May 10th, 2011
If you haven’t been following my paper designs, Lime Twist is my newest scrapbooking paper line manufactured by My Mind’s Eye. MME has had some great projects on their blog featuring it lately (you should subscribe to their blog if you don’t already). And today Amber Packer posted her newest creation, a Silhouette in an awesome frame using the Lime Twist Papers. I immediately fell in love and had to share! I now have great plans to do this for Ollie’s room once we get moved and settled. I absoultely love that she did this for a boy instead of for a girl — see not all cute projects are for girls rooms!
In more Lime Twist sightings, I found this simple & elegant layout from Lisa @ My Crafty stuff:
Love the uneven bunting and the fabric flowers.
I found this card and layout by Suzanne Surgi (MME Creative Team). I just love her style:
And just one more, this one from Jana Eubank (also on the MME team). She took a multi-opening frame and created this gorgeous wall art. What a fantastic idea!
So there you have it, some fun and inspiring projects showing Lime Twist in action!
May 9th, 2011
Initially we were planning on just sprucing up the 70′s style bathroom with a new shower insert and cabinet, tile etc. However, one night I came across a little remodel blog called 7th House on the Left. On this Blog, the homeowners had a bathroom similar to ours (see layout below), and they had combined the “hallway” sink into the bath area to create a more cohesive bathroom space. This got the wheels in my head turning, and I proposed to Spencer that we do something similar – take out the two closets and create a larger bathroom and 1 large walk-in closet. Here are the basic plans:
Here are the before and current pictures. Included is a lovely photo of me at 9 months pregnant yippee!
We have a big duct to contend with in the middle there, but our contractor assures us that we can make it much smaller and reclaim some bathroom space. 
As far as the look and style goes, We want the space to be bright and airy. We are going to have a subway tile shower built-in with a 3-sided glass surround. Spencer is going to build a sink cabinet like the one pictured below from Pottery barn. You can also see some of our other surface choices etc on this master design sheet:
So that is our new Master Bath plan. Hopefully it goes pretty smoothly. We’re hiring out most of the work on this one, so that helps Spencer focus on other projects around the house… like getting the stairs and railings done!
May 8th, 2011
Today has been such an emotional day for me. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had much time to think about the upcoming celebration of Mother’s day. But once the day was upon us, I had some time to reflect on my life these past 8 weeks since becoming a Mother. What I felt most today was love and gratitude for the two men in my life. The men who will help define who I am for the rest of my life, and help me to grow into the woman that I was meant to be. I am sure that I’ll never be able to adequately explain how much they mean to me, but hopefully these words are a beginning.
Dearest Oliver, I barely remember a life before you were here. You who made me a mother, came into my life like a giant ball of love, giggles and sunshine and turned it upside down. I love you so much that I feel as though my heart might burst out of my chest. I work so hard trying to memorize the contours of your face and the feel of your smooth skin because I can’t bare the thought of not remembering. I always want to remember how perfect you are. How you came to me so fresh from heaven, such a pure and innocent soul who needs me, who needs food and warmth and most importantly love. And here I am your mother, a woman of 30, who has waited so long to hold you, kiss you, and feel your presence. I count my blessings every second of every day. Some days I am so happy I can hardly handle the pressure of my heart pushing against my chest. I love you so much that the word love suddenly seems so inadequate. I have so many hopes and dreams for you, but mostly I hope that you will always love me back, and that in some small way you will come to understand how deeply I love you.
Before you were born, I was half a person. I didn’t know it then, but when you came into my life, suddenly I felt like I was complete. Surely giving birth must have been the most holy experience of my life and every day looking into your eyes I am reminded of just how close you are – how close we all are — to God. I understand better God’s plan for us, and how his children truly are his glory, for you are my glory. I feel like a wise woman because of that knowledge – like I have a secret – I have the greatest gift that anyone could ever have, the gift of being a mother. The day you were born, I realized a whole part of myself that had been dormant, and now that part has blossomed and it feels so wonderful, I feel so dimensional, so fulfilled in this wonderful calling of motherhood.
Of course I am not here alone (thank goodness), I have my wonderful, amazing, kind, and loving husband with me.
Dearest Spencer, you are my strength. I could not do any of this without you. You are the most amazing husband and father and I am so extremely blessed to have you in my life. Thank you for your undying love and affection. I know sometimes I get cranky, and I always have to be right and have things just so, but you are always there putting up with me and still wanting to snuggle at the end of these very long days. I cannot thank you enough for that. We both are very strong and like to think that we are so grown up. But sometimes, I am able to catch a glimpse of the vulnerable boy inside the man and I realize that I need to be more loving and more gentle with you. I also need to allow you to catch a glimpse of the vulnerable girl inside of this woman. Thank you for making me a mother and supporting my motherhood. I feel so free to love our little boy as much as he need to be loved, and when he needs to be loved even if it interrupts some household responsibility here and there. Sometimes we live in chaos together, but this roller coaster is ours and we should cherish every moment of it. I know you are tired and over-worked, but I know that you can do it. You can succeed at anything because you are the most talented person I know. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and before you know it, this time will have passed and we will have many moments to just breath and spend time getting to know each other and our son. You make my dreams come true every single day. I love you with all my heart and soul.
May 6th, 2011
Mr Project has been working so incredibly hard on the house. With every spare moment that he can find, he has torn out all the carpet and padding, ripped out a few walls, pulled off ALL the trim casings and doors, scraped every inch of ceiling (the house is nearly 2400 sq ft!), removed wall paper, and cleaned it all up too! Everything has now been removed from the house, and it’s basically a blank canvas to work with. The ceilings are being retextured (we’ve hired out all the drywall and painting to save time), and now he’s on to fixing the stairs. We’ve decided to hold out on adding the windows to the kitchen until after we’ve moved in. And we won’t re-do the kitchen at all for a few months while Mr Project builds all the cabinets himself. So the kitchen will be weird/gross looking for awhile, but the house is going to go from shag-fab to amazing really quickly here. Here are some before and progress photos to see what we started with, and how much work has already been done.
First is the Living Room…
I love this demo shot because it shows the enormity of the task. You think eh some carpet and trim, no big deal… but man alive, thats a lot of carpet and so much garbage!
The dining room and living room are connected. We are planning on having some built ins in the dining room to help separate it from the living room. We are also going to turn it into a casual eat-in part of the kitchen and not a formal dining room Here it is before, during, and current. *Notice the wall between the kitchen and dining room that is now no more:
Now the kitchen was super tiny and they used a lot of the space to have a little eating nook between the kitchen and the family room. I decided to stretch the kitchen out all the way to the end of the vinyl, and just have a peninsula and bar stools for the super casual dining, and then blur the lines between the kitchen and dining room to make it a cozy eat-in area. I love the current pictures of this room because you can see the LIGHT that comes in from the house once the walls and upper cabinets are re-built. We are not putting cabinets back up on this wall… instead we are going to put 3 large windows to open it to the gorgeous back-yard and bring some great light in.
Attached to the kitchen is the family room. I really like this space, its big enough for some great seating (I’ve already ordered the sofas), but small enough to feel really cozy. One one side is a wood-burning stove, annd on the other wall that you can’t see, we’ll have the TV. I also have great plans for some built-ins in this room, and am definitely going to have the brick painted. We’ll also have the door replaced in this room with a nicer and more efficient sliding glass door. 
It’s amazing to me how nice the place looks without all that gross shag carpet. Last but not least is the best room in the house… the STUDIO! This is a giant room that was made just for us. We are going to make it into an awesome workspace with desks, a sofa, some chairs, and a whole lot of storage for all our art supplies and resources. 
The before photo was taken with a wide-angle, that is why it looks so large compared to the current photo, but the room is really large and looks so much bigger without all that plaid wallpaper! Mr Project want’s this room painted really dark, which will look nice with all the big windows. All the windows will need replacing, but we’ll do it gradually. We have found that the house actually stays really cool despite being older and having older windows. It was 90 yesterday and at 4 in the afternoon the house was only at 73 and thats with no AC running, just the whole-house fan and a few open windows. Once we get the windows replaced with more efficient ones, it will be really nice! and they’ll look great too.
So those are all the main parts of the house. I’ll show photos of the other smaller rooms as we complete projects on them, but for now this gives you a good idea what it looked like before, and how much work has already been done!
Here was my preliminary list:
- scrape ceilings
- tear down some unnecessary walls
- remove ALL trim/casings
- install new windows/extra windows (postponed)
- add necessary walls (frame, drywall)
- put in recessed lighting, move outlets, fix non-working outlets (in progress)
- re-texture ceilings and drywall (in progress)
- put up new railing on stairs/overlook (planning phase)
- replace ALL trim/casings
- PAINT!
- install all new flooring
We’ve also decided to go ahead with the master bath renovation since there was quite a bit of demo/drywall with that one (good buy old walls, hello new ones) and we’d rather just get it out of the way before we live there. Hopefully it will be able to be done concurrently. We are hiring most of it out as well so we should have some good labor overlap. We also decided to replace all the doors, so the old ones have been pulled out and the new ones have been ordered… they said 3 weeks, but hopefully they will come in sooner as it pushes back our trim and flooring installation. Right now Mr. Project is doing the demo on the master bath, and is planning the stairs (we’re making them hardwood stairs instead of carpeted) and railings. We found a local supplier for the stair pieces and hope that we don’t need any lead time for the parts.
I’ll share lots of inspiration photos with you soon, its amazing to be able to work with such a blank canvas!
May 4th, 2011
When I was designing Lime Twist for My Mind’s Eye, I didn’t have time to have anything manufactured overseas, but I BEGGED to get some twine made. I am so in love with twine, but its so hard to find great colors. I got my wish and voila, gorgeous luscious twine. I just got my package in the mail yesterday with all the Lime Twist goodies. I couldn’t wait to take a picture and show you how yummy the twine is! The pictures don’t even do it justice either — the twine is super thick and plush and the colors are fun and vibrant.
There are 12 different colors, including an awesome gray (I’m so in love with gray right now), and each card holds 20 yards. That’s just the perfect amount for a set of invitations or some party gifts/favors etc.
Of course there is more than twine in Lime Twist… I love all the pieces and papers too. Here is a snapshot of some of the diecuts, titles, and stickers in the line. 
When I was going through them, all I wanted to do was make a layout with my cute guy… no time for that today, but here is a picture of him in his leg warmers:
He’s 8 weeks old today! Time goes by way way way too fast!
If you are interested in purchasing the Lime Twist Twine, please check with your local scrapbook shop. Here are a few online retailers who also carry the line:
Two Peas in a Bucket
Oh My Crafts
Claudia and Company
