DIY Faux Fireplace

Well, it's been a long time but I finally have a few things I wanted to blog about. The first is my diy faux fireplace. I have always wanted to have a fireplace in my home so that I can decorate the mantel each season. Since I don't have a fireplace, I decided to create a faux one after being inspired by all of the faux fireplace ideas on pinterest. I also loved the idea of harnessing my creative energy to create different displays for the firebox depending on the season. Since Christmas is almost upon us, I decided this season was the perfect time to start this project because who doesn't love a festive fireplace mantel at this time of year! First I scoured kijiji for a few weeks looking for fireplace mantels that I could give a makeover and found this one:

I already knew I wanted to paint it white and happened to have white furniture paint patiently waiting for me in the basement. I washed the fireplace off with a damp cloth and once it had dried I lightly sanded it so the paint would adhere better. The paint I had was from the Beauti tone collection at Home Hardware and had the primer built into it which made it much easier. It took me 3 coats and probably could have used another coat but I loved how it looked and was tired of painting! Here's a progression of the fireplace as I painted it:

Once it was all done, my hubby helped me move it into the perfect spot in our living room. It still isn't finished because I want to cut the trim so it sits flush against the wall and also build a firebox and paint it with chalkboard paint. But one step at a time! Here it is all decorated for Christmas!

Thanks for stopping by!

The Paper Mixing Bowl: March 2013 Challenge

Good morning everyone! Here's the latest recipe card from the Paper Mixing Bowl:

And here's my take:

I had no idea what I was going to scrap for this month's layout until I went scrapbooking with my crafty friends a few weeks ago. One of my friends gave me a few wee photos she had developed from our scrapbooking retreat back in November. The pictures were perfect! The main background is actually green although it's hard to tell in the photo of my layout.  For my irish lace I chose a lacy stamp by Fancy Pants and stamped over the bottom corner of my pictures.

My title was cut using my friend's Silhouette (love that machine!) which she helped me with by "welding" the letters so it was all one piece.  I also wrote a limerick to go along with the photos and added some gold brads for my pot of gold.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Wedding Layout

Just a quick post to show you the first in a succession of wedding layouts. I got married 6 years ago but still have all of the pictures and scrapbooking supplies lying around. This album may be a bit of a challenge because some of the scrapbook supplies are a little dated but I plan on trying to incorporate them with more modern layouts to update them. Here's my first attempt!

The Paper Mixing Bowl: November 2012 Challenge

As I was busy buying a house and selling mine, I never got around to finishing the November PMB challenge until recently. I loved the recipe for this month so much that I decided to make it a two page layout.

Here's the recipe:

And here's my take:

 

And a close up of each page:

My favourite part of this layout was the maple leaves.  They were extra special because they came from our tree that we planted in the backyard. This tree was a gift from my Uncle that he had dug up from his property and given to us on a Thanksgiving several years before.  It was our first tree at our first home and we would soon be moving away and leaving it behind. The colours were so spectacular this past fall and our little maple really put on a show. So I collected several leaves of varying sizes and glued them onto the layout, then used a special spray paint to "laminate" them so that the colour won't fade. That's it for now! Wow, two posts in one day ;)

Makeover #1: Arabella's Room

As promised, here is the first room transformation in our new home. Arabella's room just had to be the first room painted because she was SOOOO excited to have a "purple" room. Just ask her and she will tell you lol. A friend of mine made an offer I couldn't resist...he'd paint it for free if I bought the paint! Now how could I say no to that!!! So after a lot of prep work (the previous owner must have had a love for posters because there were a gazzillion thumb tac holes in the wall...EVERYWHERE!) here is Arabella's room makeover.

BEFORE: Pink and Black

AFTER: Purple and white

We still have to put up the curtains and I am waiting for her new bedding that I have ordered. There is a picture of it below. I tried to find something that had purple as well as green and aqua in it so that her old nursery decor fit in as well. Her bedroom set was a gift from her Aunt and used to belong to her cousin. I just love the sleigh bed! And do you remember that chandelier I mentioned so long ago that I was going to paint white? Well I thought it would look ADORABLE in her room. I was thinking of maybe finding some purple, green and aqua beads as well to string through it to add a bit of playfulness.

I will update this post with more pictures once I get the bedding and curtains. Thanks for stopping by!

The Paper Mixing Bowl February 2013 Recipe

Well, it certainly has been a long time since I scrapped anything....I think actually it was at the end of November when I went to Memories Manor with some of my scrappy friends. A lot has happened between then and now...we flew to Thompson, Manitoba for a week at Christmas, packed up our entire house, moved to a new house, started the unpacking process and also started a basement renovation. Needless to say life has been a little hectic! I was determined to fit in this month's challenge though since I missed January's and I just really miss scrapbooking! I'm positive I spent more time searching for boxes with my scrapbook supplies than I did actually creating this layout, but it was fun and I love how it turned out. Here's this month's recipe for Red Velvet Cake:

...here's my inspiration (how can you not love them!)...

...and here's what I came up with!

The background paper is from the Lost & Found collection by My Mind's Eye. For the utensils, I spilled something on some plain white paper and then layered it to mimic pages in a book. I put a positive spin on a bill I recently received by scrapping it into the page...I loved that the postage mark was red. I handcut the hearts for this page and would have loved to add little baby blue rhinestones to them but I didn't have any. So instead I adorned a few bobby pins with buttons and then skewered a few of the hearts with them. I think they turned out pretty cute!

I used two pairs of photos taken of my Hubby and daughter making silly faces together on one of the airplanes during our trip to Thompson. This also filled the multi-photo component. Although I chose not to do any journalling on this page I did incorporate the journalling prompt "two"  into my title. The baby blue that ended up on this page orginiated from the chipboard letters that I found in one of the boxes of scrapbooking supplies. I received a Costco scrapbook kit for my birthday over a year ago and haven't used a single thing from it. But I loved the size of these letters so I decided to make them work. I also loved the colour scheme this month because it meant I could use the red and brown sparkley Thickers I was regifted from a scrappy friend. She has had them for years and hated them so I took them off her hands because I thought they were FABULOUS! So thanks to Veronica for helping me out with this months challenge!

That's it for today! I'm hoping to blog the renovation projects at our new house as we complete them. I also want to take photos of all of the scrapbook layouts I did at my Memories Manor retreat. First I have to find them all! I'll see what I can get to over the next week and hopefully get back to posting a bit more regularly on my blog. Thanks for stopping by!