Almost done . . .

Well – after working on my new scrap desk for what seems like FOREVER, its almost done!!!

I have to say, after working on this thing so long, I am really kind of tired of thinking about it! LOL For everything I did right on it, I did about 3 things wrong, too. haha But all in all I am happy with how its turning out. Its not perfect, but its cute with a large work space and tons of storage! I am on the last step – adding a few coats of polycrylic to it. That’s not going so well . . . I am seeing lots of brush strokes, which I am not like at all. I really wanted to just get a glass top for it, but I’m afraid that will cost me a small fortune to get. I really need the extra protection of the polycrylic though – this desk will be used a LOT. My last desk was glass, and it was so easy to clean up spilled glue, glitter, ink, etc. 

I tried to make it look like the PB desk as much as I could, but I did add a little extra decoration to it. I saw someone online had bought a headboard and put appliques on it. I thought it was really a cute idea so I went to DoItYourselfChic and ordered a couple of rose appliques to put on the front and back of the desk. I really like how it looks on it. Definitely very girly! :) 

So I have learned how to miter corners of wood, use a caulking gun, use wood filler, drill holes, and probably a few other things in between. haha

Well – I’m off to try to get this stupid polycrylic to go on right. Have a great evening!

Steph

In the mood to make something!

I have been on Pinterest for a while now. I have to say I am probably addicted to it. I absolute love it. There have been so many times when I have found a website that I thought was cool and either forgot to bookmark it, or then my bookmarks just disappeared into thin air (yes, I know I should have backed them up!). So Pinterest is a way to bookmark every cool thing I find on the internet. But not only can I bookmark what I find cool, I can also bookmark something cool that someone else has found! So if you aren't on Pinterest, you should probably check it out! Anyway - on to making things. On Pinterest I searched for a craft desk. I found a few that look like the thousand dollar PB desk, only way cheaper. So I got the brilliant idea to do it myself. I am known for my bright ideas that never seem to materialize - or don't turn out as planned. Well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed here and hoping this particular project turns out as planned, because if it does it will provide me with a LOT more storage in my scraproom, and as all scrapbookers know - storage is a GOOD thing! So for the last 2 weeks (by the way - in all the tutorials they say this can be done in a weekend - well apparently I am really slow. haha), I have been working on this desk. I hope to have it finished by the end of this weekend. I have made countless trips to Menards and Lowes (our only home improvement stores in town). Lowes, by the way, is the only store that will cut wood for you. I think Home Depot will too, but I am not near one. So if you decide to do a desk yourself and do not own an arsenal of saws or don't want to risk the danger of using one, then find a store that will cut it for you. I have found that some of the hardware store people are helpful and some just roll their eyes at me because I have no clue what I am doing (well that only happened once - and maybe I imagined it - but still). So when it is all done I will post some pics. I am getting way excited about it though because while I had a good desk before, it just wasn't as functional as it could be and this one will be! Stay tuned!

Welcome to 2012!

Hi, all! I know its been MONTHS since I last posted and I bet you thought I decided to quit blogging altogether. Actually I wondered that myself. LOL I kept thinking I should get on here and update but I never did. I get into these funks where I think I really have nothing interesting to tell anyone so why bother. I really do lead somewhat of a boring life! Then the holidays came and went . . . and I still could not gather the energy to do a blog post. I know - its sad, really, when I follow so many terrific blogs and on each and every one of them, they all find the time to blog if not daily, at least weekly. So I thought since its a new year, how about a new post? :D I hope everyone is enjoying 2012 so far. Its been a crazy couple of weeks here. Not only did I have the holidays to prepare for, but my daughter, who has been living at home since the end of her internship in September, was accepted into a GA position at a college near St. Louis. She has been looking for an athletic training position since graduating, but has had no luck. She went on a few interviews, but she couldn't get any of them because she isn't licensed yet - she had to wait until this month for her graduation date to show up on her transcript, in order to even apply for her license. Well, she found out that she got the position for GA and they wanted her there in 2 weeks! That meant we had to quickly find her a place to live. She made a few calls and found a couple of apartments to look at and we went down on a Tuesday to look at them. So last Saturday, we moved her into her new place. Its a cute little apartment - its tiny but its only for her, so it doesn't have to be huge. Other than the noisiness of living in an apartment building, I think she likes it here. Its fairly close to the university too, and right down the street from it are a lot of shopping places, which is a huge plus. There's even a big hobby lobby there - I thought that was surely a good sign! LOL She is hoping to get her masters in education and will be an athletic trainer for the wrestling team. I really miss seeing her here every day. She worked at a daycare for a few months, since coming back from New York. She liked it there a lot (other than the diaper changes! haha). I know it was hard for her to leave there - she was already attached to a few of the kids. She would come home every day for lunch because it was really close to our house. I really miss that. I worry every day about her but I keep telling myself - at least she isn't in New York anymore! :) I really wish I didn't worry so much. It seems to be my best trait, unfortunately.

This year didn't start out so great for my son. He and his girlfriend just broke up, and even though he is trying to be all strong and act cool, I know it bothers him a lot. So I'm hoping things look up for him really soon! He just finished his first semester of college and did really well in all of his classes. I couldn't be prouder of him!

I have been reading about everyone participating in the 365 photo challenge (this year its 366 though - due to Leap Year!). I thought about doing it again - and then remembered that I failed the last time tried this. haha So I just decided to snap away whenever I think of it without any pressure to do it every single day! I hope I can continue to post more frequently, I really do miss blogging!

I interrupt this regularly scheduled Sunday for an important announcement . . .

I scrapped this weekend! LOL I haven’t scrapped in a LONG time and it felt good to get out the paper and glue! I worked on a layout of my daughter’s college graduation. I had already printed out the pictures for this particular layout a while ago but just never could get the motivation to do the pages. I lifted the design from a layout that was on the Scrapbook Generations site. This is the local scrapbook store in Springfield, MO that holds all of my friend Nikki’s Sivils’ events. They have a great store, and if you are in the area, stop in and do some shopping! The ladies there are awesome! Anyway – the design was perfect for this layout because I had just the right number and size of photos and that almost never happens! Here’s a picture of the whole layout (minus the corner that I accidentally cropped out of the photo. heehee):

The paper is a random bunch of paper I had laying around. the darker purple is Basic Grey swiss dots, and the purple patterned is some that I got at Michaels a while back.

Here is a picture of the date stamp. I had won this a while ago through my friend Katrina, and Unity Stamps. I love this date stamp so much, but don’t use it often because its on the larger size, but it really is a cute stamp. I did do some embellishing to it, though. I stamped the date stamp on white cardstock, then cut out a yellow scalloped circle with my Cricut Mini Monograms, to frame it. Then I cut out a smaller circle to put in the middle (this actually covers up part of the stamp that are the days of the week). Then I used a Fiskars paw punch and punched first in white and then in a purple stripe to sort of layer it. I also stitched around the inner circle with yellow and white twine. I told you I was feeling crafty. LOL  The border punch is a Martha Stewart punch. Oh – and I used my Thickers to put the ‘11 on the bottom corner.

For the WIU, these are foam letters that I had purchased way back when my daughter first went to WIU. There is a scapbook store about 7 miles away from where she went to school. We discovered this by accident one day. It was a happy surprise. LOL The black letters are Thickers. I love this font. I also used some black bling (can’t remember the brand right now but its at Michaels!). I attempted to make a black tiny paw print out of the bling as well. The little diploma is a Studio G stamp stamped on yellow paper and cut out, and then outlined with my glitter pen.

The font used on the journaling is from Kevin & Amanda – its Milk & Cereal. The heart is a different font – its called Efon.  Who knows where I got it, but I use Dafont a lot, so maybe there. I love downloading fonts.

You can now carry on with your Sunday! Just wanted to make this grand announcement because who knows when it will happen again. Talk to you soon!