Board and Batten Front Hall Make-Over

So, over Christmas I was browsing Pinterest on my phone... it might even have been Christmas day.  And I came across this post.  I leaned over to my husband and said, "We have to do this."  He actually agreed.  Now, I don't know if your front hall is like ours... abused.  Between kids, a dog, and lots of company, our walls look like they have been beaten up.  I thought this was a great way to add functionality and cover up some of that abuse.

Here is our front all.  It is large, so I planned a large project.  The longest board was almost 12 feet long.  I sketched out my plan on paper and then I sketched it out on my wall.  I based my plan on the fact that wall studs are 16 inches apart.  Well, it turns out ours were 12 inches apart.  I did not change my plan. We just had to use wall anchors.  With 2.5 inch boards, having the centers of them 12 inches apart would have been way too close.

After I sketched my plan on the wall, I added paintable wall paper to what will be the centers of my boards.  I did this for two reasons... visual interest and to hide some of that wall abuse.

Next we put the boards up.  My (awesome) husband did all the cutting (in the garage and it was freezing outside).  We put the bottom board on first; then the bottom uprights; then the center board; then the upper uprights, then the top board; the side boards and then the shelf.  There is also a little piece of corner round under the shelf which we put up last.  From the floor to the top is 60 inches.  The horizontal boards and side boards are 1x6 (which are really 3/4 x 5.5, I don't get that).  And the uprights are 1x3 (really 3/4 x 2.5).  The shelf is a 1x3, as well.  

The we painted the wall and the boards... all the same color as the other walls in the adjacent room.

 

Then I painted the insets the same color as an accent color on our main floor.  We kept it all the same color for 2 days and I felt like it needed something.

I added hooks and things to the shelf to finish it off.

The whole project was less than $100 (honestly the hooks were the most expensive part).  We already had paint, tools and hardware.  We only bought the wall paper, the wood, and the hooks.  And it didn't take very long.  On New Year's Eve I sketched the design on the wall.  On New Year's Day my husband when out and bought the wood and wall paper.  The following Saturday we got it all up on the wall.  Sunday I painted it.  Tuesday afternoon during nap time I painted the insets.  Tuesday night I went out to Lowe's and bought the hooks and Wednesday night I put them up.  We did have some teen and tween help.  Oh, and I started potty training a toddler the day I sketched the design on the wall.

We love our new functional front hall and we've gotten lots of compliments on it.

Another Pinterest project success.  

So I totally forgot... One Little Word

One Little Word was the other scrapbooking related thing that was overwhelming me.  Two years ago I posted about it.  It's something Ali Edwards does her blog... picks a word to be the theme for the year.  Two years ago I picked Opportunity.  This year I am stuck.  I cannot decide between Serve and Content.  Most of the time, my life is all about me... my wants, my comfort, what I want to do.  But my example is Christ, who came not to be served, but to serve.  On the other hand, am I ever content?  I see something and I want it, sometimes I even get it.  Sometimes I can be a brat if I don't get my way.  I am sure no one reading this can relate.  But Paul is a great example... for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance.  He didn't need whatever the latest and greatest craft-related thing was.

So would it be wrong to have two One Little Words?

Are You Overwhelmed?

... because I am.  Here it is, nine days into the new year, and I am already overwhelmed.  I am overwhelmed by lots of things... some serious (can you say Government debt?) and others not so serious (say, potty training).  This post is about something not so serious.

At the beginning of the year on all the websites and message boards where I hang out, people are talking about Project Life, or photo a day, or 365 Challenge, and things of that sort.  It's overwhelming.

I have been scrapbooking for a long time.  I made my first scrapbook in junior high and two more in high school.  I scrapbooked our honeymoon almost 20 years ago and bought my first Creative Memories album in 1996.  I've kinda' always have done things the same way... chronological or theme.  And I've been happy with that.

So why do I feel the need to change and try Project Life or something else.  My only answer is peer pressure because "forced" to take a picture every day or document every week really just does not appeal to me.  Is that bad, as a scrapbooker, to say that?

I recently saw this blog post at This Is Me Challenge.  She talks about 12 different ways to document your life in the coming year.  Obviously I needed to make a decision.

One of the other things that has been overwhelming me lately is my own sin and failure (real or perceived).  So along that line I decided to do 365 Days of Thankfulness.  I took a journal that I already owned and made a cute logo (with my Silhouette) that I put on the inside cover.

Now nine days in it has already been a wonderful tool to praise God, even on days when I think I'd rather not.  Even the days where the one being potty trained has run out of underwear and pants, I can be thankful for my washing machine.  

After reading about the This Is Me Challenge, I also decided to do that... in another journal to answer the questions that she has posted about life.  I would love to have something like that from my parents or grand parents or great grand parents.  I am not sure if someone else will care as much about reading mine, but that's the topic for another post.

How are you keeping your memories or telling your story this year?

Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas....

... and a recipe.

Do you love egg nog, but don't drink it often because it's so "bad" for you?  I would agree store bought, over processed egg nog is bad for you.  But thick, creamy, homemade egg nog could almost be considered good for you.  I am going to share my homemade egg nog recipe with you.

Here are my disclaimers, though:  It does have raw eggs.  Make sure you know where your eggs come from.  Use pastured, preferable organic eggs.  Don't eat store bought eggs raw.  The same goes with your cream and milk.  Don't use ultra pasteurized store bought milk.  Using real milk and fresh eggs, this delicious holiday treat can actually be considered good for you.

1 pint of Cream
1 pint of Milk
4 Eggs
1/4 cup (or less) Maple Syrup
1 Tbsp Vanilla
Cinnamon
Cloves
Nutmeg

I am generous with the Cinnamon and Nutmeg and just use a little sprinkle of Cloves.  Mix it all together in your blender and enjoy.  You can use a kitchen aid or hand mixer if you don't have a blender.  You can also add a jigger or two of rum.

Let me know how you like it.

Sharing a Scrapbook layout

Since I switched to digital scrapbooking I am constantly amazed at all the cool things that can be done with a page.  In September when I was at SpragueFest (I should post about that), I watched over someone's shoulder while she made this way cool "part photo, part sketch" layout.  She directed me to the tutorial she used and I made a layout like it... and then another, and then another.  It is such a cool technique I know I will use it over and over.  You can find the original tutorial here.  If you have Photoshop Elements you can use a levels adjustment layer on step 4 to achieve that look rather then the curves (which is only in Photoshop CS).  Here is my layout:

Now go may your own amazing layout.  I can't wait to see what you make.  :)

Thoughts on the Election

I have strong opinions about politics.  They mostly have to do with people (citizens and representatives) knowing the Constitution (and not allowing our Reps to violate it) and personal responsibility.  It seems as the people of our country want neither knowledge nor personal responsibility.  Oh well, we reap what we sow and we have sown a generation of civically ignorant irresponsible people.

If I were to change on facet of the whole election process (besides ads on TV) I would change the debate process.  There were 10 Presidential candidates on my ballot.  How come I never heard of 7 of them?  I think all the candidates should participate in the debates, at least the ones who are on the ballot in every state. ( I guess Rosanne Barr was running... she wasn't on my ballot).  Each candidate should be in a sound proof booth and each candidate should get a certain amount of time (15 minutes maybe) to share their plan and their vision for our country.  Or each candidate should field questions from the moderator.  Or like the old Lincoln-Douglass debate... the first person should get 30 minutes and then the second person get 60 minutes to reply and the first person get 30 more minutes.  They should not be allowed to attack the other person.  This whole campaign seemed to be more about how many bad things you can say about the other person, rather than "this is my plan and it's good because x, y, z."  But all the candidates should be involved, so that Americans can have a REAL choice.

There are so many more things I could say, but it would end up being a novel.  Soon I will go back to "lighter" topics.  I have been knitting and scrapbooking like crazy.  I should post some pages or knitting projects soon.

Thoughts on Halloween

Halloween is in second place for the holiday Americans spend the most money on, after Christmas, of course.  It's a pretty big deal.  For weeks ahead of time folks ask kids, "What are you going to be for Halloween?"  Home decorations get more elaborate every year.

I celebrated Halloween as a child.  My mom dressed us up every year and took us trick or treating when we were little and let us go when we were older.  I think maybe 6th or 7th grade was the last time I trick or treated.  As an adult I have dressed up once on Halloween (well, twice in the same year) to chaperone a junior high dance for the junior high I worked at and to go out to dinner with friends on Halloween.  When we were in our first home and without kids we passed out candy on Halloween if we were home.  I honestly cannot remember how many kids we used to get at that house.  I had a couple of cute Disney Halloween decorations, but nothing elaborate.

One year, though, something happened that changed how I looked at Halloween.  Our church at the time was very involved with some missionaries in the jungles of Venezuela who lived among the Yanomamo people.  There was a specific man from our church who spent a significant amount of time down there and various occasions.  He eventually wrote a book about the Yanomamo from the perspective of the head Shaman (medicine man) of this particular tribe.  Now this Shaman had come to know Christ because of the missionaries who lived there... in fact, most of this tribe has become Christians.  The book, Spirit of the Rain Forest, by Mark Andrew Ritchie, describes in great detail,  their life before Christ.  The book is not for the faint of heart.  These people regularly, under the influence of drugs and spirits, raped, murdered, and pillaged other tribes.  Violence was a way of life for them.  The book tells of the Shaman's conversion and his life because of Christ.

Well, one fall Chief Shoefoot, along with one of the missionaries, came to the U.S. to do a book tour with Mark.  He was here about the time that folks were putting out their Halloween decorations.   He was greatly concerned and perplexed by this.  He asked Mike (the missionary that came with him and spoke Yanomamo, who was born and raised in Venezuela) why the American's put up images of the demons that he and his people so feared (before Christ).  Chief Shoefoot could look at people's decorations and name the proper names for each demon that the particular image represented.  He did not understand why American's would celebrate the evil spirits that the tribes in Venezuela so feared and that inspired them to such violence between the tribes.

Now this happened more than 15 years ago and I am not describing it now with the detail and the absolute amazement that I had back then.  I never thought about Halloween in terms of the forces of evil behind it.  If we sugar coat (literally and figuratively) evil and give it a fun appearance, then it's ok for Christians, right?  What has light to do with darkness?  As Christians are we to make light of evil and the spirit world?  God's word is pretty clear that we are at war with the forces of evil.  Maybe we should take it seriously.