Cook. Bake. Sew. Craft. Repeat.

A Place for Everything

2013-08-17T18:42:00.000-05:00

All these life conveniences are not really a convenience because they clutter up your house. This is true to me. I am every day working into finding a place for everything, so there is nothing random sitting on my counters or anywhere in my house. I just don't like messes. Period.

In the past [almost] two years, I have been trying to figure out a place for all these kitchen electrics I have. I thought, stuffing them in random places all over the house was a good fix until I stubbed my toe for the 500th time with the bread machine that is sitting on the floor of my walk-in closet the other day. Then, I had to finally put my [screaming in pain] foot down and do something about this storage problem.

Now, let me make something clear, we do not lack places to store stuff. We just haven't done anything to any of our storage spaces, including my walk-in closet, to make them work for us... until the past weekend.

I hate showing before photos but here's our utility closet. It's shameful and sad. I don't know why I waited so long to address this.

And here's what it looked like after three days of painting, scrubbing and $40 worth of materials...

We had pretty much everything we needed to get this project done except for the 1" x 12" boards that we used for shelving. This room will be a work in progress for a while but I am just happy that I will not be stubbing my toe in my closet anymore or searching for hours trying to remember whether something is in the attic, in the storage building in the old house, or buried in the coat closet.

I am thankful I have a husband who understands my woes and knows how to do things and is not scared to learn new stuff and help me make all these crazy ideas of mine come to fruition... as long as I don't ask him to paint. lol That room needed a good paint job. I don't really know when it was painted last.

Sorry about the quality of some of the photos, they are all taken with my phone and posted on Instagram. I painted the laundry room the same grey I painted my kitchen. It is called Silverplate from Sherwin Williams in Cashmere. I love the creamy low luster finish on it, the washability and durability too. I used SW Daffodil on the stencil work.

I got the stencil way back in the fall from Cutting Edge Stencil it's called Cassablanca All Over. It is easy to do but not really if you are impatient. I love the results I got, but the odds of me doing this again in my house is pretty slim unless it is the only way to go. It is very meticulous and time consuming. Your hard work does pay off though!

Then we applied these pieces that will hold up the shelves and carry the weight. I did have to kind of do a little bit of work on the edges of them. They looked a little crazy.

That's my husband, John [above] painting the wall braces. He did have to paint to give me a break from stenciling. How chivalrous! :)

This is the right corner. I did order some organizers for my baking sheets and cake pans. They won't just be sitting there looking like they do in the photo very long. I promise.

And of course, I had to make sure there is space for the Margaritaville essentials on the very top shelf... Although they aren't all up there yet!

We are still working on making the bottom part more efficient. We definitely need some storage bins. One really good buy is the new light that replaced the ceiling fan. I wanted to DIY the lighting but I just didn't want to mess with it any longer. I just wanted this part done so I can move on to overhauling my kitchen next.

I do have to say that tackling this closet has emptied the kitchen island, all of my tall cabinets, and a couple bottom cabinets in my kitchen. Woot! I hated it every time I needed a stock pot and I had to pull out 10 different pans out to get to it. Now, I don't have to do that anymore!

Also, I am an out of sight out of mind kind of girl. If I don't see it, it never gets used. This is why my house is organized where [if I could help it] I could see everything at a glance. Check out my kitchen here.

I used to have trouble keeping track of how much pasta, sugar, flour, chocolate chips or coffee I had because they were all crammed in a cabinet so I kept buying them every time I feel like a craving to make pasta or bake or cook comes around. Then I would end up with piles and piles of the same thing. So my husband came up with this solution. Why not make everything be where I could see everything. And since then, we saved a lot of money and trips to the store because I knew what I had and I can see it from where I plan and prep meals.

The same thing also shows in my [old] craft room here.

The new craftroom is taking a cleaner approach since it is in the very front of our current house. It is the first thing you see as you walk in to the foyer. I don't want it to look too messy because it does get messy in there from all the work that I do. It's all about pretty storage solutions, really.

It's just exciting that my utility closet has been finally addressed and is now making good sense.

Until the next project!!!

A Closer Look at my Craft Room: It's Done... but not Quite!

2013-04-02T14:37:00.000-05:00

Hey all! I am back and ready to show you what all has been going on here in the past couple of weeks. It's been kind of crazy around here with my friends' [Chris and Julie] wedding coming up in about two weeks plus the stuff we have been working on in the house.

Remember this photo from here?

Two weeks, later, it is now this!!!

I am pretty pumped about this really easy makeover that we did in my craft room. It's the best birthday gift so far! My husband is a giver, he would give me the moon if I asked for it. He is wonderful and awesome and is crazy enough to buy into my ideas.

He was expecting for this whole makeover to cost $500 or maybe a little bit more. But guess what happens in March? ALL GOOD THINGS! Yes, indeed. The week after my birthday, we both spent our days comparing prices for materials online. We knew we needed 2 15-inch base cabinets, and a 30-inch base + a 10 ft countertop. I was scoping the internet for coupon codes, printable coupons whatever I could scrounge to lower the cost because even if we had the money for this makeover, we weren't going to be dumb and be letting good deals slip through our fingers. We were better than that!

Enter a friend of ours who has decided to remodel her kitchen. She comes and tells me that she got a few cabinet pieces from Menards who was having a spring sale and the cabinets are on sale too. I got online and went to their website and found out this makeover was gonna cost half the price we were planning on spending. That night, John and I ordered what we needed and the next day, with a truck and trailer in tow headed to Menards to pick up the goods! :) Even the people at the store were pretty surprised how cheap it all cost. They kept asking John if that was really all he paid for the stuff over and over!

Anyway, we got them home and got to work after doing our happy dance... [you don't want to see that!] Here's John measuring how much we were going to take off from the countertop. I think this was the same night we bought the cabinets. lol It doesn't take much to get him on work mode. Just buy him the goods!

This was me the next day. John loves building and cutting and using his power tools... but he doesn't like to paint. Thank God I don't mind painting! :) The bookshelves on each end of the counter we got for free from John's parents. They were detached parts of this gigantic entertainment center that they weren't using anymore.

I have painted so much in the past year and a half, I think I can paint with my eyes closed. These cabinets and bookshelves were nothing to do. I was armed and ready. I used Zinsser's Cover Stain [oil-based primer] and Sherwin Williams Dover White because I had it in hand and I wanted the whole thing to match the trim all over the house to make it look like it was there forever. :)

The insides of the bookshelves I painted that crazy pink at first. I thought it was going to grow on me. Sadly, it didn't. I found a sample can I had purchased a few months ago while I was deciding what to paint our guest bedroom. It's a dark teal and when I rolled that on there, I just knew it was meant to be.

It took a good four to five days to get everything painted and get the paint to cure. This process takes so much patience. Take my advice, give the paint time to set and cure, otherwise, it will start chipping and peeling and cracking soon as you start using your cabinets.

I cringed every time I walked into the mess! But I had to keep myself from slapping on a new coat of paint until the previous coat has dried. I just didn't want to be making repairs before I could start enjoying my space!

Here's John [above] helping me put the doors back on! I was so excited. Then we went to the home store to pick up some essentials. We picked up cabinet pulls, cabinet pull alignment guides, and the power hub on my counter. These didn't cost much.

The guides cost us about $6. They made installing the cabinet pulls a breeze. He had all 10 pulls installed in less than 20 minutes! :)

While he was doing what he was doing, I was on the other side of the room, working on this to give to his parents the next day. It was going to be their 41st wedding anniversary. I made this print a long long time ago. I just kept forgetting to get it done for them.

This is the power hub from Le Grand that John picked up for me at the Home Depot. It took him but a few minutes to install it on my counter. The guy has tools coming out of his ears. So this was pretty easy. He also put a whole on the other side of the countertop so I can have access to the outlet underneath. My Silhouette machine is now sitting comfortably by it. The goal was for me to not to have to climb under the cabinets to plug anything in. He gave me all the comforts I needed! :)

And here she is again!

The cabinets are pretty much empty. I am slowly going through my stuff and have purged and have been organizing for days now... and I keep finding more as I go. This is going to take awhile. I just need to keep going until I get to the end of this process so I can forge on to the other projects that John and I have going on. We have a couple other projects going on right now that we are trying to finish. We never sit down. Never.

Here's what's in the bottom of the bookshelf on the right.

Here's what's in the bottom of the left bookshelf. :) My fabric stash has a home now!!!

See, this one cabinet has nothing in it. Not sure why the iron is in it either! lol

This is as far as I got with the middle cabinet. I have old kits on this paper tower.

The two middle top drawers have embossing materials, embellishments, copic markers, sewing kit, etc.

This is the drawer on the far right. It has my thank you cards, camera straps, sewing machine pedal, and i don't know what else in it. lol

But... my most favorite part is the 10 feet of workspace! :)

Excuse the messy desk. It's Project Life time around here. I still can't get over the fact that we finally did what we always wanted for this room! This is going to be a work in progress for a while, given I do have some of my stuff stored in closets all over the house. Speaking of closets, my walk-in closet is next on the list. John has a mild heart attack every time he walks in there. lol

Here's a close up of what's going on on this desk!

Remember when I said we never ever sit down? Last night John and I were in here admiring the progress this room is taking, we found that we don't like that armoire sitting in the corner. He thinks that the sub-floor underneath that corner is loose because the armoire wouldn't sit level. It's not way off, but if you know my husband, he gets a little over-dramatic about un-level surfaces. I know he is going to want to fix this. At the same time, he is saying that we ought to move the armoire on the other side so we can maximize the space and add like a corner desk or a place where I could cut fabric.

I think it's a brilliant idea, but for now, I just want to enjoy my space. Maybe in the fall we can revisit it and do something about this corner desk/fabric cutting area. :)

This is my most favorite spot in the world! It is mine and my ideas come to life in this room. This is where everything that is pretty that is in this house and that comes out of it is made.

I am so thankful that I have a husband who understands the importance of having personal space and a place where I could be me, no holds barred, make messes and not worry about the paint splatters on my desk or my stuff. Most importantly, I don't have to craft from totes, bins and share a space with John anymore [he does have a pretty rad music room by the way that I put together for him! So don't be fooled by his puppy eyes! lol] He also is in the process of putting his very own techy home recording studio together so he isn't doing too bad.

I love that this room has a window that faces west. I get to watch the sun set every single day in here. I love the warmth it brings in. I just love windows and natural light, period. It's the only way I would photograph anything.

So there you go, folks. I hope you enjoyed your trip to my craft room. :)

See you again soon!

Right now...

2013-03-25T15:04:00.003-05:00

... I am in the process of adding more storage and work space in my craft room.

... While one room is getting all fixed up, a couple of rooms in my house are getting all junked up because I had to pull some stuff out of my craft room to have some floor space to work in there.

The eat-In part of my kitchen all loaded up with stuff

Part of our living room

Even the foyer is not exempted

... I am a germ-o-phobe. Notice the bottles of anti-bacterial cleaners all over the house? I only become this crazy person during the cold seasons when the flu virus is hovering.

... There is no crafting in my craft room at the moment and it is really killing me. But like a good sport, I am thinking positive and I am thinking, it has to get worse before it gets better. *winks*

... Even in the middle of this huge mess, my heart is full. I am very grateful for all the good things even for the not-so-good things that have happened and are happening in our lives [John and I both].

... As all this work is going on, I am also seeking God's guidance and wisdom regarding the direction I am supposed to go with my ministry.

... Life is good. I am putting all kinds of energy into my house, making it all pretty and ready for spring. So come the warm months, I can enjoy being outside and bask in the sunshine. I am also looking forward to opening our pool.

... I am not quite liking the fact that it is cold and it snowed all day yesterday and all night, because it is spring after all, but I am thankful at the same time because I do have a lot of work to finish inside. The snowmageddon has bought me some time. *winks*

... I am/we are so thankful for everyone that we have been blessed with. We truly are very blessed, if not spoiled. We have the best family and the very best friends.

... Speaking of family, it is my in-laws' 41st anniversary today. :) Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!!!

See you all soon. Hopefully when I get back on, my craft room is ready to show off!

Laterz,

Today {Random Thoughts and Facebook}

2013-03-12T12:38:00.004-05:00

Time is flying by so fast. My birthday was here before I could establish a really strong birthday wishlist!!! I was just talking to my Mom-In-Law about looking at a few brands of bread machines, and then a few days later, the bread machine I had my heart set on shows up at my door [from her and my Dad-In-Law] because I am not a very spoiled girl. No, not at all. *winks*

Seems like it wasn't a long time ago when John re-did one of the bedrooms in our old house and turned it into a craft room for me for my anniversary gift. This year, he is building some more for my craft room in our new house for my birthday. :) Seems to me like we keep starting over, but we also keep upgrading. Each time we start, it is always some place better.

Around this time each year, John and I are usually building a list of things to do in the spring all the way up to the fall. This year, however, there isn't much to do. At least not anything major. It's all little things here and there, but knowing my Husband, one of these projects we got planned is going to turn into a major makeover.

I cannot wait to get this wall filled up with storage. This is the current state of my craft room. There has been a lot of activity here lately, so I don't even bother to do much of putting away, just until our friends, Chris and Julie get married in April. I am kind of helping them with some stuff for the wedding, plus all the other crafting and sewing that I do here.

John is getting ready to put a built-in on this wall so I can put away pretty much all of what you see on the floor. There's not a lot, everything else is put away, so this 13.5 feet built-in storage unit will come in very handy when he's done with it. This is #1 on my birthday wishlist and I am getting it in the next couple of weeks! I am very excited.

It will also add some work surface, which would be fabulous! Don't get me wrong, I love the gigantic desk he built for me last summer. However, at this point in my life I just don't paper craft anymore. I make pretty much everything. I sew, I take pictures, I make home decor, and not just for me anymore either. I have friends that come over and play in here every so often. This room gets more traffic than my kitchen does and my kitchen is pretty darn busy all the time, given there is always something baking or cooking in there or a cake or cupcakes are being decorated there constantly.

Enter this hutch...

We got this hutch years ago. It looked really good in the past few houses we've lived in, but it isn't looking too hot in my current kitchen. This is why it's been sitting here empty for a couple of weeks. I can't quite convince myself that I like it or I want to keep it at all. The only thing that is keeping me from taking an axe and destroying this thing is the fact that it is built good. It is an antique. So I am spending a couple of warm days to get it to my liking, otherwise, it is out the door.

This armoire on the other hand is a keeper. This used to house our computer, it is now the house for my die cutting machines, my wireless printer and other things I don't use all the time. I am not sure if I want to re-do it yet, we'll see...

I am tackling this wall very soon. The canvas print is going to be finished too.

Lots of little things on my to-do list. Here's hoping it warms up soon so I can finish all of them and I can fly out of here for a while and visit some really important people who I haven't seen in a few years.

Speaking of wanting to see some people, this year for my birthday, I decided I would shut my facebook timeline posting down. I love social media. I connect with a lot of my family and friends there. While it is true that you can connect with people there, it is also the most impersonal place to hang out at. Although I know that there are people that love me and vise versa on there, there also people on there who just say things just because it is easy, not because they mean what they say.

So this year, I made sure nobody can post HAPPY BIRTHDAY on my timeline... and it was awesome!!! One, my phone didn't blow up from all the happy birthdays. Two, my timeline didn't get flooded with greetings from people I don't normally talk to. Three, all the people that really care, found a way to get a hold of me and didn't grumble because they couldn't post on my timeline.

It's crazy how I say it is the most impersonal place to hang out at but people take everything that they read or see on there very personal and get upset about things that most of the time have nothing to do with them.

This year, I promised to myself to make it a point see or personally talk to all the people I love. I am not quitting facebook, however, it won't be my major hang out, it never was in the first place. There is more to life than staring at our computers all day and creeping on other people's facebook pages. Make something pretty. Get a hobby. Learn to do something. Go outside and enjoy the sunshine. As for me, I am going to visit the ones I haven't seen in forever... because seeing pictures of them on facebook just doesn't quite do the job! :)

See you soon!!!

Week in the Life

2013-02-06T13:50:00.000-06:00

I started a new project. It's called Week in the Life. I follow Ali Edwards' blog and I love how she has developed these systems that are easy to work into daily life. I used to be a 12x12 scrapbooker, but I just couldn't find the time to think about design, layout, etc. It was just a lot to think about so I was more than excited to find Ali in the blogosphere. :)

Week in the Life carries the Project Life concept of simply filling in pockets with pre-sized photos, journaling cards or filler cards except it looks at the more routine-ish stuff in your day. In my case, you will probably see a lot of photos of my craft room, the projects I am working on, photos of my hand while I sew, or paint swatches because this is me, and this is how my days go. I spend most of my days creating or imagining or planning if I am not with my Aunt Betty. [the beauty of not having children... yet! is there is a lot of time to spend on creativity and such!]

I started last week. I downloaded and printed the daily sheets pdf. It's free so print away. And I went to town with all the information and snapped photos like I always do. I have been using my phone a lot lately since it is the most accessible, it is always with me. Even the photos in this blog post are from my phone [I have the Samsung Galaxy S3]. I use Camera+ and Camera Zoom fx. I love both apps. I know you can get Camera+ for the iPhone and the iPad and Android phones but I am not too sure about Camera Zoom fx for the iPhone. I edit my photos with Snapseed, it's what I use all the time and I highly recommend it.

The binder I'm using is from Sn@p Studios by Simple Stories. It is 6x8. Much smaller than my Project Life album, which makes it very manageable and less time consuming given there aren't as much spaces to fill. As for the jounraling cards, I just used the leftovers of the free printables I downloaded and printed at home. All the rest of the elements are either applied to the photos digitally using supplies from my digital stash, or manually stamped. I own a good amount of Studio AE stamps thanks to all the coupons from my favorite craft stores both online and in-store. I get most of mine from Archivers.

My husband, John and I send text messages and/or emails back and forth during the day... Everyday. Before he quit smoking, he used to call me at lunch but when he quit [seven months ago], we stuck to just texting and emailing since he has no reason to go outside anymore. It's like second nature to us. We have been doing this even before we got married. So I had to include screenshots of our SMS conversations or emails especially that we had the most interesting conversations last week.

A part of me is enjoying this creative clutter that I have going on [on top of my desk] and a part of me is just cringing and wanting to just clean it all up! But it has been almost two weeks of creativity around here. I like a good balance of activity, I hate monotony. So I change things up every so often and it has done me good so far. I am never without anything to do. Even when I watch TV I'm either crocheting or journaling or working on an art journal spread... thus the accumulation on my desktop.

Up there in the photo is Asta, he is the family dog. My Mom and Dad-in-law live just a few blocks away from us, we see them quite often. But last Saturday we had to be there especially for a birthday party and because I had promised Mom I would help her with her coffee-table-into-ottoman-transformation since I had done it before here. Soon as I sat the cushion down into the coffee table, Asta jumps in and never leaves! And then the next day my Mom-In-Law sends me a photo of him laying on it again as she was watching TV. He is such a doll!

I still have a couple of photos to add for Sunday but this is what Sunday looked like around here. It snowed early that morning. I made red velvet cupcakes with a chocolate ganache filling and cream cheese frosting for the superbowl party we hosted. We have been hosting it for the past 3 years if memory serves me right. It's always a great time and the food is always good. The women hang out in the kitchen and gab while the men watch the ball game. This year was spent planning what our friend, Tina is doing to her kitchen. She is a DIY enthusiast and she has an eye for design.

All in all, the whole week has been great and I love that I started Week In the Life. I love looking through the pages a few weeks/months later. Maybe this week I will be able to clear my desk of all the "creative clutter" and start making a new mess.

Laterz gatorz,

Project Life 2013

2013-01-29T13:30:00.001-06:00

Hi all! It is a cloudy, but warm day here. It feels weird to see 65 degrees on my weather app given that we are in the middle of winter. When these things happen though, I do get tempted to put summer clothes on only to be let down the next day or so because we will be right back down to the 30's, if not, even lower temps!

Since the weather has kind of been yucky since Sunday, I have been doing most of my work in the craft room and getting caught up with stuff, especially my Project Life album. I have been doing a lot of editing and resizing in the past couple of days. It's usually fun if you only have like five or ten photos but when you have more than a hundred, it sucks! And it only gets worse when you are like me, I get into this zone where so suddenly I get action-crazy. So I get stuck staring at my computer screen for at least three hours editing and resizing photos. But that is just the nerd inside me. I love making use of my gear until they all fall apart. I get my money's worth [well, really, my husband gets his money's worth] that way. He is my very generous financier. *winks*

I have been a scrapbooker since I learned how to glue things into stuff. Although I didn't know what to call the stuff I was doing to my composition books and planners in high school, I have been an art journaler! My friends and I would draw random shapes in random colors on each page and just go crazy with them until we fill the whole spread up. It's just sad that I never did keep any of the books. They didn't have any value to me then because it was just an outlet to let certain feelings out. And, I was in high school, and young and reckless.

It was in college when I got into scrapbooking. For some reason, I am drawn to very creative people. Towards the end of our college gig, we decided we were going to build a scrapbook of our experience as obeservers and student teachers, document all of our community outreaches [this is a requirement back home], and just put into words all that we felt in the last five years. However, we didn't get to keep them either because the college dean thought it was such a great idea that we did that so to have examples for future students she kept them. My college buddies and I were pretty tight with our College Dean. She kind of mothered all of us all through the five years we were there.

I am still a scrapbooker to this day, however, I have found a system that really really works for me, Project Life. And this time, I am keeping all the books! :) It was kind of hard in the past few years to get any scrapbooking done, because we were either moving or renovating the house or doing other stuff. I had known of Project Life since it came out because I am a nerd and I am constantly on the internet looking for new things to try. But I didn't commit to it until my birthday last year. I vowed to never waste a moment.

I started doing it weekly like most, but I found that it was more comfortable for me to do it pretty much every three months or every season [summer, fall, winter and spring]. The only down side to it is that you do get a lot of photos to edit and print if you are like me and just keep RAW files on my computer until it's time to put them in the book.

I love Project Life because it will work no matter if I do it weekly, or monthly or daily. It is also easy. Last year, when I started I really didn't buy the core kit. I just ordered the page protectors and got to work. I used my digital scrapbooking stash to digitally make my journaling cards, fillers and title cards to keep the cost low while I am still seeing if I was going to stick to it or not. It required some work, but I was willing to do all that to keep from investing on something that I will eventually quit. But after almost a year of doing it, I have decided, I am sticking to it.

I don't take photos just so I could look at them on my computer or post them on facebook, or keep them in flickr or the iCloud. I take them because they reflect what life looks like to me at the moment, they tell a story about how I am feeling at a certain day and what we are doing to our house or why we are changing or keeping things. It is my life. It is John's life and mine mashed up in a book of photos and funny, sometimes sad, and mostly crazy stories on the side without worrying about composition, page design or what elements to use. I just get out what I think I need, I stamp here, I stamp there and, voila! All of summer is done! I also do a lot of die-cutting, heat and dry embossing... because this girl is a tool addict.

There are also a ton of free stuff out there, like the journaling card above, I downloaded that for free as PDF files and you just print it and cut them out. They are pre-sized to fit the pockets so there's no measuring involved.

The stamps I use, I already own. I am very fond of Ali Edwards stamps, you can get them from Technique Tuesday or Archivers [both the stores and online]. I usually get mine from the store, every time I get a coupon in the mail, I am there buying Studio AE stamps. :) But really, you can use whatever you already have, there are no rules.

I enjoy outsourcing, but I do print almost all of my photos at home to save me time and money. I have an awesome CIS (Continuous Ink System) that I got last year right before I started Project Life. We got a new wireless Epson Artisan printer to replace the older all-in-one Canon that we had. It wasn't wireless and when we switched from PC to Apple computers, we saw no need to be hooking up anything to our desktop so we saved up some money and got a good wireless Epson printer. :) But right before we went through the ink tanks that came with our printer, my inner nerd kicked in to gear and got to looking for a much affordable way to print at home because when you are married to a teacher, worse, a band director the printer never sleeps! But that's okay, because that's what we got the printer for in the first place.

So in my search for the best way to be printing at home, I bumped into the CIS systems on amazon. Our printer has 5 tanks. To buy all of them it was gonna be around $80-$100 for the good quality ink. Whereas if I bought the CIS system, it would cost me $40 [on sale price] upfront and maybe that will be it for a while just until it is time to refill. So soon as I saw the price go down from $79 to $40, I jumped all over it. One year later, we are still 3/4 of the tanks full! And the pictures come out absolutely like they were supposed to. The CIS system by the way is composed of tanks that sit right by your printer, they hold all the ink, then it has these little adjoined tubes that go into the cartridges in your printer. It's like I.V. for your printer if that makes sense! lol It is best for printers whose cartridges do not travel or move while a print job is being done. The cartridges in our Epson Artisan printer are all stationary so it works for us.

I just make sure that I buy the Epson photo paper. This is one thing I don't actually cut corners with. I have tried many photo papers before and so far the Epson brand is the best, in my opinion. I get them from Amazon. It also helps that I have a Prime membership so I get them in one or two days. :)

However, if you just want to order photos, I personally love Persnickety Prints. I've ordered digital 12x12 pages from them before and the prints were awesome! :) But if you are in a hurry, going to the drugstore won't hurt either plus they also give you coupons with your print orders. So that works too.

For some, it may be a hundred different things, but for me, memory keeping keeps me aware of what's going on around me. Looking through all the photos and reading all that I wrote makes me thankful, it reminds me about how good I have it compared to other people. It makes me happy to see that I have been blessed with all these wonderful people in my life. Memory keeping most of all keeps me humble. Looking back five or six years ago, John was in the pits and given that I was married to him, I was in the same place as he was. How we crawled out of that hole was by the grace of God. And how we got to where we are now, is a miracle worth celebrating every single day.

My books do not just consist of good times... There are bad times in it too, except most of those go into my art journal that no one has seen.

John and I have come a long, long way. Looking through all the books from years past, gets me teary. Everyone always told us we make a good team, and we didn't believe that until we pulled ourselves out of the rut we were in. It also helped that along the way, we have met such great friends who have pulled for us since day 1 and with the support of a great family, there was no way we were losing any battles. :) And I am soooo glad I documented all that because every time I get to feeling awful, I look through my books and I feel fine... Whatever it is that was getting me down, I knew, it, too, shall pass like everything else we have had to go through.

So for the year 2013, I am set. I did order the core kit this time for a more cohesive look. I am still going to do it three months at a time because this works well with my schedule. This doesn't mean I won't be taking pictures every day because that is like NOT eating to me! lol I may however change the way I print my photos, I will probably start printing at a regular basis so I don't get stuck with 158 photos to edit and resize all at the same time.

Memory keeping is so fun because it IS a form of counting your blessings. Can anyone be any more thankful when you are saying it with pretty paper, some artistry, great heartfelt writing and awesome photographs? I don't think so. *winks*

Bring it 2013!

25 Random Things

2013-01-25T15:49:00.000-06:00

Hello friends! Thank God it's Friday!!! This week has been nothing but work, work, work. And I am glad that the weekend is here. I've been working on my 2013 to-do list. I know, I'm getting started early. John and I usually wait until spring, but as I was looking at my list the other day, I saw a couple of things that I could absolutely do by myself [i.e. painting walls, re-organizing closets, you know the easy stuff!] and that's how I got started.

Also, I have been very contemplative and silly lately and I've been thinking about stuff that I do and choices that I've made then and now that are just so weird [refer to #5, #6 and #7]. So I got to working on these 25 Random Things About Me, and maybe some of you are just like me or maybe the total opposite. :) But, who cares? This is just for fun!

1) My blog has a new look! And, I finally got my own domain. It is now cookbakesewcraftrepeat.com

2) I did not used to know how to sew.

3) With a little help and encouragement from family and friends I can sew now.

4) I am working on re-upholstering a piece of furniture

5) I don't like pink

6) But, I have a pink craft room

7) I own pretty much all Apple [Mac] products but I will never buy an iPhone

8) I love everything that is wireless or cordless, mini, and anything jarred

9) I adore paper lanterns. Fact: I have 3 in my craft room, all lighted, too

10) I haven't gotten the flu this year without getting the flu shot

11) I choose tech gear and more practical gifts over jewelry or flowers

12) I chose a new roof for a wedding gift over any other stupid material thing

13) I was given a house for a Christmas gift one year [our current house]

14) i have always had an obsession for pens and markers

15) I hang out with a funny bunch of senior folks every Wednesday

16) We don't drink any soda at our house

17) Crocheting is a new skill I just recently added to my repertoire [Thanks to my Mom-In-Law for being such a patient teacher!]

18) Design-wise, nothing in my house stays the same longer than 6 months.

19) Christmas is my favorite holiday

20) Every time it snows, I put on my shorts, t-shirt and flipflops and I get out and run around in it for a good 5 minutes [in my backyard of course!]

21) On Sundays when I can't go to church, I feel really weird.

22) I can bake and cook like you won't believe but I don't eat any of what I make

23) I rarely answer phone calls. Text me! Only very close friends and family's phone calls get answered.

24) I am still allergic to anything alcoholic

25) I love love love love being my husband's wife. :)

I'm Back!

2013-01-07T20:17:00.000-06:00

Oh how great it is to be back in blog-land! It has been a while friends and I am so happy that I have finally gotten the chance to sit down and relax.

My excitement for the holidays have brought me into this hiatus. Spending every day pretty much doing what I do every day anyway except when I baked, I baked in huge batches because I get extremely generous during the holidays. It all felt great! Also with all the baking, I also did a lot of sewing and broke both of my sewing machines while I was making my own table napkins. Yes, both!

I had picked up a set of napkins at the store before I decided to make my own but the white seemed boring. Then I went and looked, but none suited me. So I made my own! And I love the punch of color it added to my table.

I did end up with six chairs before the holidays came so I added to the whole repertoire as the holidays drew near. I busted out all our silver, goblets, apothecary jars, and everything we have that shimmers and all that smell good and set the table like we were hosting a fancy dinner every night. But really, the reason why I did this is because other than I want the table and the kitchen to look pretty all the time, I also want to discourage people from throwing their stuff on my table, cluttering it. It is a pet peeve of mine. *winks*

So other than our cat, Voodoo, no one has had the guts to mess up this pretty set up. Nobody dared touch the fragile stuff either, not even John. He is the bearer and the spreader of all clutter in this house. :)

During my short hiatus, I also managed to host a few dinners with teenagers and adults both and a new year's eve party, learn how to crochet [now working on an afghan] and managed to get a very brand spanking new sewing machine for Christmas! I had such a wonderful time during the holidays hosting parties and having people over and sharing great food. There is nothing better to do but this.

My girls Natalie and Megan making cookies for the other kids that were coming to our Ugly Christmas Sweater party.


Thumbprint cookies with a strawberry preserve topping and chocolate ganache

I also shopped... a bunch! This fruit bowl is an awesome buy from Crate and Barrel. I got it when we had to go to the actual store to pick up one of John's gifts for me at the store. :) You can see the bottom of said gift in the background. He got me the piano white clock!

Here's John attempting to eat a whole pie during Christmas morning. He did eat the whole pie by the way.

And here's said clock from John hanging in my kitchen! I love weird- looking things.

And then, it snowed. Then I was happy. I love snow. But it's not nice to be stuck... So...

the awesomest Dad ever came to the rescue and brought the snow blower so we can get out of our garage. :)

Snow is sooo beautiful at night. I enjoy taking pictures of it and of the things it covers.

I also got a new phone. If you ask John he will say "Yeah, she stole my upgrade." I did take his upgrade but I didn't steal it, but given the circumstances I did steal it. My phone broke four months before my contract is up.

And, yes, I do listen to a lot of Puddle of Mudd and other noisy things. The creative part of my brain functions better with noise, the kind I like. And I love my Samsung Galaxy S3.

NYE dessert

My wonderful husband put up a new light for my craft room.

The best gift for myself ever! I got me a glass top for my craft desk so I don't have to worry about dumping paint or anything on it.

John binged one day at the Guitar Center and bought him a guitar

Also, during the holidays, I have been wanting to re-do the pillows on my sofa but couldn't quite figure it out how I could do that because I was very sure I wasn't buying new pillows because I already have a ton to start with. So, I decided to I was going to venture into making pillow covers with piping. Since I moved to the states and realized how expensive it is to have anything tailored to your liking, I made it a point to learn and hone every skill I have in my arsenal and do whatever it takes to get good. I'm just thankful, I have a husband and a whole family of supporters and encouragers.

You wouldn't know me to be a Susie Homemaker looking back 7 or 8 years ago. A lot has happened since then. I have grown up and have realized there IS more to life. My priorities have insanely changed and my outlook has widened way beyond I thought it would after I got married. And I am loving every single second of it all. There is not a better feeling knowing that what I do matters a great deal and I am grateful for all these gifts I have been blessed with that I didn't know existed until I married the most wonderful, most supportive man. He is really handy too and he is the reason why I could pull off most of the things that I do. :)

So I am back. I'm hoping to post more recipes and projects on here very very soon.

Laterz,

Chocolate Chip Cookies, etc

2012-11-14T20:13:00.005-06:00

Hello friends! Hope everyone has had a great mid-week. It's been kind of a run-all-errands kind of day for me and by the time I got done with all of it, I was ready to crash but alas, I still had supper to make. So I did that too. When I got dinner out of the way, I remembered I did have a recipe I wanted to try. I've told you all so many times how when I want to relax, I bake. So here I go...

This thing has been all over twitter... Chocolate Chip Cookies with cornstarch. Really, take out the baking powder and use the same amount of cornstarch as you would baking powder. The claim is: They are supposed to be soft when they bake and the batter should have an ice cream like texture.

And these are my findings:

the batter is thicker and ice cream-like.
the dough retains its shape as it bakes [given you use a scoop and not a regular spoon to portion the dough out] check out how mounded the baked cookies are in the photo below.
it doesn't brown up as rapidly as the regular chocolate chip cookie dough with baking powder. Usually at about 9 minutes, chocolate chip cookies would be golden brown. These weren't. But I took them out of the oven anyway because they looked done [and they were].
According to my taste testers they are SOFT and GOOEY. To quote what Will said when he took his first bite, "Oh my God, this is soooo amazing!" And I believe him, because he rarely says anything about anything. So when he speaks, believe that every word that comes out of his mouth is from his heart.

The photo below is the second batch of dough that I baked for 10 minutes instead of the usual 8. They don't have darker brown edges, which I LOVE. I do not like burned cookie dough, it's bitter. Gross. I looked at the bottoms of them and they weren't burned either.

So guess what cookie recipe is going to make it in my holiday baking this year? I think you already can tell! :) I will share the recipe soon as I am able to transcribe all these gibberish that I wrote down on my notebook while I was baking the cookies.

Also, I did get a new addition to my kitchen last night. My facebook friends on my personal account have seen photos of it because I got excited and just went crazy and posted them. Here's a pic.

This used to be just an empty little corner behind our kitchen island and I have been wanting so bad to have a place for our Keurig because even how much we love it, it does take a ton of counter space... So my handy dandy husband put this together for me and now this little space doesn't seem so lonely anymore. I didn't want anything too permanent here because a double wall oven is in the cards for this room when it's time to replace the appliances, which isn't soon. The cabinet is from Ikea. I love the red and the glass on the top drawer. It's darling. There is a runner on top because we are getting a glass top for it and we don't want to ruin the top before we could protect it.

I am grateful for a really handy husband. :) He is just the best. Everything that is in this nook is a gift from him. He knows me too well and I've said this over and over again in multiple posts, I am not the girl to buy flowers or jewelry for. I'm very highly allergic to pollen, it's like poison to me... And I don't have any use for jewelry. Period. So he buys me stuff that I actually enjoy using from stores that I enjoy shopping from [Crate and Barrel, CB2, Pottery Barn, Pier 1, West Elm, Ikea, Restoration Hardware, Anthropologie, etc] He adds into it every time he feels generous, which is always. :) That's one of the reasons why I love him.

Laterz,

Hello There!

2012-11-01T22:46:00.000-05:00

Hello!

I hope everyone has had a nice Halloween. We didn't do anything halloweeny [no, that's not a word]. I am not a big fan of the holiday. It seems to me like it happens, kids/people overload on candy and then nothing... So I don't invest time or money on it. I did end up channeling my energies into other things, like play with my Silhouette. :)

I finally got a Silhouette Cameo early in October. I say 'finally' because I have been planning on getting it for like a year and a half now and I got it at an unbelievably low price. Getting it was one of those right place, right time kind of thing. My Cameo only set me back $70 as opposed to the $269 price tag it has on Amazon or anywhere else. And it was very very brand new when I got it because the person I bought it from did not want it at all.

I have played with it a ton. And I have cut quite a bit of stuff from it... and I am very very impressed by all that I learned about the Silhouette Cameo in comparison to my Cricut Expression and the other stuff I have that has to do with the Cricut. Here's my list:

1) The Cameo doesn't require cartridges, unlike the Cricut. However you do need a computer with the Silhouette machines. But what crafter/paper crafter doesn't have one nowadays? Also, as a Cricut owner, it is an awful feeling paying $20 for a cartridge just so I would get the one or two images I have my eyes on. The Silhouette images only cost 0.99 cents a piece and you can cut any .PNG, .JPG files you have on your arsenal. And if you have the Designer Studio software, you can cut .SVG files too.

2) The design software for the Cameo comes free with it. I paid at least $20 for the Cricut software. My bestfriend, Sara and I got ours from ebay and spent days, maybe weeks waiting for the right deal to come around. Then I spent at least $40 on Sure-Cuts-A-Lot just so I could use the fonts on my computer and non-Cricut .SVG files without depending on my cartridges.

3) You had me at Print and Cut! Yes, the Silhouette has this capability and I didn't have to buy a totally different machine. I am able to print any image through my printer and cut them in my Cameo.

4) The detailed cuts are SUPERB! I can't tell you all how happy I was when I found out that I could load my vinyl into the machine without the mat! You could certainly NOT do this with the Cricut and there is no guarantee the Cricut blade won't rip your vinyl either. I am loving the presets on the Silhouette software.

5) I love the weight of the Cameo compared to the Cricut. I have tried to lug my Cricut around with me in the past, and none of them was a pleasant experience. I could probably load my Cameo in a plastic sack, that's how light-weight it is.

6) The learning curve. To me, there is/was none. I am used to using the Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and I am used to using paths, layers, adjustments etc. So for me, it was easy transitioning from the Cricut to the Silhouette.

I may have forgotten to mention some stuff, but the bottom line is, I love my Cameo. It is totally so much better than what I am used to.

John, my Husband has been wanting me to do this for a long long time. But I couldn't do it with my Cricut. I had forgotten about it until a couple of days ago while I was playing with the Illustrator and I bumped into it. So I laid the stuff out on AI and went to cutting this morning.

I also made this last week...

After I painted our kitchen, I found that getting rid of the wallpaper in there also required starting from scratch decorating-wise. So I really can't show much of it right now. It is in the works and John and I are in the process of figuring out the route we want to go design-wise for our kitchen because it has taken a totally different personality soon as I started rolling that grey paint on the walls. :) I wasn't surprised but it sure made me re-think our furniture choices and all kinds of other stuff.

One of the things I had to re-think was our window treatment/s

We only have one window in the kitchen, but we have french doors leading into our back porch and backyard. There used to be lace everywhere in this kitchen. I love lace. Every time I go window treatment shopping, when I see lace, the search is over. This time around though, I decided against it but this doesn't mean I don't have lace anywhere in my house now. I have them all in my craft room.

I've seen a ton of these [photo above] on Pinterest. So I decided I'd give it a shot. I am on a sewing kick so this is a No-Sew project. I actually sewed the slats onto my fabric to secure it. The only tricky part is making sure that all the slats are on straight otherwise, your shade won't cover your window like it's supposed to. The level was my bestfriend during this whole process!

In addition to my subway art, I also added a few other things... I made sure we had a place for precious gifts and memoirs from loved ones. I am working on a really special display for Grandma Turner, John's Granny. In the process of making this house ours, we also don't want to forget that she is responsible for us getting it, and we want to make sure we are reminded every day of her and how wonderful she was. :) I will make a post for it very soon.

I also did some shopping. Fall is when I do a lot of it because I love fall and winter, and this is also the time when summer clothes go on sale. So I go on a clicking frenzy online and spend most my days waiting for the UPS or the mailman to deliver the goods to me. I love shoes but we are very partial, we love Nike and I love Zappos.

Also got these gorgeous boots. They [may be] Nine West.

And last but definitely not the least, I put one of our trees up in the kitchen! :) To me, Christmas ALWAYS trumps halloween. I did buy two bags of candy, and made loots for my little buddies Reed and Riley [our friends' kids], everything else went to John's belly. He loves candy and he doesn't like sharing.

So, I really didn't miss Halloween. :) I have had a really great time the past couple of weeks getting my house ready for Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year. I am ready for Christmas most of all. It's my favorite holiday.

I'll be back soon for more updates. I am having a good old time working on our house. This has been a great year!

Laterz gatorz,

Twinkle

2012-10-30T21:12:00.000-05:00

There's so much darkness around. Let your light shine!!! :) Create. Be happy. Make something. Give someone a hug. Tell someone you love them.

Life is too short.

Take a Peek into my Craft Room and A Tidbit About a Very Wonderful Grandma

2012-10-01T12:05:00.000-05:00

Hey friends! :) I am feeling pretty darn good this morning so I thought I'd let you in to the room where all the creative magic happens, my craft room. There has not been a lot of crafting going on there lately as it's been kind of work-on-the-house-by-myself projects kind of month. John has been very very busy doing the things he loves and what little time he could spend with me at home, we usually spend going on day trips or antique shopping or just plain ole shopping for him mostly. I'm not good with going through racks unless I know exactly what I want and where to get it, I just get on my computer, click 'add to cart' and 'check out' then wait for them to come to me. :)

Okay back to my craft room.

It is currently a work in progress because my handy man is busy drumming. It's all about to end though. I think they only have one more month of competitions and parades. Yipee! And then, maybe in the next few months or so, this craft room will be finished... Well, you know, for a while until I change my mind on some things and then we will be back and at it again.

This is what you see when you enter from the kitchen. There's a huge stack of magazines that I am going through on the left, they will be taken to the recycle center very very soon.

Meet my desk... There's been a lot of Project Life going on here, I also sew on this desk for now since my sewing station is yet to be built. But this table is so sturdy, it's not even funny. John built this thing to last.

My desktop by the way is almost 3/4 of a piece of plywood. It's pretty spacious, so spacious, all my junk is on top of it including the new adapter that Apple sent to me for my laptop FOR FREE because I panicked and I thought my charger broke! I called and told them, and they gladly said, we will send you a new one for free in three days. I love their customer service. Three days and tadah! I got a new adapter. And oh, my old adapter wasn't broken. Not sure what happened really and it wouldn't work, at least now, I have a back up one, right?! :)

And here is what John calls the "Pen Station" [pun intended! LOL] I do have a lot of pens and markers. I am a scrapbooker and crafter after all. I love to journal and doodle. I'm a girl and I like shoes and clothes but not as much as I LOVE shopping for new pens and markers.

As for desktop storage, I am still on the lookout for some really cool, chic, good quality ones. I just don't have the heart to spend hard-earned money on flimsy storage especially the ones that I am going to be constantly moving or using...

To the right of my desk is this big window facing our front yard. This is where I get to watch people. Every so often, I get to watch my next door neighbor rinse out oil cans on the [sewer] grate, our neighbors are mostly old-er people, so they are bound to be very DIY-ish. They do their own oil changes. Also, I get to watch him clean out his paint brushes. So I pretty much know what colors they are in the mood for. They paint A LOT! I have weird-er neighbors than that, but that's for another post! lol

This view just makes me happy. This photo was taken when it first rained after the drought all summer. So my berm looks a little sickly at this point. It doesn't look like that anymore.

If I was going to go outside, this is what I see. Pretty, isn't it?

And here's more of the tray of random pens and markers, ink pads, and other small tools I use pretty much all the time. Those two cups are both gifts from John. Unlike him, I use cups for storage not for coffee. :) In the background is my cube storage that someone is going to inherit when my built-in goes up that wall. Right now it's just holding a bunch of supplies and crafting tools I don't normally use all the time and seasonal stuff. It also holds little things that used to hang on my slot boards in the other house.

I love these cubbies! I bought these small Sterilite bins back in early August at the back-to-school section in Walmart. They were inexpensive and they fit so I loaded up my cart with six of them, made tags and voila! Storage! They hold adhesive, frequently-used clear stamps and punches, well everything that I use all the time really.

There's more storage planned on this side of the room. I am leaving it pretty much all blank because I don't want to be putting holes on the walls that I will later regret. All my pictures are hung on existing hangers or Command Strips. There's nothing more aggravating than filling in holes and patching them up. It's a lot of work!

And here's a view of the other side. This corner of the room has evolved so much in a mere three months! And it is going to evolve some more in the coming weeks/months soon as I get my handy man back.

Other than my storage search issues, I really have been loving crafting here. Like John always tells me, we are not cutting corners in this house, everything will be done right and we are not going to waste money on 'temporary' fixes, instead, we will save up and do it right the first time because after all it is OUR time and OUR money that gets wasted when we half-do anything. And I believe him. We've made those mistakes before.

Coming from a place where help is not expensive, where everything that has to be done can be paid done, and a non-DIYing family, I believe I have done well! I've never worked so hard on something in my life as I have all the houses we have lived in. And the current house holds more meaning to us, but more importantly to John because this is his Granny's. He was very very close to her and her to him. So we are loving it like she would've loved it if she still lived here. Trust me when I say this: that woman had style! I know this from all the stuff we inherited from her. She had impeccable taste in furniture, and she took care of all of them too. She had no idea that all the time she put into taking care of her furniture would spare John and I from all the expenditure of buying new [crap quality] furniture when we first got married! That is just one thing amongst all the many things that she has done [without knowing it!] for us.

I didn't get to meet her, she lost her battle with cancer a decade or so ago... but she is one who I have grown to love and adore through the family she has left behind, and most especially through the grandson she so dearly loved who, I hope she knows has turned out to be a wonderful husband and friend to me. He is such a jewel!

Inheriting her house has been very emotional for John. Everything that we do here we do with so much care and we intend to do that for as long as we live here. :)

John's Mom always says, "I'm sure she is looking down at you kids with a smile on her face."

I really hope she is.

Right Now...

2012-09-27T13:02:00.000-05:00

Right now, I am sick as a dog but I am a happy girl. I've had a whirlwind of projects around here... and all of them [the end results, that is] so far have been nothing short of gorgeous.

Right now, I am looking at photos of what my kitchen used to look like [roughly 6-8 months ago] and how it looks now after I labored on it for a whole week. A couple of gallons of paint and hours and hours of taping and careful painting just makes the biggest of difference!

This last photo was obviously taken on Mother's Day. :) I couldn't find a photo that has no people in it... [Sorry, Mom! lol]

Right now, I'm physically exhausted but my heart is full knowing that not an ounce of energy that I spent updating my most favorite room in the house has not been wasted. At all. I spend most of my days in my kitchen if I am not out and about with the Aunt Betty.

Right now... I am realizing that I am in no way shape or form done. There's lots to do. But this is the fun part! The nightmare [a.k.a. Painting and Taping] is mostly over.

Right now... there's no photos of the other side of my kitchen because there's a mess of stuff laying on my island. I'm getting ready to make supper and I am unloading and loading the dishwasher. :) Just a lot going on.

Right now, I am putting together a feast. My very busy husband has no percussion/band rehearsal tonight, thank God, so I could make supper and not have to worry about fixing something quick and don't have to watch him eat and hurry out the door. This is a rarity around this time of year for us.

Right now... Alka Seltzer Plus is my best friend.

Right now, I am browsing iTunes for a new good book to read.

Right now, I wish I could share all the other projects I've been working on, but none of them are ready to be photographed. There's lots of picking up and cleaning up to do yet.

Right now, my cup runneth over. I am just so thankful for all the people in our lives and all the things that we have been blessed with. Also thankful for all the energy, I don't know where it's coming from, but around this time of year, I get a surge [of energy] and I am up and at it until the wee hours or until I am finished.

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DIY: { Fall Wreath + Monogram }

2012-09-07T20:38:00.002-05:00

Hello friends! :) After the dry and nasty summer, I am sooo in the mood for fall. I can't wait to bust my hoodies, jeans and boots out. I'm just ready for cooler temps now.

Soon as the rain hit about a week or a week and a half ago, I went shopping for plants and got started weeding and pulling out [dead] weeds, busted out the water hose and dressed up my front porch for fall.

...and I am in the process of decorating my house for the fall and winter festivities. We don't really have Thanksgiving at our house because we go to my in-laws for that but we do have our friends over all the time because I cook/bake like a maniac when it's cold outside.

So to kick start the craziness, I made a fall wreath, which was inspired by this. :) I by no means did not invent this this wreath. I'm pretty sure someone in blog land and the internetzz has made one like it. But I don't care, I wanted to make one and wanted to share with you all what I ended up with.

I was going through the thrift store originally for furniture I could maim, paint and re-purpose which was rather disappointing because I didn't find any that suited me but alas, I saw a pile of old Christmas tree ornaments, yarn and wreaths. And I came out of that store $4.50 poorer.

So here's what I got, I bought 4 boxes of whatever ornaments they had in that pile, I looked through the yarn they had and got the yellow, brown and orange, the white I already had and so did the glue sticks and time. Yeah, I have a lot of time in my hands. lol

Some of these pics are from my phone. [excuse the quality]

My 25 cent wreath.

I just took off the tops off of the ornaments and got to wrapping. There is no certain way to do this, just wind that yarn on the ornaments or foam balls [whatever you have] until you could barely see a trace of it under all the wound yarn.

And then glue them to your wreath. :)

And here's what you will end up with! But, like the crazy person I am I thought it needed one more thing! How about A MONOGRAM?!

So I got to work and busted out my Cricut and my deep cut blade and cut an R from heavy weight chipboard and wrapped it in orange yarn and attached it to my wreath.

Here I am cutting different sizes on regular cardstock before I cut into my precious chipboard, to make sure I get the size I want and the right font style too. I didn't need to hook my Cricut to my laptop for this, I have enough font cartridges to give me enough options. I actually used the cartridge that went with my machine when I bought, Plantin Schoolbook. I cut my monogram at 5 1/2 inches and even if I used a deep cut blade, I did multi-cut my image just to make sure I get a really clean crisp cut. I do this anyway even with the regular blad and regular weight cardstock. :)

Now scroll down!

And, I am done... with this wreath at least. And I am quite happy with it. :) Now, if I can just think up something I could hang outside for winter... Hmmmm...

Laterz gators,

What's Been Going On...

2012-09-06T01:20:00.002-05:00

It's been a summer of DIY projects, home decorating, lots of swimming and tons of fun with friends and family around here. :) It has also been so hot and dry that most of the work happened indoors and we are just now doing the damage control from the drought outdoors.

We didn't get to go on the road trip we planned on taking but after all that has happened and all the progress we've made in the new house, we absolutely wouldn't have it any other way. We'll take the road trip some time in the next few months or so. We have plenty of time for trips, but we need to make our house a home first and foremost.

John built me a desk. I painted it this beautiful aqua. Then he bought me the hydraulic bar stools for me to sit on while crafting. I was so tickled because he knew I was getting frustrated with all that I was seeing both online and in stores, so he went on a search on his own. He knew exactly what to get and why he believed I would like them... and surely enough when he brought them home, I was happy as a clam!

Here's one truth about me, I can't do just one project at a time. When I get started on one, all these other ideas pop in my head and depending on the availability of energy and funds, I get started on a couple or a few more. So while this desk was being built, I was working on picking out paint for John's music room. You can see it here.

John was very firm about wanting gray for his room... And gray he got. I'm married to a very selfless man, he will do anything for me and will give me the moon and the stars if I asked for it. So when he asks for little things like his own room, or gray paint or my old desk, I give it all to him. No questions asked.

I even cut the Pearl logo on his bass drum head for him. He wanted a sticker, was getting ready to buy one but soon as he realized it was not gonna look good on his set or probably not going to be the size he wanted , he sweet talked me into busting out my Cricut and cutting out the logo for him. Guess what he got? A Pearl logo. Yes, that logo on the bass drum is cut by YOURS TRULY, thanks to my handy dandy die cutting software that makes cutting all kinds of images possible. :)

We made this snare drum lamp too! I wish I took photos of the process, but it's so easy anyone can do this. It's the coolest thing in his room except I have to figure out a way to conceal cords. I'm just not satisfied with wrapping the cord with fabric. Given that this room took some work and a lot of patience to put together, I want it to be clean. And I don't wanna have to keep fixing it.

The lantern below is what inspired the drum lamp. I found a couple of brand new Ikea light kits during one of my thrift store excursions for $cheap so the next time I go to World Market I snagged two paper lanterns and got the two for $5 after discounts. :) I made this whole thing myself in two afternoons.

And here it is hanging in my pink/craft room. Such a gorgeous light piece!

With all the chaos going on with my craft room getting put together and John's room too, I painted our old wax-ruined end table. It's now sitting in my pink room underneath my coffee filter lantern.

I also sewed curtains for John's music room, I made a wristlet/s for my iPad out of scrap fabric, I made camera straps out of scarves I bought last year, and worked on Project Life at the same time while planning Vacation Bible School, too.

Recently, I painted our hallway. I painted it pewter, a color I wouldn't have chosen for our two or three other houses in the past. We've gotten a lot braver with our color choices this time around, I believe. The wall hangings are by me too. The pictures on the right are from Flickr.

Then, an idea about a fabric-covered button turned into a coffee table converted into a tufted [end of the bed] bench that John and I are so so so in-love with!

We already had the coffee table and I had it sitting on the foot of the bed since we moved here. It had two glass tops that I had to constantly clean because, yes, it's glass! Glass is a pain on the neck! And it didn't used to be while, it used to have a maple-ish finish, but I thought I'd paint it so it would match our bed side tables. Then some fabric, foam, batting and the fabric covered buttons I made, and I have a bench.

I'm sure I forgot something, but I'll share some more pics here soon. :)

Laterz gators,

Fun Project: Swag Light

2012-07-17T19:16:00.000-05:00

Hello all! :) I have been doing some organizing and some changing around here [in my craft room]. This is the very first day that I have actually crafted in here, so I am very excited. This wasn't a difficult project I did today but it did take some time. In fact it's really not done yet but it will be tomorrow. I promise.

Remember this?

and this?

Not my husband but the striped paper lantern! lol Some hot glue gun burns, 300+ coffee filters and an hour and a half later, it is now this!

This was fun to make... except it took time and patience. It was easy too. I really really love how it looks now and I love how it looks like I have colorful bulbs inside when all it is is a reflection of the colorful stripes that are on the paper lantern. The photo below shows the process. Just kind of crumple up your coffee filters and hot glue them all one by one on your paper lantern.

Materials:

Paper Lantern [I got mine from the World Market for $2.50]
Coffee Filters [I used about 250-300]
Hot glue gun and glue sticks

I took the pompoms down by the way. But maybe they will look better when I put them back up given I don't have too many patterns and too much texture going on anymore. :)

This right here was where I got the idea...

from KCInteriors

Laterz gatorz,

[Pink Craft Room] Progress...

2012-07-14T22:25:00.000-05:00

Hey friends! This is as far as I we got today... Here is the desk. I still haven't decided what I want to do with the small cubbies in the front but the yellow bucket is starting to grow on me. :) The past couple of days, we have been doing a lot of measuring and planning. A built-in is going up on the wall where the pom-poms are. The husband is also building me two leaning ~~desks~~ book cases on the opposite side.

A lot of my stuff are stored in [open] bins but not in moving boxes anymore. I have easy access to them now, but I still want a better storage solution for them. It's just nice when everything is where I could see them so I don't forget that I have them.

The sheers on the windows are from my Mom-In-Law. She has awesome taste for window coverings and a whole lot of different things where home decorating is concerned and she knows I love to decorate and dress up windows, so I mostly inherit what she has and I have no problems at all using them in our house.

My Cricut Expression and my Cricut Cake finally have a home and they are accessible! I don't have to take them out of the closet or their caddies every time I want to use them. John [the husband] also got me two cool bar stools today as part of my anniversary gift to go with my desk. He knows me too well! We searched and searched all week for the right ones, it was very frustrating... So when he saw the stools online yesterday, he was like "Let's get them!"

And here he is modeling my paper lanterns. :) We don't have an Ikea close by, but during one of my thrifting trips, I bumped into ~~a set~~ two sets of brand new Ikea swag light kits for a buck a piece! I didn't have to think twice because the paper lanterns were already a part of the plan, we just didn't know that they were gonna light up too. [Score!] The picture on top of the one above, we are trying to figure out whether the pom-poms are staying or not or if we need to put all white or stagger the length of the pom-poms from the ceiling. Yeah, tough decision! lol But, the lanterns are definitely staying where they are at and a couple pieces of cable hiders and we should be set.

I still have a bunch of pieces going in this room. And will share photos as I finish them. This pink room will be a work in progress for a while... just until it all feels right and until our brains our fried from thinking of stuff to do or add or build.

This year's anniversary sure has been the best so far. It tops the one year when John built me a craft room from pretty much nothing. You can see it here. :) Maybe next time I see you all, I can give you a tour of the room.

Til the next post!

It's been a While...

2012-07-10T22:46:00.001-05:00

Hello folks! I know I have disappeared from the blogosphere for a long long time. All my bloggy friends will agree that three months is like forever in BlogLand. So sorry friends, there's just been too much going on here and I have been choosing to spend time with the husband before marching season formally starts [which is gonna be like in two weeks!] From then on, we rarely see each other anymore until about the end of October. He is a very busy man. It's a real gift that I've chosen to not to work, because I don't have my own schedule to complicate things. We've been through all that and it is NO FUN. We have been spending lots of time here:

So we have done quite a few things in the new home in the past three months. :) Lots of planning, lots of going back and forth trips to the home store and made a few beautiful changes. I will give you the deets on those later in the week. Today, I just want to show my husband off and this really really nice anniversary gift he has given me. He built me a craft desk for my new craft room! :)

It was sooo hot last week, we decided he will build the structure inside... But as the project progressed, it got bigger and bigger, so we kept inching into taking the job outside as close to the pool as possible. Our patio was a wreck until about 10 PM last night. But that's okay, I kept telling myself the rewards are well worth it.

Here he is [below] checking if the whole thing is level before I painted the top. :)

And here she is [below] sitting in the pink room. :) Excuse the mess... I am currently working on putting the room together. My stuff has been all over the place since we moved about eight or nine months ago. We should be good after we get this room put together. I actually made sure about three weeks ago that John's stuff would have a place to go before we started working on mine, because his stuff are bigger and they take space and he needs them for work and for PLAY most of all. He eats, breathes, drinks music every single day... him and his drums, guitar and his geeky music tech stuff are connected at the hip. :)

Note: The shopping list in the project plan wasn't right. John ended up a couple of boards short... but a few minutes spent looking around in the garage and he was back in business. He had some extra boards laying around in his garage from past projects we've done. So make sure you do the math on the cut list before you get on your way to the lumber yard.

We got the project plan for this desk from Anna White. Like every project in her website, this desk isn't hard to build as long as you use the right tools and you stick to the plan. It can be done in two days. The only thing that stopped him was the heat. I didn't want him to roast outside too long in the 106-degree weather...

The color is called Aquatint from Sherwin Williams. I thought I wanted my desk to be white until I saw this color, then I had to have it. The yellow bucket is just there for practice. I'm not sure if I really want buckets as opposed to baskets... We'll see. The goal is to have this whole room put together before the week is over. We will see about this too. *winks*

We still have a couple of building projects lined up for this room, which is all mainly storage... and I believe we have decided we are going to take our time. But I will post more photos soon as I get all my stuff out of the moving boxes and have better photos of this room. I can't wait to start crafting again!!!

Laterz,

Sour Cream Box Candy Holder {A DIY Photo Toturial}

2012-04-17T12:29:00.001-05:00

Hello friends! I hope everyone is doing great today and have had a nice start to your week. :) I'm hoping all of you are happy, healthy and smiling as I am today. I have something I would like to share with you all. I've made these things before but have never taken pictures of them. I always believe they make great party favors or in this case, a perfect way to re-package leftover Easter candy.

We gave away Easter baskets at church and although we had lots of kids come, we still had some left over. I know the kids will eat them anyway if I just put them in a candy bowl. But I thought, I would re-package them to give them a better experience. Every box is a surprise because I didn't mark what each box has in them. Kids love that. They love surprises! Also, it will help me use papers in my stash that I know I won't be using. For this project I used papers from an older Cosmo Cricket kit I got a couple years ago.

You will need:

Candy {I used jelly beans, M&Ms, etc}
scrapbook paper cut in 4 inches x 4 inches {I used heavier weight scrapbook paper}
Scor-Tape {but you can use an ATG gun or any strong dry adhesive}
paper trimmer

1. Lay out your materials. Cut your paper according to size.

2. Apply adhesive.

Or, you can punch the edges to make it pretty. I am using an EK Success scallop punch.

This is how it will look after you punch the two sides.

Then, apply adhesive on three sides.

3. Roll your paper into a cylinder shape {like below}.

4. Pinch one end shut. Now, with the other end still open, fill your box with candy. :)

5. When you feel like you have put enough candy in your box, pinch the open end shut the opposite way you shut the one end. Thus, forming the shape of a sour cream box. :)

6. And you got you some cool candy boxes!!!

Hope you all have a great rest of the week!!!

Hugs!

Project Life {Week 6}

2012-04-12T21:31:00.001-05:00

I have started using Kerri Bradford's Life Additions Weeklies for my title. I didn't get a lot of time to pretty up my title card this week but I did have a lot of photos. And I also started printing my Instagram photos and putting them in my album.

This has been a jam packed week. :) A lot of stuff went on, and I didn't let one moment slip without taking any pictures.

In other news, my craft room still isn't ready but I am working on getting all my stuff moved and decide on some storage solutions because the stuff I had in the other house just won't work here. My new room isn't going to be secluded from the main part of the house like the other craft room, it is the front room and has glass french doors so everything that goes in that room need to be well thought out.

Project Life {Week 4} and then some photos...

2012-03-24T17:56:00.000-05:00

Hey all! :) I am on Week 4 of Project Life and so far I am doing well... by that I mean, I haven't fallen back into procrastination, yet! And that really really makes me so happy because I have been enjoying looking at what I have in my book so far.

This week I did use my Cricut to cut my title and you can tell how I need to re-learn how to work my Sure-Cuts-A-Lot and my machine because all the edges in some parts of my title are jagged and seems like I have forgotten how to cut paper. LOL As you all can tell I didn't put too much work on my title card this week. I used the Echo Park Playground collection.

I journaled on my photos again. I love doing this!!! I wish I can do it on all of them, but that's what the 3x4 journaling cards are for also, the smaller photos only have so much space for stuff.

Obviously I have a lot of photos this week that I had to get creative and split the 6x4 slots so I can put in journaling too. :) We have been having a wonderful time whipping our new backyard back into shape and I have been taking pics at the same time... So... yeah!

That's all for Project Life this week. :) I have a couple photos to share with you about what has been going on here, and this waterfall I keep tweeting about. Yard work makes me happy, and I love digging into the ground and planting flowers and adding colors outdoors, so this new house totally is an enabler!

This {above} is one of the pretty corners in our backyard. :) I am loving this one in particular because this is where the pond and the waterfall is. This is right across from our bedroom window, and in the past week, it has been so pretty we have been leaving our window up all night and it is an added bonus that we can listen to the waterfall. It is the most relaxing thing, but not as relaxing as soaking in the pool, which we are going to open in a couple of weeks depending on how the temps are in the coming weeks.

Here's the pond and the waterfall. My husband and I are thinking about adding some height to the waterfall... but it is fine as is. It would just be nice to give a river-like look and feel. :) This pond used to have fish in it, but last fall John forgot to turn off the water as he was filling it up and it overflowed and killed all the fish that was in it. That was a very sad day but we are keeping it without fish for now to see how we do with just the pond. We have never had a pond before so we are yet trying to get used to having to take care of it and keeping it all problem-free.

Lastly, that is Voodoo in our bedroom window... He is an inside cat but he is an outdoor cat by heart. He loves being outside except that he can't be outside because he has been de-clawed. I wouldn't let him be outside if he wasn't de-clawed anyway, because I would worry myself to death if my pets are outside all the time.

Hope you all have a wonderful week ahead of you!!! :)

Nutella-Filled Hand Pies

2012-03-22T15:12:00.000-05:00

Hey friends!!! I have something easy for you all. :) Last night, while I was looking in the freezer for something to snack on, I found an unopened package of puff pastry. I don't know why I had puff pastry, but I believe it is meant to be made into something tasty! So here is what I came up with... Nutella-filled Hand pies! And you only need a few things to put this together.

NUTELLA-FILLED HAND PIES

Ingredients

1 sheet puff pastry {thawed in the refrigerator overnight}

Nutella

Egg wash {a mixture of an egg + water/milk}

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Prepare your surface, and all the ingredients. You don't want the puff pastry to sit out on the counter too long as it is mainly composed of butter.

3. Unfold puff pastry on floured surface. I rolled mine out make all the sides close to even. Then I cut it into six rectangular pieces.

4. Scoop out about 1 Tbsp of Nutella into your crust.

5. Brush a little bit of eggwash around the edges to seal all seams.

6. Seal your edges with a fork. :) Just like this...

7. Put all your pies on a wax paper-lined pan. Brush them with more eggwash on top. Then bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Let cool for a few minutes.

8. ENJOY!!! :)

Project Life Week 2 and 3

2012-03-20T16:58:00.000-05:00

Hello all! Just wanted to say that I am still alive. :) It has been another busy couple of weeks for us. We have been getting our house ready for showing {for prospective buyers} We finally got done Sunday evening so this is gonna be our first week NOT busy... We are kind of taking it easy but not doing nothing entirely because we do have a new house we are trying to make ours and since it has gotten warmer, we have been hanging out in the back yard and whipping it up to shape.

So this is gonna be a post of Week 2 and 3. Week 2 has a lot of journaling while Week 3 has more photos. :)

I journaled in my photos this time. :) I think I will start doing this more often... I kindda like it. Hope you all have a great week ahead!!!

Hugs,

Project Life {TEST} Week No. 1

2012-03-01T11:14:00.002-06:00

If you all don't know yet, I have to tell you I take A LOT of pictures, I take them daily... I take them all the time... I take pictures every chance I get either from my DSLR camera or my phone or my husband's iPhone. I have a ton of photography apps on my phone it's not funny, I have crowded John's phone with them too. I have an Android... I'm not a big fan of the non-Apple products anymore, but when I needed a new phone quick because my little bitty Samsung Impression had died on me, I had to make a quick decision and I went with an Android phone. Not because I like it, [I came to like it, btw. I love my HTC now] but so we can have something different in the house. We have become Apple freaks in the past 2-3 years we would never buy anything if it didn't have the Apple emblem on it. lol

Anyway, all the photos I have been taking are all stuck in my computer and they are crowding it. And I couldn't stand it anymore. I don't wanna buy another WD MyBook either and crowd that too. So I decided I am going to print all my pictures... but the question was, where am I gonna put them? I love to scrapbook, but I only scrapbook when I want to. However, these couple of changes we have imposed on our lives at this point has John and I all over the place busy all the time. I have said this over and over and I will say it again... I have never thought being a stay-at-home wife would be this hectic! And we don't even have a kid/kids! So I had to go into something fast, and easy and inexpensive. I am not the crazy scrapbooker that goes nuts in Archivers and buys every embellishments on the shelves! I hate them anyway because they are so hard to store and they are EXPENSIVE I like investing on the good stuff, like the tools, and the snacks I eat when I do craft. Plus, I have been so into the DIY-ing everything. I even made my own curtains this week but that's a totally different post. So........... I WENT WITH PROJECT LIFE! And I am committing to it so my pictures could have a home. To me, it provides a place for me to document all that I love, SCRAPBOOKING, BAKING, PHOTOGRAPHY and SEWING... and of course, the four crazy things I live with... JOHN, Mr Peapers, Voodoo, and Foozie.

I was supposed to start next week with my friend Sara. But I put together a test Week 1 spread to see how long it takes me to put together a whole week of photos. :) And I am pleased to report that I got done in 2 1/2 hours. This includes planning the sizes of the photos, printing them out and the journaling too. :) I got my journaling cards from this lady , Miss Tina. I love them all. I just printed them out on white cardstock and cut them out. They fit the Project Life page protectors perfectly. They are exactly 3x4.

I didn't use a lot of embellishments on this one, but I sure will give it some more time when I start with next week's. I am also treating this more like a gallery than it is really week no. 1 because the photos here aren't all current. LOL I just wanted to try it out and see how fast I can put one week together.

I added a 12x12 insert [photo on top] using a We R Memory Keepers Photo Sleeve. :) I've had them for a while, just couldn't find any use for them until now. I love the quality of We R Memory Keepers page protectors and I am so happy that I was able to use these in my Project Life album.

And for an added bonus, John built me this ledge weeks ago but our busy lives have delayed the installation of it. We have this very bare wall in our living room that we have been wishing to decorate since we moved to the new house and never have gotten the time to think about it or even plan on it. I had decided on a photo wall, but I sure changed my mind when I realized I was gonna have to drill holes. I hate putting holes on the wall. So we settled on the idea of a photo ledge. :) It will give me the same result as a photo wall except that I won't have to drill a gazillion holes. I am still working on the stuff I want to display on the ledge but the real reason I wanted a photo wall was so I could display John's late great Grandmother's paintings. She was a wonderful woman, great artist, she had a great eye. She still even painted even when she couldn't see anymore [out of old age]. I got to see her the year before she passed. She lived out west with John's Grandpa. And on our last day, I almost talked John into staying one more week because I just couldn't stomach leaving her, We kind of knew that was the last time we were going to see her, she was I believe in her early 90's. :'(

So here is the ledge, I will be posting more pics of it when I fill it up! :) I have a ton of family photos and other things that are going on this ledge. After all, we went ahead and used a 1x6 piece of pine for the platform so we can load it up with all kinds of stuff. And I had John anchor the whole thing good on the wall so the weight won't make it sag. Gotta love the Handy Husband, right? Gosh, I feel so lucky that I can tell him what I want and he makes them and figures them out by himself.

Fresh Orange Cupcakes

2012-02-29T19:46:00.001-06:00

Hello folks! I made these orange cupcakes a few days ago for a friend's Grandma's birthday... and it was a hit! Even people who haven't tasted it but have seen photos of it have requested the recipe. :) So here it is. I actually made the cake from scratch because I already had my [butter] cake recipe mixed and the cream cheese icing already made from scratch before I changed route. All I really did was dress up my cake batter and the simple cream cheese frosting I made. Today, I am going to show you the easy way to this orange tastiness.

Fresh Orange Cupcakes

1 package butter cake or white cake mix
1/4 cup of brown sugar
2 Tbsp orange zest
1 cup orange juice [please use the real deal, it will make a huge difference in the taste of your cake]
1/2 cup of canola oil

2 tsp good quality vanilla extract

3 large eggs

Preheat oven 350 degrees [at least 15 minutes] or use an oven thermometer.

In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, brown sugar, and orange zest. Whisk to combine. Add orange juice, canola oil, vanilla extract and eggs on medium speed until lumps disappear. About 2 minutes.

Fill cupcake liners. I use a 1/4 cup [measuring cup] or a large ice cream scoop so the cupcakes turn out all the same size. And your cupcakes bake at the same time.

Bake cupcakes 20-22 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Let cool in pan for 5-10 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

2 tubs Cream Cheese Frosting

1 Tbsp orange zest

1/4 cup orange concentrate/juice

Mix all ingredients together. :) Pipe or spread your icing on top of your cupcakes. Top with orange wedge to garnish.

{Note: I have tried it, and my cream cheese frosting from scratch tasted fresher than the icing I made from the pre-made stuff. If you do have a cream cheese frosting recipe from scratch, use it and if your icing comes out a little runny from the orange juice/concentrate, let your icing sit in the refrigerator for a few minutes so it will be much easier to pipe into your cupcakes}

ENJOY!!!