Monday, December 10, 2012
Moving!
No I am not moving again. Well, except I am. I've set up my new personal website at heatherdubarry.com and am working on building a business blog at noexcusescrapbooking.com. Come on over and say hello! Don't be a stranger :)
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Birthday Boy
My oldest, Ethan turned 11 recently. My husband and I decided to get him a kindle for his birthday. After much dithering, we decided on the new paperwhite version that has just been released. I wrapped up a gift card (so he can put books on it) and printed out a picture of it since it wasn't available until the week of October 22 according to Amazon.
Ethan has been very patiently waiting since I told him it wasn't due to ship till October 29th. Earlier this week I got an email from Amazon saying they would be able to ship it sooner. I did not tell Ethan, hoping to surprise him when it arrived.
It came today.
I think he liked it.
Ethan has been very patiently waiting since I told him it wasn't due to ship till October 29th. Earlier this week I got an email from Amazon saying they would be able to ship it sooner. I did not tell Ethan, hoping to surprise him when it arrived.
It came today.
I think he liked it.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Wandering into the Land of Home Improvement
When we bought this house we knew we wanted, wait scratch that, needed to do the kitchen. While the house had the space and a layout that worked for us, and seemed to be in reasonable shape, we knew the kitchen was inadequate.
Both my husband and I cook. The kids need to learn how to cook. We need space that will let all of us work together without stepping on each other. This wasn't going to cut it for us:
So we planned and thought and made lots of drawings, and then went looking for a contractor. We decided we weren't even going to try to do the work ourselves since we wanted to take out the load bearing wall between the kitchen and the dining room.
After a few quotes and interviews and poking around on Angie's List we decided on a contractor, and ordered cabinets through him, since they had the style I really wanted. I could have gone with slightly cheaper cabinets by ordering them from Lowes or Home Depot, but then I would have had to have some shaker style kitchen and I really wanted something like this:
To save money, and because I really wanted to have a hand in creating the kitchen, I'm going to be installing these resilient self stick tiles:
Get this, they're groutable vinyl tiles! I can't wait to play. And yes, I am going to be installing 12 x 24 tiles. Probably in a brick pattern. I don't know why I've conceived a love of 12x 24 tiles, but I have.
Both my husband and I cook. The kids need to learn how to cook. We need space that will let all of us work together without stepping on each other. This wasn't going to cut it for us:
 |
| One side of the kitchen |
 |
| The other side of the kitchen |
After a few quotes and interviews and poking around on Angie's List we decided on a contractor, and ordered cabinets through him, since they had the style I really wanted. I could have gone with slightly cheaper cabinets by ordering them from Lowes or Home Depot, but then I would have had to have some shaker style kitchen and I really wanted something like this:
 |
| Corsica cabinets by Bellmont |
 |
| Roman Travertine tiles by Trafficmaster/ceramica |
We're going with a quartz countertop, in a basic black, and simple stainless handles with just a bit of a curve.
Two huge sinks, because that has always been part of a dream kitchen for my husband. And I'm getting a range with a baking drawer, to make hosting big parties easier. Not that I do big parties all that often. But now my Mom will be able to have some piping hot acorn squash ready when she wants it on Thanksgiving.
It's all supposed to be done well in time for Thanksgiving. I'm so excited. I can't wait!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Style Review aka S.H.O LOAD blog hop
Welcome blog-hoppers to the land of random posts, and too long videos!
Ha.
Sorry. I've been staring at iMovie all evening, and I think it's made me a bit loopy.
If you're blog-hopping, you should have just come from Alison C.'s blog. If you're starting here, don't forget to check out everyone else's blogs.
Lynnette
Leslie
Katrina
Kelli P.
Alison D.
Cathy H.
Dani
Heather H.
Alison C.
Heather D. (wait that's me, you're already here!) (Welcome!)
Danielle H.
I'm not going to tell you how to prepare. I've already done that. Most of you are old hands at LOAD by now anyway. You've all found your way to LOAD in one way or another, and found a very welcoming community. You've figured out how to make it work for you, and why you keep coming back to this fun and rewarding challenge.
You've got this challenge mastered.
That's wonderful.
There's more though. Have you gone back and looked at how LOAD has changed you? Or, perhaps to be more specific, how LOAD has changed your scrapbooking? I thought it might be interesting, and put together this slide show of most of my stuff. It's not everything, not by a long shot, but it is a significant chunk. It's interesting to see the evolution from my very simple first page, through Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life and Everyone Can Write a Little classes, and Stacy Julian's Library of Memories class, to my first of many LOAD challenges.
They're all in there. Please forgive the length and the endlessly repeating piano loop. It was either that or banjos. That's what I had to work with in iMovie.
You may want to go visit Danielle H. first, and then come back to watch this. The piano may put you to sleep.
Ha.
Sorry. I've been staring at iMovie all evening, and I think it's made me a bit loopy.
If you're blog-hopping, you should have just come from Alison C.'s blog. If you're starting here, don't forget to check out everyone else's blogs.
Lynnette
Leslie
Katrina
Kelli P.
Alison D.
Cathy H.
Dani
Heather H.
Alison C.
Heather D. (wait that's me, you're already here!) (Welcome!)
Danielle H.
I'm not going to tell you how to prepare. I've already done that. Most of you are old hands at LOAD by now anyway. You've all found your way to LOAD in one way or another, and found a very welcoming community. You've figured out how to make it work for you, and why you keep coming back to this fun and rewarding challenge.
You've got this challenge mastered.
That's wonderful.
There's more though. Have you gone back and looked at how LOAD has changed you? Or, perhaps to be more specific, how LOAD has changed your scrapbooking? I thought it might be interesting, and put together this slide show of most of my stuff. It's not everything, not by a long shot, but it is a significant chunk. It's interesting to see the evolution from my very simple first page, through Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life and Everyone Can Write a Little classes, and Stacy Julian's Library of Memories class, to my first of many LOAD challenges.
They're all in there. Please forgive the length and the endlessly repeating piano loop. It was either that or banjos. That's what I had to work with in iMovie.
You may want to go visit Danielle H. first, and then come back to watch this. The piano may put you to sleep.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Big Ideas
One of the things I love about scrapbooking is that it's not really about the paper. It's not even about the photos or the stories. In many ways it's a philosophy, at least it is for me.
Scrapbooking is a way for me to think about the here and now as, not perfect, but just right. It's a way for me to appreciate and save the little pieces of life that matter. The hugs and hands held, the silly stories and the stories that make you cry.
I have known from a very young age that life is impermanent and imperfect. Every hug could be the last one, every day is vastly different from the day before, and from what I thought it might be or even could be.
Maybe that's why I love the way Lain Ehmann and Stacy Julian and Cathy Zielske teach scrapbooking. And the lesson from Amy Sorenson in this year's Big Idea Festival at Big Picture Classes is another one of those perfect, deep reasons that empowers and drives my creativity.
Amy talked about how we're always looking for that happily ever after moment: that moment when everything is perfect, or everything is done, or every piece is in place in order to begin some new project.
The thing is, there is no happily ever after. There's no point in time that's perfect or just right. There's only right now, and that cliff right over there that you need to jump off of to get started and do. If you never try something, you will never fail, but you will also never succeed. And if you don't look around, take the plunge, do the uncomfortable scary thing, the only thing you'll have to look back on are regrets.
What's more important? A life filled with safety and sameness, or one filled with challenges and love? It's so easy to live the first. I aspire and try for the second. I don't always succeed, but that's good. At least I am trying.
And every once in a while, my scrapbooker's eye catches messages from the world around me that remind me how wonderful and precious every moment is.
Scrapbooking is a way for me to think about the here and now as, not perfect, but just right. It's a way for me to appreciate and save the little pieces of life that matter. The hugs and hands held, the silly stories and the stories that make you cry.
I have known from a very young age that life is impermanent and imperfect. Every hug could be the last one, every day is vastly different from the day before, and from what I thought it might be or even could be.
Maybe that's why I love the way Lain Ehmann and Stacy Julian and Cathy Zielske teach scrapbooking. And the lesson from Amy Sorenson in this year's Big Idea Festival at Big Picture Classes is another one of those perfect, deep reasons that empowers and drives my creativity.
Amy talked about how we're always looking for that happily ever after moment: that moment when everything is perfect, or everything is done, or every piece is in place in order to begin some new project.
The thing is, there is no happily ever after. There's no point in time that's perfect or just right. There's only right now, and that cliff right over there that you need to jump off of to get started and do. If you never try something, you will never fail, but you will also never succeed. And if you don't look around, take the plunge, do the uncomfortable scary thing, the only thing you'll have to look back on are regrets.
What's more important? A life filled with safety and sameness, or one filled with challenges and love? It's so easy to live the first. I aspire and try for the second. I don't always succeed, but that's good. At least I am trying.
And every once in a while, my scrapbooker's eye catches messages from the world around me that remind me how wonderful and precious every moment is.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Where've you been?
Oh wait, that should probably be "where've I been?"
Well, if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or hang out on ScrapHappy, you probably know where I've been. Moving!
We said goodbye to our lovely house in the Pine Hills, and our wonderful neighbors, and moved a whole 3.5 miles away to Guilderland. Except the post office tells us we're still in Albany. :D
Hey, this way my husband gets to say he's still in Albany, and I get a different school district. Don't get me wrong. I loved Albany. It just wasn't a good fit for my geeky, pun-loving, history adoring no.1 son.
So. We moved.
Instead of living in a 100+ year old house with a decidedly arts and crafts bent, we're living in a mid-century split level (if one step difference counts as a split level) with an upstairs.
We've got a garage and a driveway. That means room for 5, count them, 5! cars. As opposed to renting a parking spot across the street. Five steps to get into the house, instead of 15! No sidewalk to shovel. Instead I have a driveway. Which, since I won't have the whole neighborhood trooping over it before it even stops snowing, will be much easier to shovel. Since I have no stairs!
Although, I thought the heavy, clay filled soil at our old house was bad, the soil here is even worse- it's all sand. Jonathan and his compost pile have their work cut out for them.
We miss our old neighbors. We've somehow managed to go the whole summer without getting together, which is sad. At least we have some wonderful, welcoming new neighbors. I really hope I can manage to introduce the old and new soon. I know! Party at my house! After we get the kitchen remodeled.
Now that's exciting!
(Oh, and check out my new craft room!)
Well, if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or hang out on ScrapHappy, you probably know where I've been. Moving!
We said goodbye to our lovely house in the Pine Hills, and our wonderful neighbors, and moved a whole 3.5 miles away to Guilderland. Except the post office tells us we're still in Albany. :D
Hey, this way my husband gets to say he's still in Albany, and I get a different school district. Don't get me wrong. I loved Albany. It just wasn't a good fit for my geeky, pun-loving, history adoring no.1 son.
So. We moved.
Instead of living in a 100+ year old house with a decidedly arts and crafts bent, we're living in a mid-century split level (if one step difference counts as a split level) with an upstairs.
We've got a garage and a driveway. That means room for 5, count them, 5! cars. As opposed to renting a parking spot across the street. Five steps to get into the house, instead of 15! No sidewalk to shovel. Instead I have a driveway. Which, since I won't have the whole neighborhood trooping over it before it even stops snowing, will be much easier to shovel. Since I have no stairs!
Although, I thought the heavy, clay filled soil at our old house was bad, the soil here is even worse- it's all sand. Jonathan and his compost pile have their work cut out for them.
We miss our old neighbors. We've somehow managed to go the whole summer without getting together, which is sad. At least we have some wonderful, welcoming new neighbors. I really hope I can manage to introduce the old and new soon. I know! Party at my house! After we get the kitchen remodeled.
Now that's exciting!
(Oh, and check out my new craft room!)
Friday, January 27, 2012
Finding your creative self (aka LOAD Blog hop 212)
Welcome all you blog hoppers! And any random non-blog hoppers out there. :D
Hopefully you've come from Gayle's blog on your trip through LOAD-world. If you haven't, start with Margie, and make your way back here. :)
First, if you want to know what I think you need in order to successfully complete a LayOutADay, check out this post from last year. And! The post immediately before it talks about the first time I did LOAD, so it might help you figure out what to expect if this is your first time attempting LOAD. But that's not what I want to talk about this time around. This time I want to talk about how, by doing LOAD, you become a better scrapbooker, and you discover your own strengths (and weaknesses) by committing to a month of dedicated creativity.
It's true. It really is true.
Have you seen this poster?
I saw it on Pinterest a few months ago. And then, Stacy Julian linked to the interview with Ira Glass that this quote comes from, and everything clicked.
Do a lot of work. On a deadline. Create a volume of work. As you make more, and learn more, your output improves, until it meshes with your own taste and style.
That's LOAD!
LOAD is how you find your creative style. Or one way to find your creative style. There are other ways to commit to a creative life, but this one works for me.
So this is what you need to do. Commit to making a page every day for the month of February. Don't allow yourself to make excuses. No "I'm tired, I'm sick, I'm too busy," excuses. If you really want to scrapbook, make, no scratch that, TAKE time to do it. It doesn't have to be a lot of time. In fact, having too much time can get in the way of finishing a page. Just make a promise to yourself to do it.
Of course there are things that can get in the way of finishing a page. Important, life altering things. Only you can decide if the excuses that get in the way of creating are important enough for you to walk away from the crafting table. But everyday life? You shouldn't let that stop you.
Listen to Lain's prompts. Do they speak to you? Do they inspire you? Then work with them. If the prompt isn't working for you that day, work on something else. A project you've been working on for ages. A story that's just begging to be told. A photo that just grabs your heart, and you need to showcase it. Do something.
Some days you will love, love, love, what you have made. Other days, it will all seem to fall apart as you go, and you'll be disappointed in the final product. Don't second guess yourself. Just move on to the next page.
Keep everything you create in one place. Make a big pile. Keep it in a binder for your brand new pages. Your pile of pages will grow. You might even make a dent in your stash. (I'd have to do hundreds of pages for that to happen.)
And at the end of the month, look at what you have done. What pages are your favorites? Why? Do you have any pages that you dislike? Again, why? What are the common threads that run through your pages? How are they alike? What makes them different?
By answering those questions, you will discover what kind of scrapbooker you are. Are you a story teller? A technique lover? A fan of color or monochrome?
Only by creating a body of work, and then going back and examining it, will you be able to find your creative process and style. Only by committing to creating do you build a body of work.
If you haven't signed up for LOAD 212 yet, what are you waiting for? This is the quickest and easiest way to build a body of work.
So commit. Create. Explore. Find yourself.
Next stop? Gina!
And here's the links to everyone's blogs, so you can hop and skip among them if you'd rather.
Margie
Kelli
Jennifer
Lisa
Monica
Kimberly
Eileen
Danielle
Pam
Katrina
Cate
Gayle
Heather (that's me!)
Gina
Kristie
Janet
Lydia
Hopefully you've come from Gayle's blog on your trip through LOAD-world. If you haven't, start with Margie, and make your way back here. :)
First, if you want to know what I think you need in order to successfully complete a LayOutADay, check out this post from last year. And! The post immediately before it talks about the first time I did LOAD, so it might help you figure out what to expect if this is your first time attempting LOAD. But that's not what I want to talk about this time around. This time I want to talk about how, by doing LOAD, you become a better scrapbooker, and you discover your own strengths (and weaknesses) by committing to a month of dedicated creativity.
It's true. It really is true.
Have you seen this poster?
I saw it on Pinterest a few months ago. And then, Stacy Julian linked to the interview with Ira Glass that this quote comes from, and everything clicked.
Do a lot of work. On a deadline. Create a volume of work. As you make more, and learn more, your output improves, until it meshes with your own taste and style.
That's LOAD!
LOAD is how you find your creative style. Or one way to find your creative style. There are other ways to commit to a creative life, but this one works for me.
So this is what you need to do. Commit to making a page every day for the month of February. Don't allow yourself to make excuses. No "I'm tired, I'm sick, I'm too busy," excuses. If you really want to scrapbook, make, no scratch that, TAKE time to do it. It doesn't have to be a lot of time. In fact, having too much time can get in the way of finishing a page. Just make a promise to yourself to do it.
Of course there are things that can get in the way of finishing a page. Important, life altering things. Only you can decide if the excuses that get in the way of creating are important enough for you to walk away from the crafting table. But everyday life? You shouldn't let that stop you.
Listen to Lain's prompts. Do they speak to you? Do they inspire you? Then work with them. If the prompt isn't working for you that day, work on something else. A project you've been working on for ages. A story that's just begging to be told. A photo that just grabs your heart, and you need to showcase it. Do something.
Some days you will love, love, love, what you have made. Other days, it will all seem to fall apart as you go, and you'll be disappointed in the final product. Don't second guess yourself. Just move on to the next page.
Keep everything you create in one place. Make a big pile. Keep it in a binder for your brand new pages. Your pile of pages will grow. You might even make a dent in your stash. (I'd have to do hundreds of pages for that to happen.)
And at the end of the month, look at what you have done. What pages are your favorites? Why? Do you have any pages that you dislike? Again, why? What are the common threads that run through your pages? How are they alike? What makes them different?
By answering those questions, you will discover what kind of scrapbooker you are. Are you a story teller? A technique lover? A fan of color or monochrome?
Only by creating a body of work, and then going back and examining it, will you be able to find your creative process and style. Only by committing to creating do you build a body of work.
If you haven't signed up for LOAD 212 yet, what are you waiting for? This is the quickest and easiest way to build a body of work.
So commit. Create. Explore. Find yourself.
Next stop? Gina!
And here's the links to everyone's blogs, so you can hop and skip among them if you'd rather.
Margie
Kelli
Jennifer
Lisa
Monica
Kimberly
Eileen
Danielle
Pam
Katrina
Cate
Gayle
Heather (that's me!)
Gina
Kristie
Janet
Lydia