a DIY home project...

You might be wondering what I do in between crafting projects. I love to decorate and since we moved into our new home in May, we've been constantly working on getting settled in and getting things just the way we like. About a month before Thanksgiving, I decided I really wanted to do something with our staircase railing. We have dark kitchen cabinets, and the light wood railing just didn't seem to fit in with the house. Before we bought the house, they did remodel quite a bit...the kitchen, master bathroom, all new paint on the walls. But the railing was forgotten. A new railing would have been around $3,000. Believe me, I could find a lot of other things to spend $3,000 on!

So I investigated having a painter come and do it for us. He wanted $600. Which I was ready to spend. But...after giving it some thought, I decided to paint it myself. It was a LONG, drawn out process, but I am happy with how it turned out!

Many coats of paint later, it went from drab...

to fab...

Much better, right?

I went to Home Depot and told the worker behind the paint counter what I was intending to do. THIS was my inspiration photo, which I shared with him. At first, he looked at me like, "You are going to do that yourself?" And then he was super helpful and walked around with me gathering all of the supplies I would need. 

He told me about THIS product. It was actually cheaper in the store, $35 for the whole shebang! It comes with a bond coat, which they tint for you with the color of your choice. I chose Espresso. Also in that box, it comes with a glaze, which is thin and runny like stain and gives the paint color more richness, you just rub this over the Espresso when it is dry. In the box is also a clear coat finish that seals the Espresso color when you are all done. (Top railing)

To prep the staircase before I started, all I did was lightly sand it with fine sandpaper. Wiped it clean and then primed it with a really good primer from Home Depot called Zinsser. Awesome product. I didn't even use half of a gallon. On the spindles, I just used white paint that was used on our trim to match over the top of the primer. Two coats of the trim paint on the spindles. All in all, the project took me about a week and lots of effort, but I really love how it turned out!

We put our tree up, but haven't gotten it decorated yet. Hopefully tonight. I just love this time of year, don't you! Snuggling and watching the snow fall.

Looks like it might be a white Christmas!

Make It Monday...

I'm up at Papertrey Ink today (Nichole's blog) with a new video for our weekly Make It Monday tutorial! I decided to try something a little bit different and talk about a particular style that my friend Wida Miller has coined, "Modern Whimsy". She tells me this is what my style is called! So I've been thinking about this a lot and what defines the style I'm most drawn to. I made a video to share a few tips on achieving this look. I hope you enjoy the video! And thank you to Wida for helping me figure out what my style is. I didn't know it had a name! :) It really helped to hear her view of what my style is, and how others view it...

You can watch the video HERE. To me, the Modern Whimsy style is a little carefree, not perfectly straight, light and airy, yet colorful with a lot of detail. Layered with hints of items peeking out from the back. Vellum and light backgrounds are always great additions to this style!

I did make a Pinterest board with more examples of what I feel this style looks like if you want to take a peek at more samples: Modern Whimsy on Pinterest. I get a lot of inspiration from scrapbooking pages. You can do anything on a card that you can do on a layout. Please let me know if you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them. Have fun with this challenge! One winner will be chosen on Nichole's blog for a $25 gift certificate to use however you'd like at Papertrey Ink. Give it a try!

Peace card:

(All supplies by Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.)

STAMPS: Holiday Button Bits, Layered Postmarks: Holiday

INK: True Black, Versamark

PAPER: Pure Poppy Pattern Pack, Sweet Blush Pattern Pack, Aqua Mist cardstock, vellum

DIES: Damask Snowflake, Half & Half, Fancy Flakes, One Liners

OTHER: twine, stars by Studio Calico, white embossing powder, washi tape.

Blue Note card kit...

Popping in to link you up to the new card kit for December at Studio Calico called Blue Note! Here is the link to all of the team's Blue Note cards for more inspiration.

This month, I was inspired by the mix of cool wintery colors and mixed in some of the COLE card kit add-on goodies.

Check out the gallery and hopefully it will inspire you to create something for this upcoming Christmas or winter season!

I have a new video coming out tomorrow. Stay tuned for that! It's so hard for me to make things and then hold onto them for a long period of time without sharing. I'm sure you know how that feels!

Hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving holiday. My parents, grandma (mom's mom), brother and his family all came here to Colorado for 4 days and we had so much fun together. I laughed until I cried!! Did you know it was my very first Thanksgiving with my side of the family in 13 years? YES! 13 years! It was always so difficult to fly during the holidays...and expensive. So we always visited my family in the summer when we could stay longer. I am so happy to have a good dose of my family again.

Like I said before...big changes coming for me. Some sad and some happy. So, we'll see what happens for me in 2014. Sometimes change isn't wanted, but needed. I am excited though for new things to come. Will explain more soon. Well, maybe tomorrow?!