Our Newly Painted Porch

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  Sometimes Your Priorities Need To Shift

I've been having a bit of an issue keeping on top of my blog posts lately.  I've had quite a bit of travel on the calendar (and quite a bit more to still experience) and I find that when I have limited time at home I need to shift my priorities.  Creating is always a priority for me and usually that creating takes place in the craft room.  However, for months I have been dreaming about getting our porch painted and I decided that needed to be first on the list this past weekend and yesterday.  So it is with a very warm heart that I share this video with you of our newly painted porch (as well as a peek at the backyard garden).  Of course, because this was my focus and due to my upcoming schedule, I unfortunately will not have additional posts for you for the rest of this week.  I know I don't know most of you who stop by my blog and yet I still feel like I am letting you down :(  I so appreciate your stopping by and spending some of your precious time with me.  My hope is that I will be up and running next week.  Now that the porch is done my priorities are likely to shift back to creating in the craft room (and taking breaks to enjoy the porch!).  I hope you have a gorgeous rest of your week and weekend!!!!

Established Elegance Inspire Card With Sprayed Background

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  Put Love In Your Home

Sorry for today's late post - my yesterday was very full.  Full of faux that is! :)  Michael finished painting the second base coat early yesterday morning and then it was my turn to spend the rest of the day doing the remaining faux wood treatment on all of the cross beams.  It was definitely a labor of love and we are sooooo happy with the results!  I'll try to take a picture later today so I can share it with you :)  It feels so good to put some love into the house.  Doing any type of home improvement project - be it painting, cleaning, or a larger do-it-yourself renovation - is so fulfilling.  It's like putting a piece of you into your living space and it pays back every single day :)  What love can you put into your home?
Today's card combines a Timeless Type sprayed background with the gorgeous typewriter from Established Elegance and a greeting from Loving Thoughts.  To create the sprayed background, just die cut or punch the images of your choice and then scatter them on a piece of Whisper White card stock.  Next, spray over the card stock and scattered pieces with ink and water that you have mixed in a small spray bottle.  Remove the scattered pieces and let the card stock dry!  You can then use the background for your card and save the sprayed pieces for another project!  I added a touch of machine stitching around the outside edge to add a bit of texture.  I hope you like it :)

Punches & Your Hobby Blade: A Winning Combination!

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  Go Faux It! :)

Guess what I've been up to this weekend?  Faux painting!!!!  We have been painting the outside of our house (well...maybe Michael has been doing much more of it since I've been on the road a lot...that's why I was so pooped last week and had to take a break - I was off on another trip and returned home Thursday night).  We finally started on the back porch and our vision was to make our 4x4 posts look like grained wood.  I had purchased a tool that you can use to create the look of grain and practiced a little and off I went!  I have been going faux it all weekend long!  There is still a lot of painting to do since we decided to faux the cross beams on the porch too, but we are definitely making headway!  I will be sure to share the after photos with you once we are done.  Here is a peek at what the painting looks like on one of the posts...

 

Today's card was inspired by some paper cutting I have been playing around with lately.  There was a punched out piece of card stock lying on the craft table and my hobby blade was nearby.  Why not combine the two!  I punched out flowers from Whisper White card stock with the Blossom punch and the Boho Blossoms punch.  I then used the hobby blade to cut out different shapes from the petals.  I used a Japanese screw punch to punch out the holes in the center of the large flower.  You can use your crop-a-dile as well.  I hope you like it and I hope it inspires you to try the winning combination of your hobby blade and punches or die cuts!