Saturday DIY- On Monday

I've been working away the last few weeks on a little big project. The entire half bathroom on our main floor is getting an overhaul and I'm doing it on the cheap people.

So here's the before shots-




Look at all that rusty orange. And that countertop has a lovely tinge of orange to it too-it's much worse than the picture suggests. 

I DIY'ed these countertops (more on that to come)-



gave the cupboards a fresh coat of paint & hardware-



and experimented with stripes, creating a focal wall that can be seen from the hallway and dining room. It's possibly my favourite part.



The rest of the walls were painted a beautiful gray called Stone Harbor by Benjamin Moore. 



Light fixtures need to go up as do two mirrors (painted white)-one of which I found at a garage sale last weekend! Can't wait to show that puppy off.

Also, waiting in the wings for a few updates is the dining room. I'm thinking of re-covering the chairs, sewing a runner for the table and I've got a few ideas up my sleeve for a centerpiece section for the table. That being said, this is it's current condition.

Yep. So, dining room's on the back burner for now.

Stay tuned for more progress!

xoxo
K

What I'm Working On

So I haven't created much lately but I have been organizing. My friend, Wendy, would love to hear that I've done a little re-vamp of my kits. First of all they needed to be organized.

I started to worry when they started to overflow out of their existing container. I had the kits in the shorter, wider container on the right & pattern paper/cardstock in the taller container on the left. And you can see that kits were in bags or random small ziplocs and desperately needed to be organized!



So, after finding these-


*Extra large ziploc bags from Dominion, the local supermarket (Stavanger dr. location)- for those of you who are local.

So, I broke up a few kits that were nearly done and then I bagged the rest of the kits that weren't in proper bags. After which I hauled them all back out and labeled each of them with their place of origin i.e The Paperie club kits, Studio Calico kits, class kits, etc. I placed each of the labels in the upper right corner so I could tell what I was looking for as I flipped through them.



Then I switched my paper container and my kit container up and they all fit. This is the amount of paper I have.



I'm not much of a paper hoarder-most of that is cardstock- but apparently I love to hoard kits.

I have one -unused kit- dating back to January 2012. That's an issue for me.

So, in an effort to whittle that giant stack of kits away I've devisied a plan!

Last night I took out that kit and a few others and my stack of developed pictures. I pulled out the supplies and laid them out on the table and then I hauled pics out that fit the color scheme, sticking them into the bag of each kit as I went.

And so begins a little process of whittling those kits.

Stay tuned for the results of my labors!

xoxo
K

Summer Summer Summer!

It's almost here. Only a few days of school left around these parts.



So I'm jumping on the band wagon with Ali & Becky Higgins and creating a Summer Manifesto or a Summer Bucket List. Check out their posts in the links.

My main goal this summer is to spend less time on social media-blogging, tweeting, pinning and lurking on Facebook. I’ve become addicted to social media-especially Pinterest- lately and as a result I find that time is simply eaten away and that’s time I could be doing something productive. So this year my Summer Manifesto is two-fold- get out and do stuff and spend less time at the computer.

1. Road trip to Ferryland for another Lighthouse picnic.
2. Do at least 3 East Coast trail hikes!
3. Eat ice cream from an ice cream truck.
4. Visit a waterpark.
5. Run in the great outdoors.
6. Scrapbook more. Take down a few of those kits.
7. See a sunset.
8. Go swimming at La Manche park & 3 Pond Barron.
9. Make doggie dates with our friends.
10. Eat on a patio.
11. See at least 2 summer blockbusters.
12. Take Eugene on his first out-of-province trip.
13. See some live music.
14. Visit the spa.
15. Have a girls night- maybe a few!
16. Make the patio 'liveable'!
17. Send summer mail!
18. Do yoga in the park.
19. Do lunch (es).
20. See an afternoon movie.
21. Make ice cream sandwiches.
22. Make smores.
23. Have an outdoor movie night.
24. Visit garage sales.
25. Go to Salmon Cove Sands.

We are really looking forward to summer around here & we're hoping the weather cooperates the way it did last year!

Here we come summer!

xoxo
K

KTOL: Sneak Peeks

Today I have a few sneak peeks of my Keeping Track of Life post for next week's class.





It's bright and colorful and I love it. And you might have noticed that this month's interactive element in an accordion book with room for 13 photos! Lots of room to tell a story.

Call The Paperie to sign up for next week's class.

xoxo
K

Inspired by...

Little side note: I gave my blog header a little overhaul yesterday. Just changing it up around here a little. And yes, I recognize that I am no longer a 'twenty-something' as I turned thirty nearly two weeks ago but I'm embracing the lie. Just kidding actually. But really I just didn't want to change the name of my blog. Frankly, it's just too much trouble.

I haven't done an 'inspired by' post in ages and recently came across this layout by Kelly Noel. Naturally, like all inspiration these days-it came from Pinterest.



I loved the effect at the top. Buttons, a love of mine, were incorporated heavily and that really, really appealed to me. So, I stuck pretty closely to the layout itself.

This is what I came up with.



Don't you love the buttons? I added some wood veneer and enamel dots as well. I love the dimension.



I did a little misting of the letters and used a few wood veneer similar to the inspiration piece.



I left out the bottom piece of pattern paper for an extra line of journaling.

So, Wendy & Janna, the owners of The Paperie, made a few dreams come true in March when they invited Kelly Purkey to come teach classes and meet our crazy bunch of ladies at the store. It was E.P.I.C and really a dream come true.

Now, they're doing it all again!

Yep. Dina Wakely is coming and while I'm not nearly as into her business as much as Miss. KP's I am very, very excited to meet her and learn some new things. Art journaling is very new to me so I have a feeling that she is going to widen my horizons. I'm excited to spend the weekend learning new things in August and if you're local you should check it out too!

xoxo
K