Spring Teaser

It was such a nice day here today! I think our high ended up being 39 degrees ABOVE zero!! Could spring be just around the corner? If winter was like this everday maybe we wouldn't all feel like flying south by mid January! So we made the most of the day and spent all day outside, the kids had so much fun playing on the ice down by the lake & I had a ton of fun playing with my new camera! Here are a few of my favorite shots!

Home Made Rub On's

I was asked...so here you go! I learned this trick a while ago on a message board, and I have used it a lot! It is very easy to do, you may have to play around to find a font that works well. I use one that is bold, and not really solid, it looks a little scratchy. It is also helpful to only do one line at a time, you may have to play around with this a few times before you put it directly on your page!

Type in word what you want to say, adjust your sizes & ink color accordingly, Make sure it looks exactly the way you would like it to on your page.

Select print, in the print preference menu select mirror image, this will reverse the image so it looks correct on your page! Unless you want your words backwards! :) Insert your transparency sheet. I use the protective sheet from my cricut adhesive mat! I do have to adjust my page size in the page set up menu so it will print correctly. It works great, otherwise any transparency will do, make sure you print on the smooth side, some have a rough side that is made for printing, but then your ink will dry to it! Go ahead and print your image!

Now this can be tricky! Very carefully place the ink side down on your page exactly where you want it, once its down, you can not move it, the ink will smear, so be sure to hold the transparency down firmly, and gently rub the image onto your page. Remove the transparency and wipe off the excess ink with a damp paper towel!

That is all there is to it! Here is my finished page, and the title didn't cost a thing! You also never have to worry about not having the right color, running out of letters, or it being the wrong size, you make it just what you need!!!

My Play Room

My craft room, my perfect little escape! I love everything in here, and have worked hard to make it exactly what I wanted. It took some time to get it this way, but once I had spent some time in here I had a better idea of what I needed. I have plenty of storage, & tons of workspace.



This is the best way to store my large & medium Stampin Up whale tale punches. It is a Kitchen rail system from IKEA! The whole this only cost me $15, that is for the rails and the baskets!!



You'll often find me sitting here, at my laptop. I have my cricut hooked up, and I do a lot of my journaling on my computer and print it out. I make lots of "home made" rub ons with my computer and printer as well. The shelving is from Home depot, we had to add an extra wall mount a few weeks ago, apparently I had a little too much paper on the shelves! :)




This is my favorite "Junk Find"! I found this on the side of the road, behind ACE hardware. It was very old, beaten and needed a little TLC. I took the old top and back off, they were not salvageable! Bit the rest as good! I used a piece of bathroom wallboard for the top, so its nice and smooth! I added some shelves so I could use it as paper storage, put in some baskets added some trim to finish off the edges!

The metal piece above it is just some sheet metal and some edge trim for wall board. It is great to hang extra photos, or whatever I want to display! Just get some fun little magnets and your all set!!




My Island is my main work area, there are storage cabinets on the other side. I do most of my various projects here, it is aprox 4'3"x6'3". I kep my paper holder on the wall dorectly behind me, then i have most everything i need within my reach!



This was an old pantry from our kitchen, I painted it white and took 4 of the doors to have it easily accessible. It is great for keeping my 12 x 12 scrapbooks, magazines, and lots of misc items!

Addicted to JUNKING!!!!!

So I went to the dump today, yes the dump! I picked up this old pair of wood shutters to use in my bathroom. I took the outside hinges off and put them in the middle to hold the shutters together. I also had a set of drawers that were taken out of and old sewing table, also from the dump. I took the handles off the drawers and put them on the inside. We mounted them to the wall as a shelf and placed the shutter above it! I left the shutters and drawers the color they were, and just cleaned them up and sanded them down a bit to look even more worn down.This entire project cost me $0! Everything on the shelves were things I had from my house.


Below is an old wood window & wire basket that I bought from snowman hill. I hung it above my bathtub! Thanks Krista, for introducing me to the wonderful world of Junking!!!

Stampin Up large ribbon holder

I have seen these ribbon boxes around for a while now, but I could never find one large enough to hold the Stampin Up ribbon that comes on 4 1/4inch spools. I found a plain media storage box at office max and decided to alter it! I used patterned paper by Hedi Swap, Stampin Up ribbon, jumbo eyelets, and solid cardstock. I used a drill to get the holes started and then used my cropadile big bite to make them even and sooth so the ribbon could come through! There is a dowel inside to help the ribbon stay standing up. I have 20 spools inside, but you could fit at least 4 more!

Painting a faux brick wall

I have been planning to decorate Nicholas's room using a vintage gas station/garage/cars, and today I finally decided that it was time. I have been gathering ideas and antiques, I knew for sure that I wanted one wall to look like it was brick, and this is how I did it.

Paint your base coat. This will be your "Grout" color. One coat should do just fine here.

Once the wall is dry, you need to mark it out with a pencil depending on what size you want your bricks to be. Once the entire wall is marked, you then can string your tape. I used 3/8".

Start by stringing your tape vertically, then finish with all of your horizontal lines. This will create a grid.

Next you need to use an xacto knife and cut out pieces of the tape to begin to create your bricks. I recomend starting at the top and working across and down as you go.

Once the entire wall looks like brick, use a roller & paint your brick base color over the entire wall. Before that color can dry, you then create a palette using 3-4 coordinating colors and apply randomly over the wall with a damp sponge until you get your desired look. I used 2 darker shades of red, a dark brown and golden yellow. Remove the tape immediately, do not allow it to dry first. That is it!

It really was not that hard to do, just takes time marking out the wall!

I think his room is my favorite in the entire house!

Some Last Minute Trimmings

This is our second Christmas since we finished the addition on the house, last year we were still working on Christmas Eve, so today I wanted to make sure I had everything just right! So I added a few little things.