Done Shingling

It only took us 2 weeks, but we are FINALLY done shingling! We have such a weird roof line with so many peaks and valleys, it really was a pain to do. It is a 12/12 roof line, which is a 45 degree angle. There were 2 layers of cedar shakes, plus a layer of asphalt shingles to strip first, then we resheeted, then reshingled. Chris put a lot of time into this project. I was up there a few times, but mostly I had to go work at my real job, and I made A LOT of food over the past few weeks.

Thanks to all those who helped us with this huge project! My parents, Chris' parents, Jason, Emily, JD, Stacy, Michelle. I hope I got everyone, sorry if I didn't!

Finally Scrapping some wedding

I have finally got over my hesitation to scrapbook our wedding... almost 5 years later! Oops! Now the thing that delays me is going to be having only print photos, no digital photos. I really wish Meyers had shot in digital. So far most of what I have scrapped have been photos taken by others at the wedding. And it will probably continue to be this way until I figure out what to do with the professional photos. They are printed with this wierd texture so they don't scan well at all. Perhaps I will try to get ahold of the negatives.

Originally I was going to use a color scheme the same as our wedding. Red, White and Black only. I think that was a huge part of my mental block to scrapping this. So, I took a cue from Laura's Wedding album here http://mmwwaahh211.blogspot.com/ and have decided to scrap whatever I feel like . At least this means I will have an actual wedding album soon!

Anyway, this is what I have come up with so far.


One about our fabulous cake and our cake cutters.








My wonderful personal attendants who made me beautiful on my big day!




And of course I had to do a lo with my foreign sisters!



A little story about my wonderful flowers with props going to Darcy Dahna for making them perfect!


And one about our farthest away guests.

I have been very inspired by Studio Calico's May kit Lawn Party. But... I seem to HAVE to combine it with my April kit, Singin' in the Rain. They just mix so well together that almost all these LO's have items from both kits in them!

Scrappy Goodness

Again, it's been awhile. We have made some progess on our home projects front. The carpet is out of the pool room. We still need to tear out the closet, then we can get the beautiful wood floor refinished. New light is up in the entryway and most of the trim has had the paint scrapped off the edge of it and is restained to match the rest of the wood. We start shingling in 2 days.

Now on to the scrappy goodness!

I did this multi-photo lo about Amy's wedding shower last year. I based it off a Studio Calico sketch and I love how it turned out.

This lo was also done based on a Studio Calico sketch. It uses the Singin' in the Rain kit and I love the bright colors paired with grey. I've been gravitating a lot towards grey lately. LOVE!

Again, this was based off a sketch for National Scrapbook Day over at Studio Calico. See the grey again? I told you I have a thing for it! And those grey buttons in the top left hand corner? Love more! And I did some hand stiching around the bottom patterned paper. I entered this into a few contests at SC for NSD and I won one! I am getting a great prize of lovely My Mind's Eye scrap goodies!

I broke out the misting for this LO about Amy's wedding. I love how the butterflies turned out. The banner at the top is embossed with Zing! I love embossing now that I have the proper tools (wink at Michelle who got me none-embossing powder one year and I kept burning the paper!) I also embossed, misted and stamped the office tag on the right.

I had to document Max's super fluffy hair. It was so cute and now it's gone :( And I finally got a chance to use the fab chipboard that was in a SC kit way back either last spring or summer. I used it as a mask for misting on the left there. And I broke out my typewriter for this!


This LO took me FOREVER to put together. All those little squares and trying to figure out what to put in each one that corresponded to what we did on that particular day. But I LOVE how it turned out! Now if I could just finish the whole trip (I'm so close!)

*** Out for Pub!

And I love this pic of our family at Amy's Wedding. I love how the bright pink color of our dresses allows for such bright colors in the lo! Grey... again! And more embossing. I lifted a fellow Studio Calico member for a 'lift the person above' challenge. I need to participate in one more often, as this is what happens when I do!

Projects around the house

So, spring is on it's way, which means it is time to start house projects. Yay!

And we have a loooooooooooooooong list of stuff to get accomplished.
- Beam the house and crank it back up so the middle of the house is once again level
- Remove boiler from the basement, so 1. it's finally out and 2. we can finish the above project
- Paint the entryway, stairway, and upstairs hallway (all one color)
- Redo trim/woodwork of said above rooms (getting old paint off edges of stained woodwork downstairs & making and staining upstairs woodwork)
- Shingling - to be done the first week of May or so... this is going to s.u.c.k., a 12-12 pitch and lots and lots of angles
- Move the laundry room upstairs (house must be level 1st), which means removing plaster & lath, then sheetrocking and plumbing everything in (C's territory) - complete redo
- Bathroom remodel. This is fallign apart as we speak. A new tub is an absolute must at this point, and as long as we are doing this we might as well do it all.
- Pull up carpet in the to be pool table room (aka the parlor), get the fabulous wood floor refinished so the pool table can be moved in. Remove extra non-used door, patch wall and paint the whole room. Get the added in closet door to match all the other woodwork (?)
- Also remove carpet and linolium from entryway. Get this wood floor and dining room floor refinished.

And I'm sure there is more... but this is a good start, impressive huh?

And some pictures of our progress:


You can see in the above picture the old telephone pole that was holding up the house. And to the right of that is the temporary support that held up while we were installing the new beam and support in it's place. To the right of all of that is our brand new furnace!


And the new beam and support in place!

Chris putting up the other end of the beam & apparently cranking it really hard. To the far left you can see the temporary support in place where the old support stood on this side of the basement.

New beam and support :) The old boiler that needs to come out. Only 1 more beam to go!

A sweet photo

This isn't a current photo, but one taken 2 months ago. My poor baby Roxy had eye surgery and had to be in a cone for 2 weeks. Luckily it was a flexible cone so that cut down on her torture some, although she was so happy when we finally took it off! Anyway, a cute photo of her and C chillin' on the couch.

This is Max

Meet our most recent addition to the family. His name is Max! We went into Christmas down 1 kitty (broke my heart but we had to put Tiger down as she wouldn't stop peeing around the house :( So saaad). We thought we would keep Roxy as the only inside cat, but Max had been living in the porch with his two sisters Poof and Mimi, and he just won us over. He is so friendly and a cuddler, and it was evident right away that Roxy needed someone to play with during the day. She was a little wound up at night when we got home and they moment we would let Max in to visit, she and him would play. So, we let me be inside all the time now. We are still working on getting him to use the 'new' litterbox (a CatGenie) instead of the traditional litterbox, so we don't have to deal with the unmentionables. Without further a do... here is the cutie pie!



He is still a little bit jumpy when you play with him. LOVE this shot of him!

He is just a little hamball. He has started walking in front of us and then just doing the plop to tell us he wants to be petted! He's like pet me damn it!

I just can't get enough of him! The little cutie pie! He's creeping up on 6 months already, so he won't be a small kitten for very much longer. :( Got to get all my kitten cuddling in yet!

Scrapbook Update

I want to share some of my newer layouts that I haven't shared yet. I hadn't been able to scrap since mid July to November as all my stuff was packed away in storage. :( In the meantime, my Studio Calico (SC) kits kept piling up. I think I had five or six untouched kits by the time I got my scraproom set up in the new place. (I will have to share pics at a later date as I am still in the process of settling in. I am still on the search for bins/baskets to fin in my Expedit from Ikea.)

For the life of me, I can't figure out how to get some of the pictures to rotate! If anybody knows, please comment and let me know!

Here are some of my more recent layouts.

We ate at this little pub in downtown Dublin. It was fun to just walk into a local bar and soak up the culture. The food was pretty good there too. I used SC's Joyland and Granny's Cupboard.

Finishing up the Ireland layouts... When in Dublin you must go the the Guinness factory and at least try a Guinness. While it is NOT my favorite beer in the world, I actually finished my whole pint, because now I can say I have! :) I used Granny's Cupboard with some Over the Rainbow from SC.

Of course, there is no way to go to Paris and not see Notre-Dame. It was a really neat big church and we got our exercise climbing those stairs! The green tickets are the actual tickets from the climb. The info brocher they give you is attached to the yellow tab on the right of the layout. It pulls out and there is a bunch of neat facts about the church. I used Granny's Cupboard from SC for this LO.

A layout about the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I love that I was able to incorporate the ticket from the Tower on the layout.

I did this layout about Roxy awhile back. I love all the pictures I had gathered of her when she was little and sleeping in any space she could! I used an oldie but a goodie - SC's Joyland kit.

These pictures where taken at the Groom's Supper for Amy's wedding. And it is very very typical of us when we get together. This layout was done with SC's Napa Valley.

In November, I got to spend a long weekend with Amy up in Maplewood and we went to a concert to see Kina Grannis. She is a mostly internet artist, who is slowly amassig a following. She was so cute in concert and she did a meet and greet after the show, so I actually got to meet her! I was very excited. Anyway, this is a layout about this! I used SC's Back 40, On the Easel and Napa Valley's kit.

Chris and I got to go Scuba diving in Okoboji a couple times this summer. We went with Blue Water Divers in Arnold's Park. On Wednesdays, they have cheap boat dives with 1/2 price rentals as well. It was nice to meet other divers (we go out to eat afterwards as well) and share some stories. I used parts of 3 different kits for this layout.

I love this layout about the fun times Anne and I had while Scuba diving. We goofed off a bit and it was A LOT of fun! I used a combo of a lot of kits from SC. I especially love the big polka dot stamp they made! LOVE!

This layout is of Anne & my experience diving Square Lake this summer. We had a lot of fun being dive buddies! I used Studio Calico's Summer Camp and Napa Valley kits to do this. I also used a sketch for this one.

This is one of those wonky layouts that I can't get to rotate. Me and Dad on our snowmobile trip last year. I used a ton of products from many different Studio Calico kits.

I am STILL working on my 2008 Europe trip. In my defense, I was abroad for a whole month and took a ton of pictures. And I mean a ton. At least I am scrapping the last week of the trip... I used the Napa Valley SC kit here.

I did a 2 pager! It has been so long since I did one. They are so challenging to me because there is just so much space to fill out. I used SC Granny's Cupboard and Partly Sunny.

I have also done some layouts for Amy's Wedding. I have acutally probably already done more layouts of Amy's Wedding than my own! Mine is just so intimidating to me. I've thought about it a few times, but havent' actually done much. Anyway, this is a layout about Anne and my dresses. We had some time to kill while Amy and Kenny where taking pictures, so we had a little photo shoot of our own :) I used SC Partly Sunny and On the Easel.

A lovely layout about the beautiful bride Amy. She looked so great on her wedding day!

I loved this picture of me and Anne at the bar. This layout was done with SC's Napa Valley. I just love the colors of this page!

Studio Calico has asked us to blog a wishlist of the of the products we would like to have. So here goes:

- It's out of stock, but I would love the Large Circle Border Punch. I keep seeing it used on a bunch of fabulous layouts in the gallery.

- I already have Jenni Bowlin's stick candy ink coming with the January kit, but I would like all the other colors eventually. Everybody seems to be raving about them, so I think I need them now too!

- I also wouldn't mind getting more of the Studio Calico Mister Huey's. I only have the white one as of yet, but I think I will slowly starting adding more month by month.

So that's it for now. I have to got and do some physical therapy now on my knee... :( I wish bending it wouldn't hurt so damn much!