New and improved foyer

The foyer is finished!  I regreat not taking before pics, but just imagine all wood trim and doors stained, sunflowers and birdhouses stenciled on the walls and barn red wallpaper below the chair rail. The decor was pure country. Now after new doors, door handles, light fixture, trim, crown molding and paint. I think it has a traditional southern feel. I kept my halltree and used my tea cart as a table. I still have to put a pic on the wall over the tea cart. I want to use one of Aiken that my brother-in-law took. Just haven't had the time to do it yet.

Still have to paint the walls going up the stairs.

Home Improvement

We built our house 25 years ago, so I decided it was time for an update.  I have all these ideas swimming around in my head. I am not so handy with a saw, but my husband is. Sooo our little update has turned into a little bit more. Today I have workmen here putting in hardwood floors in the kitchen, bath and laundary room. We are putting in real hardwood not prefab, which means a lot more work. They expect to be here all week. I finally got the painter to come today also. He's here to paint all the trim and doors. This is a very tedious job that my husband didn't want to do. He has been very busy building a fireplace mantle, putting up crown moldings and wainscoating. demolishing the downstairs bath, replacing all interior doors and installing new kitchen sink, faucet and garbage disposal. We both have been painting walls until we hate to see the site of a paint brush. New grainte counter tops were put in about 3 weeks ago, but my new kitchen sink had not come in until this past week, so it was a challenge not to have a sink and running water in the kitchen for that long. Of course, now we have no kitchen at all because of the new floors going in. Everything has been moved out of the kitchen and laundary room and the bath has been gutted. The fridge has been moved into the greatroom . It's kind of convenient, but doesn't go with the other decor in that room. I made a little mini kitchen in the greatroom for cereal and sandwich makings. I guess we'll be eating out alot this week. This mini renovation has been going on since January. We are doing most of the work ourselves ( at least my fabulous husband is--I do what I can) We both work and of course we have other responsibilities, so we said we would take our time. I think we both are about ready to see the end of this project, but after the workmen leave we still have to finish the kitchen and bath.

Since it doesn't look like I'll be able to scrapbook any time soon, I thought I would post a few pics of the awesome fireplace mantle my hubby made. We looked around for a fireplace mantle and even went so far as to get an estimate on one, but in the end it came  down to money. It was going to cost about $800 to $1000 to buy a mantle. My husband built the mantle for $200. It means so much to me that he built it. I designed it and he made my dream come true.

My husband told me he was going to cancel HGTV!!!!

In Honor of Mother

My best friend lost her mom about 18mos. ago. to Alheimer's. I wanted to make  something special for her, so of course I made her an album. I wanted it to be a surprize, so with the help of her husband, who sent me numerous pictures, I was able to creat an 8x8 album of her and her mom. My bff lives in Asheville, NC. We spent a weekend there in April with her and her husband. I gave her the album then. It was actually her b'day gift. The ache in her heart is still rather raw. When she saw the album it made her cry. I think the tears were grief and joy. Grief of her lose and joy of holding a gift that would keep her mother's memory close to her heart.

My mom has been gone for 20 years now. She lost her battle with cancer at the age of 59. I miss her everyday. Mother's day is always difficult for me. I feel cheated out of time I should have had with her. I was angry with God for many many years. I am resolved now and have come to understand God's plan in her life. She helped so many other cancer patients cope with their illness. She wrote a book about her battle with cancer that our local cancer society gives out to other cancer patients, as well as counseling cancer patients when she was alive.

Everyone thinks their mother was the best ever and I am no exception. My daughter Katelin was born about 6 weeks after mama past away. She has gotten to know my mama through stories and photographs. This is the reason I scrapbook. I realized scrapbooking was a way to keep those memories alive. I love you mama!

Now, here is the album I made for my bff  Mary.  I used K& Co. "Blue Awning" line. I went with a vintage shabby chic look. Hope you like it.

thing of beauty

I haven't been scrapbooking lately. My husband and I have been focused on updating our house. I come up with these bright ideas and my fabulous husband makes my visions come true. We're taking our time and doing one room at a time. We have finished the greatroom and we are now working on the foyer. Dale built an awesome fireplace mantle and surround that I designed. I'm itching to do a layout about it so I can show you his skills.

I haven't posted in a while so I dug this layout out of one of my books to show you. I love black & white with a pop of color. That's Katelin on a photo shot for her high school senior picture. Wow that was a couple of years ago. That funky car is a 1974 VW Thing. Yes, the name of the car is "Thing".  Dale restored it, just another one of his talents. Katelin loves this car! We have owned it most of her life so she chose it as a prop in her picture. The contrast of the bright yellow really pops against the B&W.

My talented brother-in-law

This is a layout I did of my brother-in-law David Owens. He is married to my sister Pat. I took this photo of him when we all vacationed together on Hilton Head. He has always loved photography and in the past few years has devoted more time to his passion. He is a very talented photographer and has the "eye" to seek out the beauty in nature. Not only is he an awesome landscape photographer, but he has quite the imagination for the abstract. I encourage you to check out his gallery on Flickr. You can access his work here.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsowens/ He also sells his work. If intrestered leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

When I took this photo I knew I wanted to digitaly add my title to the photo, so I lined the shot up to have a good size negative space to do this without distracting from my subject. ( David has taught me a thing or two about composition ) A little patten paper and minimal embellishments completed the page.

I am honored that David liked this layout so much that he has used it to create business cards for himself and he uses it as his identifer on his Flickr site. Thanks D.S.!  I guess my sister didn't do to bad when she brought you home! Love ya!!!

What is that white stuff?

Quick post to stay what a beautiful scene we woke up to Saturday morning. This will definitely go in the scrapbook.

You're still the one...

that makes me smile

that makes me laugh

that makes me happy

gives me encouragement

gives me support

gives me goosebump

I want to wake up with

I want to come home to

I want to share my life with...

As each year goes by my love for you grows deeper and deeper.

Wishing you a happy birthday and Valentine's day on Sunday the 14th

always and forever, always and and forever