!