New House Tour

I can see that my last post was right before we moved into our new house and this is the first chance I have gotten to post some images. I need to show the house in a few posts as there are a lot of images and I don't want to overwhelm you! Exterior pictures will be forthcoming because I need to wait until there isn't 2+ feet of snow on the ground. All that snow makes our new house look really short for some reason.

Our house was originally built in the 1920's but the previous owners built a sizeable addition about 15 years ago.

Foyer at side entrance

We have two front doors.  Isn't that confusing?  We use the side- front door as our main point of greeting and it's adjacent to our garage.  The foyer is quite large and the only room to be wallpapered.  Changes will occur in this room as the wall paper comes down.

 

Closet off of garage

Bathroom

 A 3/4 bath is located right off the foyer and has a shower to make chlorine removal from our pool quick and easy.  We have a pool!

 

Living Room

The living room is a monster of a room with a gas fireplace and a decent expanse of windows.  We painted most of the room a light gray and an accent wall and fireplace two tones of blue.

Fireplace needs a bit of work.  We are thinking about a glass or marble tile to dress it up a bit.

A sunroom/conservatory/playroom is off of the bathroom and living room.  It has a french door to the back deck and pool.

This is a photo from the  living room and I like to think of it as a "choose your own adventure" photo.  You can take stairs up, a hall to the breakfast room, or walk into the dining room.

Dining Room

The dining room is going to be transformed into a music room in the near future as I am having my great-uncles baby grand piano moved in the near future.

Future Dining Room

This is the future dining room off of the kitchen.  I'm going to highlight the kitchen in another post, so you won't see it quite yet here.  We have not painted in this room yet or in the next room which I like to jokingly call the billiards room.

 I like to think that all the random toys in the pictures make the house feel homey and not messy.

Billiards Room

The old living room has our old front door.  It, also, has a wood burning fireplace and a pool table in pieces against the wall.  It's going to be one fancy billiards room when it's done.  The spotlight over our son's picture has a dimmer to it and I like to turn the light on slowly, and dramatically (with angelic noises) to emphasis the photo.  It makes me laugh every time.

Front Door?

Laundry Room

The last room on the first floor is our laundry room.  It used to be a bedroom before the addition was built.  I love it because there is plenty of room and a closet that hides the cat's litter and food.  The size of the room helps a great deal when I have a 2 year old with a  tricycle, dog, and cat "helping" me with the laundry.

Stay tuned for second floor pictures.  Doesn't it look like Logan is really working on the laptop.  He's so advanced for his age.

Christmas Schedule for 2010

You can either click this link- Christmas Schedule 2010

or

Click the button to the right to go to the current Christmas TV Schedule.  I will update the schedule as time permits, but it's pretty complete to get you started on Holiday TV!

Links for 2010!

You might be wondering where I've been.  I've been darn busy!  My husband and I have been casually looking for a new home for a few years now and, all of a sudden, a month ago our dream home came on the market.  We close and move in a week.  Things have been hectic as we navigate packing, a 2-year-old's birthday and my husband's conference in Las Vegas. I will post lots of photos of the new digs and gradually show our after-the-move photos as well.

I have tons of craft ideas for this Christmas that I want to post, but you have to be patient with me.  In the meantime, here are some great ideas and links that I want to pass along.

• Stephmodo's- How to Search Craigslist Tutorial (an option to search via photos only!)- here
• Vista Print- Free Holiday Cards and Address Labels (there are a lot of hurdles to get through for this deal, but you only pay shipping)- here
• Black Friday Ads- One of many great sources for early Black Friday previews- here

I have been really keeping an eye out for gently used furniture on Craigslist and appliances that will be going on sale soon.  So, the above links have really been helping me out.

Layers of Meaning Series

Where have I been?  Busy.  I apologize for my crazy Summer that has left you guys without new posts to peruse.  However, I have been showcased on a series called "Through Her Eyes- 7th Edition" on Layers of Meaning.  You can check out the series here.

Papier Mache- May 2010 Highlights

I needed a break last week.  I can feel the pressure of calendar overload with the Summer coming, so I needed a teeny break from crafting and extra-curricular designing.

I received my papier mache e-magazine over the weekend and I thought I would highlight some of the fantastic items and image in it.  It's a children's design/clothing magazine that is truly inspired.  You can browse it and subscribe to get this magazine for free here.

via pen pencil stencil

I love this clean wood carved forest.  I wish I had a spare $300 to spend on a toy, but I don't mind dreaming about it.

via papier mache

Besides the fact that Blackbird is my favorite Beatles song, I think the costume is inspired and it makes me want to start planning a Halloween outfit now.  With the level of detail shown above, I really would need to start now!

via papier mache

This might be the most elaborate cardboard castle I have ever seen.

Handwritten Note

A few months ago I was asked to talk to a number of Fourth Grade classes about architecture during a field trip to a local museum.  I didn't know what to think and architecture can be a dry subject to talk about unless you have a lot of visuals, but I did my best.

I showed the kids (and teacher's) the software we use and the explained, in basic terms, how to design buildings.  A few kids even had questions for me after the "lecture" like, "Can a building really be built in a day?"  That one made me laugh.

This morning the organizer of the field trip brought me Dutch Iris bulbs, Cannas bulbs, and a number of handwritten notes from the children.  The one above is one of my favorites.

A Sailboat with a Heart of Gold

Our Sailboat (in our backyard) with a Name!

We officially named our sailboat last night and, although there wasn't any champagne or fancy ribbons to cut, the celebration voyage is tomorrow on a small lake in Northwest Indiana.

I designed the vinyl decal in AutoCAD and based it on the spaceship from Douglas Adam's "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".  The flower pot goes along with the story.  A company, downstairs from my office, can make any sign I want and he charged me only $10 to create this for me.  It should be weather proof and last a long time.  I love it!

Flower Caddy

via My Favorite Things

I have been busy, busy, busy and I hate neglecting you, dear reader.  I thought I would pass along this easy tutorial and gift for Mothers everywhere.  You can find out how to make this great flower caddy here.

Prilosec Sponsorship

An interior photo of me with a flash

My New Camera

My camera and equipment arrived!  I received a check from Prilosec OTC a few weeks ago and ordered my camera and photography equipment.  I am so impressed with the quality of the photos that I can now take. 

I chose to purchase this camera:
Canon EOS Rebel T2i 18 MP CMOS APS-C Digital SLR Camera with 3.0-Inch LCD and EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens found here.

and this set of equipment:
Pro 220 Watt 2-MonoLight Strobe Softbox Flash Lighting kits, Background Support, and Backgrounds found here.



The last couple of posts have photos with this new camera and I'm very pleased with the results.

Woven Art

I've been going through my house and cataloging all of the objects/ art that I have made over the years...

I created this piece while I was in the process of getting my Masters degree.  I don't know what I was thinking as it took me months and I should have been focusing on school. 

It's my take on a tapestry/quilt, but a little more architectural.  I took a rectangular chicken wire and wove strips of roughly cut fabric through the openings.  I sparingly painted a 4'x2 1/2' sheet of Oriented Strand Board and mounted the wire to this sheet with metal washers.  It was a simple, but not quick, project.

Basement Game Center

It's funny how basements seem to have a mind of their own and, against all my attempts to the contrary, try to revert to this base being of storage and mayhem.  What I have found that works to combat this bad behaviour on my basement's part is to create designated activity areas.  I created this Game Center to force some order in the basement and provide a bit of game storage as well. (Don't forget to look at my simple directions on the last photo!)

This game center has worked really well at focusing a portion of our basement towards something other than storage.  The pegboard works really well as a cheap and easily customizable backdrop for the darts game, and hanging storage for our pool table goods, and other  games.

This Game Center has actually been hanging in our basement for 3 years now, but I don't think it has aged badly at all.

New Light Installed

New Dining Room Light

Old Dining Room Light (We kept this for way too long!)

With the light on

As mentioned in this post, I bought a couple of items for our house and it only took my husband and I a couple of months to install!  We removed our old chandelier that came with our house (we've been in the house for 5 years now) and installed our new light that is a hardy plastic form that took a  couple of hours to put together while I little son slept.  The light reminds me of a ball of white ribbon candy.  It is a, much needed, improvement in our dining room.

Birthday Party- Fall Theme

My son just turned 18 months old, but I never did share some of the things I made for his 1st Birthday party, because I started this blog after the party.  I thought I would share a couple of things now.

I created this invitation using Adobe Photoshop and had it printed at Walgreens for next to nothing.  It fit neatly in a standard invitation envelope.

Wilton has this cupcake shaped cake form that I used to create my son's cake.  I whipped up my own blue icing and decorated with lollipop sail boats that ended up being too heavy to sit on the cake.  You can by the cake form here.

You can see a fall theme with the colors and I took advantage of my son's October birth date to gather a number o fpumpkins and gourds to decorate the party.  We enjoyed them for weeks and the house stayed festive until Thanksgiving.  I couldn't believe some of the gourds could stay fresh for so long!

I saw this crepe paper streamer idea at My Paper Crane.  The idea was to sew the streamers together and create a ruched look.  Turns a $1 streamer into a really nice looking decoration.  I made yard after yard and it took me about an hour to make all of them.  I added a few craft paper  garlands as well that were my own creation.

Finally, I bought cheap paper lanterns at the Paper Lantern Store to decorate our new deck outside, but the foul weather changed my plans and we quickly strung them up over the buffet table.

A Slideshow of Inspiration

images via Stefano Buonamici for The New York Times

I am craving outdoors spaces at the moment because our weather has been perfect for the last week.  You can go here to see a couple of photos of our exterior deck that we added last September.  I have been getting a lot of lunch time use out of it for the past few weeks.  I love tile flooring in exterior applications, shown udner the table in the top photo, but it does not work well in freeze-thaw environments.  I can only dream!

A new slideshow has been added to the NY Times Styles section that shoes a great multiple story home that I could just drool over.  I currently have boxes of books in our basement just waiting to be put on a bookshelf like the one above.