It's becoming "The White House"

So the fun of buying a home that is not newly built is this --you buy it cuz you like where everything is.  And then comes the fun part of making cosmetic changes to make it more you.

  When we first looked at our house--I fell in love with it--the floor plan is so not typical and the kitchen could possibly turn some buyers away.  It is not your elaborate-large-chef-type kitchen.  It is small cozy, narrow BUT the amount of cabinet storage they squeezed in here is amazing--the pantry is HUGE--which I totally love.  Cuz this family loves to eat-LOL!

Our house was built in 1991 and the kitchen cabinets were good quality built--but the color was horrendous.  It reminded me of when my kids had to take augmetin medicine and their poop turned green/brownYUCK!
The handles on the cabinets I swear must be the originals-another yuck.  They were horrid brass with 20+ years of wear and tear.  Now my counter tops--again I am odd-and dont like the same trendy things  as most do.  These are regular ole laminate countertops with some serious texture--they are not smooth at all,.  But for being 20+ years old they are in great shape.  They are off white with some orangey-reddish-brown mixed in there   ( wait is that a color?  LOL)

Needless to say the kitchen was very dark-so when we were buying the house I told Craig first project on the list would be to paint the kitchen cabinets--it would brighten it up in there and make it look much bigger.

See what I mean--dark & dreary--who wants to be in there????

Well my husband absolutely hates to paint and I dont like long projects.  I am a quick change kinda gal--I just am horrible in the patience department.

FINALLY--one year after move in we decided to tackle the dreaded kitchen project.  First we painted and glazed the kitchen cabinets using the Rustoleum cabinets tranformation kit.  I Loved that kit--to easy and great instructions.  Next up I decided to add a backsplash for some color.  My walls are impossible to paint because they go soo high up and there is no stopping point from the kitchen to the rest of the house.  So my backsplash was my pop of color--if you know me you know I love color.  I decided to go with the look of a ceiling tile tin look.  I found some sheets of it that are very easily cut with scissors or a box cutter.  Of course I painted them red and installed them.  Well it was a bit much so I decided to add some glaze to it--leftover from my cabinet kit.  It needed to be toned down a bit--and it did just the trick.

See what I mean!  Wowza what a difference.  I must also add that we put rope lights up on top of the cabinets to for extra lighting--its soo pretty at night.   This view is looking in from the game room--well thats what we use it for--its supposed to be a dining room--WHATEVER!  We are real life people--we dont do fine china--LOL!

And this view is from the other end at the entryway from the eating area.

And my next big thing in here was the fun one--I wanted a screen pantry door just because they are cute.  Well of course my door is an odd size and it would cost an arm and a leg to special order one.  Then the hubby said he would build me one.  But I decided to let him off the hook and just paint and distress it--you can never have too much color.  So I just went to town painting it red, then I took out a sanding block and sanded away in different spots--next up add some glaze, new door knob and hinges.  And here's the cutie in her new glory

IS not just gorgeous--I love it soo much only becuz I did this all on my own--no instructions or nuttin'. And I had everything on hand--well except the new door knob.  That was a whoppin $14.95--now thats a cheap and big impact tranformation in my book!

Now we will rest for a bit--we are in the heart of baseball season, spring football practice--I have to take a housebreak for a bit.  Then we will comeback and add some trim on the cabinets to make them look not so builder grade, new flooring, reface the fridge--cant wait for that one--ur gonna love it!  And also cant wait for a new big deep sink and pretty new faucet!

I hope you enjoyed my kitchen reveal and stay tuned for more tranformations real soon!

toodles,
Tami

MS&M sketch blog

Well I am back again with some more creations based off of My Scraps & More sketch blog.  That Tammi sure can whip up some good sketches.

I havent had much time to scrap lately--we have been working on a makeover in my kitchen.  But last night while waiting up for my child to get home i worked on this one

Isnt it cute--the possiblities are endless.  Well this month is also their birthday so they are having a birthday swap with us.  We are supposed to use our kit for a sketch and I just had to use this one for my layout about our "night time" babysitter Amanda--I just love that girl.  Anyways here's the layout

And here's another sketch tthat I worked on the other night while waiting for paint to dry-LOL!

TOOOOOTALLY love this sketch--I love sketches with strips--they are soo fun.  I will be using this one again for sure.  I decided to scrap my kids Pre-K graduation photos--ummm hello one is in HS and the other is in Middle School--hehehehehe  I am afraid I made this one a little to busy-oh well I do that sometimes.

Thats it for now--gotta go finish painting my pantry door!

You outta go ck out their blog-pick a sketch and give it a whirl--it's fun I promise!
toodles,
Tami

MSM sketch #20

Told ya I love these sketches!  Here is the second sketch for the month of March

And can you believe i am actually scrapping a picture that I just received last week-SHOCKER!  I am in baseball mode right now so I wanted to go ahead and scrap Bo's picture for this year--here is Mr Handsome  (sorry I am a little proud of him right now)

Of course this was easy for me cuz the sketch is awesome and I got to use my favorite color palette.  YIPEE arent I lucky my kids HS colors are the greatest ever!  LOL

Thanks for looking!

toodles,

Tami

MY scraps and more sketches

I am totally in love with the sketches over at MSM--Tammi is a great sketch designer.  They live such room for intrepretation.

Each week they post a sketch on the blog and you have until the end of the month to post your take in order to be eligible for the monthly prize.

So first one of the month was this

Ok so I had to give it a try--I mean I dont do the slant thang much--and you know I love a challenge!

So here's what I came up with

Its my son and his to besties during one of their games.  This image I saw quite a bit thru the year.  This was really hard for me more than just the slant--Its real hard to me to scrap something and the colors dont match perfectly but I am trying real hard to get over that  (insert rolling eyes)

So thanks for looking-cant wait to tackle next weeks sketch

toodles,
Tami

Memorable Seasons: Are your bags packed???

Memorable Seasons: Are your bags packed???: Because it is time to head off on our island adventure and see who... will be our Last Scrapper Standing for 213. Do you enjoy the TV show... Survivor—well, we here at Memorable Seasons have our own take on the show. It's called The Last Scrapper Standing and we want all you ladies to join us here on our little island for a 6 week adventure that will cause you to scrap your sandals off! 

The DT will issue you a challenge every Friday starting February 8th, you will then have until the following Wednesday to get your layout loaded to the gallery and linked back to the appropriate thread. On Thursday all of us on the island will vote for our top 3 favorites, depending on how many entries we have entered on week 1, a percentage of those will move forward to next week. This will continue until week 5. The last week only the DT members aka THE JURY will vote on the top 3. The layout which receives the most votes will become our Last Scrapper Standing.

So what if you are voted off or what if you don’t want to join in the contest, no problem, because every week ANYONE that participates in the challenges will be eligible for a random prize drawing!
So we encourage you to invite your friends and spread the news because this promises to be the event of 2013, right here on our own little island at Memorable Seasons. So who is ready to be challenged?  Stop by the forum for more details.

I hope you will come join me and the others for some fun times on the island--I am sooo excited for this!

toodles

Tami

A sketch and a collection = Happy ME!

FINALLY I got to scrap this month-WHEW how I have missed this.  And even better I actually got a challenge done and posted here on time.  Over at My Scraps & More she is hosting a weekly sketch challenge which is right up my alley.  Here is this week sketch

And I actually pulled out some Echo Park for this one.  I luv their product so easy to work with so I breezed thru this sketch rather quickly with no hesitation.  Which totally kick started my mojo again.  So here's what I came up with

So proud of myself-I just reached in a box of pictures and pulled this out and went for it--I luv it.  Now I cant wait for the new sketch tomorrow!

Thanks for looking,
toodles,
Tami

New sketch Blog

Oh boy i found a new sketch blog over at My Scraps and More blog  last Friday they debuted their first sketch.  And it was from one of my fave sketch artists Kristine Davidson--so of course I had to give it a whirl.

Here is the sketch

And here is my take on the sketch

I love this sketch so much I will be def be using this again!

Tonight is the deadline for the sketch challenge and cant wait to see the new one tomorrow!

toodles,
Tami