52 Lists. 52 Weeks. Goals for February

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!  That's what I get for being late all the time - a list that doesn't make sense for me to make!  I'm pretty sure this has happened to me before, right?!  Interesting!
Well, I know what I will do, I will share with you my list of things to try and accomplish in the next two months while Mr. Fantastic is away.  Here it is:
Paint the Mudroom
Build a bench and put up hooks in the Mudroom
Complete the tile back splash in the Kitchen
Paint the Kitchen
Put the handles on the cabinets in the Kitchen
Stain the table dark
Break all the tile out of the center of our dinning table and re-tile it
Finish the wainscoting in the 1/2 bath
Put up artwork in  the 1/2 bath
Find a little cupboard for the 1/2 bath in order to store toilet paper
Make and hang up curtains for our stairwell
Sew a seat cushion for the window seat in the stairwell
Paint the cord hider in our living room to match the wall
Paint some comic book inspired canvases for the gamer room
Hang shelves in the gamer room
Finish painting the wall in our Bedroom
Hang up the curtains and shelves in our bedroom
Paint the tops of the night-stands in our bedroom
Finish decorating our bedroom
Paint the master bathroom
Build a shelf and mirror frames in the master bath
Paint the guest bathroom
Install bead-board in the guest bathroom
Decorate the guest bathroom
Complete the "In this house we do..." painting in our entryway
Set up the digital photo frame that Mr. Fantastic got me for Valentine's Day 2 years ago
Make or buy a rug for our hallway
Finish making my jewelry holder/display
Paint the door edges of all the doors a bright and awesome random color!
Hang up lots of pretty pictures
Work on putting together my office/studio/craft-room/school room
And that's it!  Ha - I know, you are probably wondering, "that's it?"  It sure is a ton of stuff to accomplish in 2 months.  I will probably not accomplish even half of it, but wish me luck.  When I am not watching television, I will be working hard on this stuff.  That means I am going to also have to be more efficiant in doing my school work.  I really need to start a time planner again!

Well, I hope you all are enjoying the weekend!  Is the weather nice were you are at?
Loves!!!

A Little Inspiration to Jump Start Your Week

Happy Monday!
I want to share some really awesome projects with you today along with the links to their amazing creator's blogs.  I hope these pretty things get you out of the Winter blues rut and thinking about Spring coming soon!  Click on the images to be transported to their blog.

 

 source

 

 Source

Source

Source

Source

Oh, I hope you all have fun with these pretty projects this week.  Enjoy!
Loves!!!

Finding Peace

I really am here!  All goes oh, so well!  Life is treating me kindly.  Happiness is all around!  Things have finally quieted down and now I am back to blog.  Now, please know that at first, it will be slow, but I'll get there.  In the meantime, here are some videos for you to watch!  Enjoy!


Hudson - Against The Grain from Dropbear on Vimeo.





Loves!!!

Our New Home - Building, Moving and Starting to Decorate

Alright, alright, alright!  I think I have held off long enough on a post about our new home.  Let me tell you a little bit about it, and then I will share some pictures...ok, a lot of pictures!  When my younger sister was down visiting, her and I must have looked at a million houses and each one just had little things we didn't like.  A huge issue we kept running into was houses that smelled like pets or had problems from their last owners.  One day we decided that we just really wanted to look at a home that was still being built.  The home we had chosen was in the drywall stages and already was being planned as a model home so it had many upgrades planned for it.  When little me and I looked at it, we loved it!  The floor plan was huge and spacious, it had an upstairs, and was in a cute new neighborhood.  We decided to bring Mr Fantastic to take a look.  He took a look and said ok without even looking at the other similar model homes that were finished!  so the next day we started the paperwork and went to pick out a few things that were not already set in stone.  We decided to upgrade to granite countertops in the kithen and Marble counters in the bathrooms.  In the end, we did have them move the kitchen island out 18 inches and put down a little more of the "wood" flooring.  We are so happy that we made these changes.
Move in day was pretty easy because the moving company did most of the hard work.  They did all the heavy lifting!  All we really have to do is unpack the boxes.  Easy enough, right?  Yeah, well, it's a month later and we are still unpacking, and painting, and decorating!
So now comes the fun part.  We really like color and pattern and all that jazz, so we have been working super hard on getting it the way we want it.  The pictures below are some from the finishing stages, the moving stage, and then the beginning of the decorating phase.  I hope you enjoy!

getting ready for siding

starting to look pretty

the

picking out flooring and granite

the great room

again

getting a window seat

getting the kitchen cabinets in

deciding on a backsplash

paint colors for the living room

bathroom vanity

the entry

starting to get the flooring down

the outside is complete

bathroom colors

things i found for the living room

move in day

dinning room colors

picking out cabinet handles

do the boxes ever end?

a full garage!

the crafting studio

getting the fridge

brown for the family room

Getting the stripes started in the family room

putting on the finishing color - turquoise!

yellow in the laundry room

gray in the master bath

my first attept at the master bedroom walls

the stencil just did not meet where it needed to so....

I switched it up and tried again!

Here is what I have so far!

Mr Fantastic picked this out for me and put it together!

The rest of the bedroom furniture

and our new bed!

 Alright, I promise to put more pictures up really soon!  since it is Friday for me, I hope your weekend rocks! 
Loves!!!

How I Design my "52 Lists. 52 Weeks." Lists

I just now realized that by putting things on flickr, people can actually view them and leave comments!  I feel so silly for having not known this before.  I just spent several minutes reading through comments that have been left on my 52 Lists. 52 Weeks photos.  You all are so sweet for leaving comments.  It makes me feel important when people take the time to leave me feedback.  I feel really guilty for being so busy and not having left comments on anyone's lists lately.  I promise in the near future, that will change!  Anyhow, I did notice a lot of comments about the scrapbook look to my lists.  I just wanted to share with you all how I have been making my lists.  It is so easy to do.  I started out by downloading FREE digital scrapbooking kits from Two Peas In A Bucket and then using the elements in Photoshop Elements.  It was pretty easy to do, but it was also time consuming.  For the last few weeks I have been using My Memories Suite software instead of Photoshop Elements and it has gone a lot faster and been a lot easier.  I am able to not only use the elements that are included in the software, but I also downloaded some free elements form their website, and I was able to use all of the elements I had already downloaded from other websites.  So easy!! 

If you are interested in checking out the software, I have a GIVEAWAY going on here and I also have a discount code listed in the post for all of my blog readers.  If you like what you have seen in my List photos, you will love this software!  The big bonus is that it is already way cheaper than other digital software I have seen for scrapbooking.  Check it out!
Loves!!!

My Memories Software **GIVEAWAY**

I'm really excited to share with you all some awesome software that I have had the opportunity to try during the last couple weeks. Have you heard about My Memories Suite?  Now, I've always been about scrapbooking the old-fashioned way because I figured digital scrapbooking would be super tough, but it's totally not with My Memories Suite!  It's actually really easy! 
Not only can you create scrapbook pages, and even scrapbook albums, but you can add sound and video to them as well to watch form your computer or share with friends.  The possibilities are not limited to scrapbooking though....you can make all kinds of beautiful digital stuff and you can also print it all out!!

Simple and easy collage

Use downloads from other suppliers

Use already made pages

Create your own pages by adding any number of elements and embellishments

I'm trying to remember when the last time was that I did any scrapbooking.  To be honest, it has been a very long time.  Why haven't I done any?  Because it is so time consuming and I always make a huge mess!  Well, My Memories had made these excuses irrelevant!  With the software suite, you make a complete page in just minutes!  And of course you don't have all the extra embellishments and paper scraps all over the floor and your desk!  It's all right there on your screen.  They also have downloads for when you are looking for just the right thing to finish that page. I love both their FREE downloads and their very inexpensive other packs!  Here is a quick look at only a few of them:

What is super awesome is that My Memories wants to give away the suite to one of my super lucky readers! 

All you have to do to win this amazing software is go to their website and tell me what fantastic designer pack you would want to create something fantastic  with. 

For extra entries you can also
     ***like them on on facebook and leave me a separate comment.
     ***follow them on twitter and leave me a separate comment
     ***blog about the giveaway and leave me a separate comment with a link
     ***comment about the giveaway on facebook and leave me a separate comment with a link.

The giveaway ends on Saturday, September 10 at midnight.  A winner will be selected by Monday, September 12 via a random drawing!

EVERYONE CAN WIN!!!!  If you visit the website and purchase the My Memories Suite v2, enter the code:  STMMMS44702  at checkout and get $10 off the already super reasonable price!!!!

Welcome to the Family! from Lisa Jurrens on Vimeo.

Hey all!  Just a really quick note to let you know that you will not want to miss my post on Sunday.  I have a really exciting post to share with you, that will include an awesome product review and a sponsored GIVEAWAY!!!  Don't miss out on the fun!  See you on Sunday!
Loves!!!

The giveaway Loot!

I promised to post up the pretties that I sent off to Steph last week for winning my 200 item/post giveaway.  So, without further delay, here are the pictures of all her fun prizes:

The very first painting I ever did on canvas!

Rubber stamps, buttons, iron-ons, humungous paperclips, an ring, and some handmade fabric flowers.

Scrapbooking how-to books, magnets, tags, a bracelet, and a pretty box of stationary

Fun scrapbook supplies

Embroidery string (great for friendship bracelets)

Necklaces, Fabric, a paper banner, and stickers.  The blue and clear necklace was one I made and wore for my first Prom

Thanks for stopping by!
Loves!!!