Magical Messes: September 2015

Before & After: Living Room

8:44 PM

I am super pumped to share one of my first big home projects! With the help of a few family members, I was able to completely transform the living room!!

First up, painting the fireplace white! My mom was gracious enough to do that for me ;) Next, I placed that foam bumper on the fireplace to protect Teddy from boinking his head. Eventually I will paint it white, but it matches the walls for now! Speaking of the walls, the color is Revere Pewter. We painted the whole house that color and it's just lovely!

Next came the problem of mounting the TV. Due to the L-shaped couch we already owned and love, the TV could only logically go over the fireplace. I hate the look of cords and wasn't too keen on cutting holes in the wall and threading the cords through the drywall. Plus, there were studs located in a place where it would make it even more inconvenient. After intense googling, I decided to put up some faux panneling. My Dad was gracious enough to help put that together. We used this blog post for inspiration, some MDF board, and a nail gun to get the project put together.

I love the look of built-in shelves, so I put up Ikea Billy Bookshelves with Oxberg doors. Michael's Dad bolted them too the wall for us, so they are nice and sturdy! With the shelf extensions, the shelves ended up being the perfect height for our room! I filled in the shelf holes with caulk and painted over them so it looked less like something from IKEA. I plan on putting molding on the top so they look even more like actual built ins!

The doors are great for hiding things like DVDS and games.

Here are a few more pictures of the living room:

Thank you for letting me share my first big home accomplishment! And special thank you to my Mom, Dad, and Michael's Dad for making my living room dream a reality.

Pretty Fantastic

3:30 AM

I have a new layout on The Cut Shoppe blog today! I love fall, and I am super pumped about all the new fall designs in the shop. I couldn't wait to use the beautiful and fantastically-named Autumn Acorns cut file. The little patterns are so adorable!

Supplies: Patterned Paper (Pink Paislee Ceda Lane), Flair (Maggie Holmes, Basic Grey), Mist (Heidi Swapp Colo Shine in Teal), Tag (Amy Tangerine Rise & Shine), Other Embellishments (Pink Paislee Cedar Lane)

Despite having such small designs, it cut beautifully from my Cameo (though it did take a long time). Such a beautiful cut file deserved to be back with beautiful papers! I used the Cedar Lane collection from Pink Paislee and backed the acorns with different sheets from the 6"x6" paper pad. I edited it in Silhouette Studio to make a few of the acorns solid because I was feeling lazy. That saved a little time when I was backing all the acorns!

And don't forget that you don't have to have a fall themed photo to use fall cut files. I just used a photo that had foliage in the background. Faux fall :) Have a fantastic day!

Smitten Always

3:35 PM

This might surprise you, but today I have another layout using a photo of my husband and I! We got back our 3rd Anniversary pics awhile back, and I will be using them on pretty much every layout for the foreseeable future :).

Supplies: Patterned Paper (Maggie Holmes Confetti), Vellum (Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm), Thickers (Amy Tangerine, Maggie Holmes), Embellishments: (Maggie Holmes, Crate Paper, Cocoa Vanilla).

I originally intended to use the Dear Lizzy Documentary collection, but as I played around with things it ended up being mostly Maggie Holmes Confetti. Funny how that happens! To create the background, I cut Rosey Posey out of vellum. My Cameo kept eating the vellum, and I finally gave up and placed embellishments over the part where it ripped.

PS: I love the look of black with soft colors. So pretty!

Simple Stories & The Cut Shoppe Team Up!

10:22 PM

Simple Stories and The Cut Shoppe and the cut shop are doing team up! I'm excited to share three projects with you today, all using the beautiful We Are Family collection from Simple Stories and some fun cut files from The Cut Shoppe!

For this first layout, I used the Word Art and A Banner Day cut files. I love all the words that come with "Word Art"! I added lots of fun layers using stickers and the Bits & Pieces from the We Are Family collection, and then I experimented with some yellow paint splatters to complete the look.

Next, I cut out a giant heart from the Pie Hearts cut file. I backed each piece of the pie heart with a different patterned paper. I left one piece open to place my photo in. After it was all filled in, I adhered the heart onto a paper splattered with coordinating mist. I kept the rest of the layout pretty simple, just using stickers to title and embellish it.

My third layout uses the Sweet Hearts and Picture Perfect cut files. I loved the string hearts in the patterns of the paper, and loved that the Sweet Hearts string art heart matched them! Once I had my photo and string hearts placed, I built the layout around it. I tried to fit as many hearts as I could onto the page!

Thank you for letting me share my layouts with you! I've hope you have enjoyed this wonderful week of inspiration on the Simple Stories and The Cut Shoppe blogs! In honor of our collaboration, The Cut Shoppe is having a 30% off sale through September 15th. Be sure to check it out!

And there is also a giveaway!! One random winner will be chosen from the comments on The Cut Shoppe blog to win a Pumpkin Spice collection pack from Simple Stories. Simple Stories is giving a way a $25 gift card to The Cut Shoppe on their blog! The winners will be announced on September 15th. Thanks for joining us!

My Fave

8:03 PM

My mom is a little bit the best. Okay, she's totally the best and I love her more than life itself. She is my best friend and I am pretty lucky that I get to call her my Mom. We busted out the selfie stick before our date to Harry Connick Jr. and I was pretty pumped to get lots of fun pictures with her beautiful self.

DISCLAIMER: My lighting setup is still being tweaked all because of that pesky moving! The struggle is real.

Supplies Used: Paper (Dear Lizzy Documentary), Embellishments (Studio Calico, Dear Lizzy, Pinkfresh Studio, We R Memory Keepers, Amy Tangerine), Mist (Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Mint).

Also, I just really love the Dear Lizzy Documentary collection and I wouldn't mind wallpapering my house with it. For this layout I just cut 3"x 1/2" strips and layered them like so.

Boy, it feels good to be creating again! :)

All Day Every Day

3:00 AM

I am also a wee behind on my Cut Shoppe posts, so I will have a few to share with you! This is one of my favorites :)

I enjoy handstitching on layouts (especially during long car rides) and was really excited when Ashley taught me the technique of using a sketch pen in the Cameo to turn the cut files into patterns! I had been cutting and tracing them, so I was pretty pumped at the genius of this idea. I put it to use during my last road trip, and it turned out great!

I used the Tag, You're It cut file, and just removed the tag part in the Sillhouette Studio. The "All Day Everyday" saying was perfect for my Starbucks addiction!

I stitched each word in colors that matched the Dear Lizzy Fine & Dandy collection. The pops of green were a great match to the Starbucks logo!

I'm starting to realize that I might have a bit of a caffeine problem :)

Clique Kits Catch Up

5:00 AM

Umm yikes. I could have sworn that I had scheduled these projects to be posted during the big move, but the blog posts were no where to be found. Moving brain I suppose? Anyways, I have a few projects to share using beautiful products from the Clique Kits shop!

These are my last projects with Clique Kits, it's been a great run! Thank you to the CK girls for letting me be a part of their team. Be sure to check out the kits, and stop by the store! You can still use the code ALLIE10 for 10% off through the month of September.

Moving In

9:59 PM

Nothing could have prepared me for the chaos that comes with buying and moving into your first home. There was delay after delay, and we got our keys a few weeks later than we anticipated. The moment we got the keys, we got to work! We had to get it all painted before we moved in. My days went like this: Wake up at 4:15 for work, work until 10 or 11, come to the new house and work until 8(ish) pm, go back to the rental and pack until about 11, sleep and repeat. I nearly died! There were several projects that needed to be done before we could unpack things into certain places ( we wanted to build faux built-ins for example), so things have been pretty chaotic. We've finally reached a point where I feel that I can breathe a little, though there is a long ways to go. Here is a small glimpse into our lives for the past month and a half:

I think the one thing that has kept us sane is the help our families have given us. We've been so blessed to have both sets of parents spend so much time helping us!! My extended family also came over for a day of painting. We feel so grateful and supported by those around us, and we love our home even more knowing how many people contributed to make it uniquely ours.