September 30th, 2012
Hi,
Sharmaine here again, with another My Mind’s Eye layout.
This time using Jen’s gorgeous “Bluebird” range
I truly love it when the product takes all the hard work out of scrapping
The ”Happines Is” sticker was perfect for the title of my layout
(Aren’t those chipboard buttons just GORGEOUS! LOVE LOVE LOVE THOSE!)
Even the packaging said the right words!
and the “Tall Tales” sticker was perfect for my journaling
Products Used:
Bluebell 6×6 Designer Paper Pad
Bluebell “Smile” Enamel Dots
Bluebell “Remember” decorative buttons
Bluebell “Bright” Chipboard elements
Bluebell “smile” stickers
Bluebell “Bright” Tiny Word stickers
Bluebell “Playful” Journal Card
Bluebell “Playful” Label stickers.
Sharmaine
September 28th, 2012
So a few weeks ago I was browsing pinterest and came across these adorable decoupaged Christmas tree ornaments. This is definitely a project right up my alley and I decided to try it early on pumpkins!
(source)
So I went to my local Michaels and picked up a variety of pumpkins. I definitely recommend the white ones because you can have a few missing spots and they won’t show up. I’m not sure how the orange pumpkins do yet, but I’ll find out tomorrow!
This is what the final product looks like. I love the scrappiness of it, and its perfect for my more earthy halloween decor.
So the first step is to get your paper. I just grabbed a book that I was planning on donating and cut out a handful of sheets. For the big pumpkin I used about 20 sheets, for the small pumpkin about 4. I cut the sheets out of the book and then trimmed the margins.
Then I cut vertical strips of varied widths.
Then I cut some of those into shorter strips.
Once I had everything cut and ready to go, I grabbed my Mod Podge and a small sponge brush and went at it.
I recommend using more glue than less. Glue before you put a strip down and then after the strip is on. In my opinion you can’t have too much glue.
This is pretty much how my progress went. I worked on the pumpkin about a quarter at a time and then finished up the bottom quarter after I went all the way around.
I recommend doing it this way because you can keep the smaller area that you’re working on wet and it makes the whole process easier. Here’s the final big pumpkin again:
I also decoupaged a small pumpkin. This one was much harder because of all the small heavy creases. I used 3/8″ x 2″ strips on this one so it used probably just as many strips as the big pumpkin… just much smaller and harder to handle strips!
I also added a dusting of clear glitter on this one:
And here is the final product mixed with that gilded pumpkin!
I’ve got to do a few more of these (maybe go pick up another big pumpkin), and then I’ll be ready to do all my Halloween decor!
September 26th, 2012
I recently updated that we were working on our “room divider” in the living room. I needed Mr. Project to finish it really fast because I was hosting a bunco party. So he kicked it into high gear and start to finish he had the room divider and all the wall trim up and painted in less than two weeks.
Now I’m going to show you this before picture, but I do have to warn you that this is like SUPER before. This was what it looked like when we bought it:
Everything about this before is terrible, and let me tell you that if you had smell-o-vision that picture would stink to high heaven because of the 30 year old carpet and probably the 30 year old paint job. Let me point out some very special things about the before just in case you miss the subtleties. 1. Popcorn ceilings, 2. hideous 30-year old orange peal textured walls (like really bad bad texture, not new slightly bad texture). 3. old stinky carpet, 4. 1-inch stained pine baseboards & pine doors, 5. creamy old switches and plugs, 6. wall blocking the kitchen, 7. rickety metal railing (we tried to salvage the wood beam, but the stink had permeated it so we had to toss it). Basically the whole space was repugnant and have I mentioned that everyone tried to talk us out of buying this house?
Well that was more than a year ago. Before we moved in, most of the work was done in this space – though I don’t have a good progress picture. So Imagine the space with the pretty stairs, hardwood floors, smooth white ceilings and walls painted gray. It was a nice space, but really boring and other than the stairs lacked architectural detail. And for me, the biggest issue was that there was no clear division of space. I’m all for open concept, but I want spaces to feel like they have a beginning and end. Here’s my first progress photo to show about where we were at when we got started + the cabinets, beam, and columns:
So for the first part of this project, we decided the specs on the cabinets – we didn’t want them to feel too big and bulky, but yet they still needed to have some weight to them. We went with 12″ deep on the inside of the cabinets (standard size for an upper cabinet), 34″ tall (standard height for a base cabinet), and then 22″ wide (just a good size for the space).
Mr. Project built the cabinets – the face frames and doors are maple, the boxes and shelves are pre-finished melamine board. The outsides of the boxes are trimmed with 1/4″ MDF to create the paneling on the sides and backs. The cabinets are topped with a solid chunk of Black Walnut that we got from a friend who had cut down and milled some walnut trees on his land several years ago (whenever using solid wood, make sure that is is properly dried to avoid warping and splitting). It’s really gorgeous and Mr. Project was thrilled to get some solid pieces big enough to use without having to glue anything. Initially I had planned for the whole thing to be white, but I’m so glad that Mr. Project suggested walnut – it’s expensive, but in the end it brings some much-needed contrast to the very white space.
Once the cabinets were done, he installed them to the walls and bolted them to the floors. Nothing’s moving these suckers. Next he installed a 2×4 to the ceiling (screwing it into the beams above) and then built the beam out of 3/4″ MDF like a big U and screwed nailed and glued it onto the 2×4. The columns are built out of 3/4″ cabinet-grade plywood cut and mitered and affixed to one small square screwed into the beam and one small square screwed into the cabinet top.
Once all the main pieces were assembled and installed, trim work could begin:
Mr. Project continued the crown molding along the beam, and then trimmed out the columns and put baseboard on the cabinets. Then he started on the board and batten that we did all around the front room, one wall in the dining room, and then up the stairs.
Once all the trim was done the real work began… putting, caulking, sanding, priming, sanding, and painting. Mr. Project and nearly the entire house was covered in a fine white dust for a good 4 days. It was pretty awful. And all I wanted to do was keep cleaning and vacuuming because I couldn’t handle the dust. but in the end it was worth all of the hard work!
Here is the room divider all finished (missing the doors). It’s so so so so gorgeous, and just the perfect thing for the space. You would never know that it wasn’t always there either. It really is just a great focal point for the room. Especially since this is what you see first when you walk in the house.
And here from further back, you can see the expansiveness of the board and batten.
And head on with furniture in place, a peak of the stairs to your left.
And now the full stair shot – I loved my stairs before, but now I super duper love them with the trim.
And then a few days later Mr. Project installed the inset doors and shiny latches. This matches our kitchen cabinets & hardware to tie the spaces together.
And the over-all shot. Bestill my heart! Such a beautiful space, and completely unbelievable that it’s the same space that we started with over a year ago!
September 25th, 2012
Hi everyone,
I’m Sharmaine, guesting for the gorgeous Jen.
A little about me?
Sure, why not 
Well, I live in Tasmania, Australia.
I’m married to Super Hero Dave.
We have four gorgeous (and lively) girls who are 13, 11, 9 and 7.
I’ve been scrapping since 2005 and feel quite blessed to be writing up this blog post!
Jen sent me some of her lovely My Mind’s Eye “The Sweetest Thing” designed products.
In this post I will show you a page I’ve made using the Tangerine line.
A little background to this page…
A couple of weekends ago we took the girls to a local market.
Now our eldest is MAD about owls,
so when she spotted these knitted owl hats she just had to have one.
She wore it constantly and kept saying how it was an amzing hat!
So the “Amazing Hat” layout was born.
I love that she was so excited about the hat
and that it made her smile.
Who’d have thought there could be so much happiness in a knitted item!
But it did get me thinking…
That, just maybe, it wasn’t the hat that was amazing.
It was her in it.
Because I do think she is pretty amazing
Items used:
Tangerine 6×6 Designer Paper Pad
Tangerine “Happy” Label stickers
Tangerine Decorative Brads
Tangerine Crocheted Doilies
Tangerine Wood & Chip Buttons
Tangerine “Together” stickers
Tangerine Tiny Words stickers
Tangerine “Wonderful” Chipboard Elements.
Sharmaine
September 13th, 2012
So I was going through all my project house posts and I came across my old “weekly wrap-ups” that I used to do. I was so grateful to read and remember some of the small details that I had forgotten. So for my own sake (and memory), I’m going to try and resurrect the idea and keep it going!
House Projects -
The laundry room is pretty much complete at this point. We’re still anxiously waiting for our door though. I don’t know what’s taking so long, usually it’s only taken us a week or so to get a custom door ordered. The big cabinet still needs shelves, I’ve got to finish my art projects, and Mr. Project has to finish the drywall patch on the ceiling. Once that is all done, the laundry room will be 100% complete. In the mean time I’m actually having fun doing my laundry. I love having the huge work surface and just being able to fold everything really quickly and get it put away. And sometimes I just go in there and hang out for a few minutes and enjoy the pretty.
The newest project that Mr. Project has started is a room divider in the living room.
The end result is supposed to be something similar to this:
We’ve wanted to do this project for a long time because the space of the combined dining/living room just felt too large and undefined. This makes the space clearly two spaces while adding architectural interest and creating a great focal point from the front door view. I opted for doors on the cabinets to keep small fingers from wreaking havoc. They will have glass in them though, so hopefully the effect will be the same. Oh and they will have a walnut ledge instead of just being all white, which I think will add some nice interest. We picked up some gorgeous walnut boards from a friend of ours who milled it from his own walnut trees.
Anyway, I’m super excited how it’s coming together. It makes the space feel so much more interactive now. Oh and we’ll be doing board & batten walls in this whole space to make it a bit more elegant. It will be interesting to see how all the furniture gets rearranged once everything is finished.
Ollie:
Little Ollie is doing so well these days. He just turned 18 months old. We took him in for his well child visit and he’s 36″ tall and 26 lbs which is 99th percentile height and 76th percentile weight. The Dr was especially surprised at his height because we are both so short! I guess there are some tall genes hiding in there somewhere and he got both sets of them. No one would have guessed that we’d end up with a tall kiddo! They say that at age 2 you take their height and double it and it’s a pretty good representation of their adult height. Well he’s got 6 more months of growing before we double it and we’re already at 3 feet…. Lets just say that we better train him well when he’s little because it wont be long before he is much bigger than both of us!
He’s into anything creative/artistic right now, including drawing just like his daddy (in church to boot):
And thank heavens for the aqua doodle! No mess, just lots of creative fun:
Apparently he likes to wear a tie while drawing.
And then I snapped this shot at the park and I thought it was too adorable and totally reminds me of that “quintessential senior portrait.” When he’s actually a senior, I’ll have to request a shot just like this one so he can have a side-by-side.
We are having so much fun being parents, and this little guy is such a good good boy.
His current likes:
People
Food – pretty much everything
drawing
play-dough
Caillou + Nina & Star (okay really anything on sprout)
playing in nursery (that’s my personal favorite)
the snack drawer
trying to help make anything in the kitchen
gummy vitamins
toys that stack
sleeping and napping (another good one)
talking talking talking
snuggling with mommy
playing with daddy
giving hugs (and sometimes kisses)
And of course his 2 stuffed elephants – Ellie 1 & 2:
That’s about it for the weekly wrap up. We’re just trying to get work projects done, house projects finished, and spend time with our cute little boy. Oh and prepare for our new little one who is only 7 weeks away! We might just be crazy, but we’re happy being busy and getting stuff done.
