A Tour of Our New House

What a crazy summer this has been!!  I don't know about you, but I simply cannot believe it's the end of October already!!  I had so many plans for great Halloween projects & tutorials and I'm totally bummed that they're going to have to wait until next year!!

The good news is that my hubby, my cat, and I have moved into a much bigger home!!  We decided to move to the base where my hubby works because the hour-long commute each way was taking it's toll on him.  Now we live about 10 minutes from his work!!  The down side is that we're only going to get to enjoy this house for about a year before it will be time for him to transfer again.

Here's a quick tour of the new home in it's current state...

FOYER

This is standing just outside of the Foyer looking towards the front door.  There's not much here, but I figured I'd show it to you anyway.

HALLWAY

This is our ridiculously long hallway!! It goes from the front door to the wall of the Master Bedroom at the back of the house.

DINING ROOM

This is a photo looking in from the Foyer.  As you can see our little dining room table is way too small for this room.

This shot is looking in from the Kitchen.  Those boxes are all kitchen items that need to be put into the cabinets, drawers, & pantry.

LIVING ROOM

This view is looking into the Living Room from the Foyer.  

As many of you know, I'm disabled and spend 98% of my time in my home.  This will be the room where I spend my days working on my Etsy shoppe and blogging.

This photo was taken from the Hallway, right next to the Kitchen.

KITCHEN

This is the left side of the kitchen and just so you know, this is giant compared to our old galley-style kitchen!!

This is the right side of the Kitchen looking towards the Breakfast Bar which looks into the Family Room.  Again, lots of boxes to be put away!!

FAMILY ROOM

 Looking through the Breakfast Bar area into the Family Room.

A photo from the Hallway looking towards the right side of the Family Room.

 Another angle which shows the left side of the Family Room and the Breakfast Bar.

LAUNDRY ROOM

Although it's not really a "room", I'm calling this area the Laundry Room!!  I think it has great potential!!

SPARE BEDROOM

Although this is going to be a Spare Bedroom at some point, right now it's just a holding area for my craft supplies!!  Yes, those boxes are all craft supplies!!

CRAFT ROOM

This picture is looking in from the Hallway.  All of the items and boxes you see there are for my Etsy shoppe.

 Here's the big closet I get to stuff with craft supplies or Etsy shoppe inventory!!

OFFICE

This is Hubby's office.  Not much more to say about this room.

MASTER BEDROOM

Sorry this photo is kind of blurry.  This is the last main room of the house.  I would've shown a couple different angles, but I wasn't sure if Hubby would want me showing our personal space in great detail!!

To us, this house is a mansion!!  We've never been so lucky to have a home this big!!  To put this in perspective for you, our last home was literally 1/2 the square footage of this house!!  We're so happy to be living here!!

From now on, I'm taking you along on this new journey...  You'll get to follow us as we unpack, organize, and eventually decorate this new home of ours!!  

I'm going to need your input and ideas at every turn because I've never been good at home decorating!!  If you've already come up with some ideas while looking at the photos, please comment below and share them!!  I need all of the help I can get!!

Thanks for reading!!  Until next time...

Shopping Show & Tell #3

As you may have heard, I'm opening an Etsy shop in July where I'll be listing various vintage inspiration kits, vintage supplies, and other vintage items.  In order to start this endevour, I've had to buy some things to include in the assortment packs.  While purchasing these items, I've met some really nice people with great online shops.

In this post, I just want to share some a few of these resources with you!!  I think everyone wants affordable craft supplies from reliable sellers, don't you agree?

Come July, I'll be offering vintage sewing inspiration kits packed full of fabric, trim, embellishments and more.  In order for me to put these packs together, I needed vintage fabric!!

I found Nikole's shop, Happy Notions, and decided she could probably put together a nice assortment for me.  I convo'ed her and she really went the extra mile to help!!  She ended up providing me with over 50 different patterns of reclaimed sheet fabric!!  Just check out the assortment she sent...

Here are a couple of the other items in her shop that I really like...

Vintage Sheet Fat Quarter Bundle - You Pick 15

Vintage Sheet Scrap Pack - 1 Pound Assorted Fabrics

Next, I wanted some colorful items to add to my ephemera assortment packs.  I figured vintage wallpaper would be amazing, but new it was usually kind of pricey.  However, I really lucked out when I found Donna's shop, Under The Red Roof.

Donna was so generous and sent me a huge assortment of 8x10 wallpaper sheets and some scraps I'd asked for.  Although this picture doesn't do it justice, here's a photo of my order...

Here's a couple items you can find at Under The Red Roof...

Vintage Wallpaper Mega Pack

Bingo Advent Calendar Kit 

~ Chrystelle's ~

I still wanted more colorful things to include so when I found  Chrystelle's listing for some bright vintage carnival tickets, I knew they'd be perfect!!

I placed a custom order for a large assortment of tickets and ended up getting over 400 carnival tickets!!  Here's a picture...

Here are a couple of my top picks from Chrystelle's shop...

200 Vintage Carnival Tickets - 4 Colors, 50 Tickets Each Color

Vintage Scrapbooking Kit - Chocolate

These 3 shops are owned by wonderful ladies who are willing to go the extra mile to help you find what you need.  I've had great experiences with all of them and know you will too!!

I am not getting any form of compensation for mentioning these shops!!  I simply purchased items from each of them and was so pleased with their products and services that I wanted to share them with my readers.

Thanks for reading!! Until next time...

WOYWW #8 and A Tutorial

This is going to be an especially looooonngg post, but I promise it will satisfy your curiosity as well as your creative hunger!!

Welcome to my 8th edition of WOYWW!!  If you're not familiar with WOYWW, click the button above.

This week I've been busy deconstructing antique books.  At the bottom of this post there is a tutorial on how to take apart books and remove the individual pages with as little damage as possible.

Before I get to the pages, let me tell you why I'm taking apart so many books...

Basically, I'm a craft supply shopaholic and found some great deals online.  Soon I'll be selling excess ephemera in my new Etsy and Artfire shops.

Now lets get to WOYWW...

Here are just a few of the deconstructed books.  The piles in the bottom row are all part of an 1880 hymnal that I was in the process of taking apart.  The small stack in the back is another 1880 hymnal that I'd already finished (I have 10 total).

 The ginormous stack on the blue case, is made up of pages from 3 antique books dating from 1877 to 1942. 

Here's a close-up of the 1877 dictionary pages...

When I start listing some of this ephemera on Etsy and Artfire, my plan is to offer a wide variety of themed packs such as the ones below.

For those of you that have been wondering where I disappeared to, now you know what I've been up to!  Don't worry, the Crafty St. Patty's Party will resume shortly and the March Madness Giveaway will begin tomorrow!!  Included in each of the 10 prizes will be some of this 100-year-old ephemera!!  Pretty cool, huh? 

TUTORIAL: DECONSTRUCT AN ANTIQUE BOOK

Note: This is a very messy project so be prepared to clean up when you're finished!! 

SUPPLIES

Antique Book

Craft knife & mat (optional)

The book I'm taking apart is a Lutheran hymnal from 1880.

Step 1: REMOVE COVER

Using whatever means necessary, remove the covers and as much of the spine as possible.

You may want to use a craft knife to separate the covers from the first and last pages.  With really old books, the covers will almost fall right off!

This was just something neat I found inside the spine of one of the 1880 hymnals.  It looks as though the covers and spine were actually made from old newspapers!!  And to think that we consider recycling and reusing a new thing!! 

Step 2: BREAK INTO SECTIONS 

Take a close look at your book and you'll see that the pages are actually "signatures" sewn and glued together.  If you're familiar with book binding you'll already be familiar with signatures.

In order to remove more of the spine and glue and also to help make the next step a little easier, separate your book into smaller sections.

Note: When you create your sections, make sure you do it between the signatures and not in the middle of one.

Step 3: SEPARATE SIGNATURES 

Gently pull apart the signatures from the binding.

This part is really messy.

Step 4: TEAR (CUT) PAGES

You'll notice that most of the signatures will still have some glue on them so you'll need to try and remove as much as you can.  It usually scrapes off, but if you're having a tough time, try opening the signature and removing the glue while it's open.

Open the signature to center.  Depending on your own personal preference either gently tear or cut the signatures down the center.  If you choose to cut the signatures, I highly recommend a craft knife and cutting mat.

FINISHED

Ta da!!  Now you have hundreds of great antique ephemera pages!!

Unfortunately you're also left with a huge mess to clean up!!  This little photo doesn't even begin to cover the mess from this project!!

If you're nit-picky like me, you'll want to separate the pages by topic!! hehehe

Be sure to stop by tomorrow so you can enter my March Madness Giveaway for your chance to win one of 10 crafty supply packs valued at $10 or more each!!

Thanks for reading!! Until next time...