Movie Tuesday

It's been a while since I've had one of these, but here it is... Elijah being a ham for the camera.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpZjFAZJZrM

Transformation of a Bedroom - Part 1 - Planning

We have lived in our current residence for 5 years, this month, and there's tons of things I would love to do to the house to make it more homey. Unfortunately, we only rent, so I feel like anything we do to the house will be throwing money away, because we won't be able to get any money back from our investment.

That being said, we still feel the need to fix things up and change things to make a house, a home. But instead of investing hundreds of dollars on remodeling, we try to do it as cheap as possible. So comes the next series of blog postings... We are going to re-do Elijah's bedroom.

This is what it looks like now. White walls, gold(?) shag carpet, empty walls... for the most part, a few necessities and that's it.

Before now, a nice bedroom wasn't needed because he only slept in the room. I mean, who needs decorations and a nice color pallet to sleep? But since he's getting older (he's just about 2 and a half) and can go up and down the steps as he pleases, Joe thought having a nice bedroom for Elijah would be good.

After much discussion, friendly (and not so friendly) debates and looking at Home Depot, Lowes and pictures online, we decided on the following things:


We are painting this room in Behr Disney color "Blue Balloon",

or something close to it, and doing white trim.

We are installing a chair rail along the one wall where his bed is now and painting below it with chalk board paint. Kind of like this picture, but upside down.

We are also planning on re-carpeting. When we remodeled (if you want to call it that) our bedroom we got a really good deal at Lowes for carpet that was only like $1.50 a square foot, with installation and a free padding upgrade. We ended up getting our whole master bedroom (20x17) and closets carpeted for about $500... with carpeting left over. We plan on trying to get the same deal with Elijah's carpeting.

Even though they did a wonderful job installing it, we decided since his room is square, that we would buy the padding and carpeting and do it ourselves... to save a bit of dough. The carpet is probably going to be a light beige color, but I'm not sure. Right now, money is more important than color... to a point. If it's not exactly light beige, I could deal, as long as it looks good with the walls.

Of course things could change, cause this -is- just the planning portion. I will update as things go along. Also, make sure to stay tuned for the next installment: Furniture and Accessories.

Charlotte is 2...

My neice turned 2 on May 14th, but they didn't have her birthday party until last Sunday. Being the procrastinator I am, I couldn't have her card done way ahead of time (even though I had an idea of what I wanted to do since January). That ruins the fun of the adrenaline pumping at 12:30am the day of the party, freaking out cause the card doesn't look right. It doesn't look... finished.



This is, what I decided was, the finished card:




I sketched a backwards 2 on some colored cardstock from StampinUp (this is probably the only time in my life I wished I had a cricut, cause it would have been TONS faster) and surprisingly it doesn't look like a 5-year-old did it. I cut it out as neatly as possible and glued it straight onto the card... to hide the evidence. Then I applied the puffy flower stickers and the giraffe by Crayola. You can't tell by the pic, but the eyes on the giraffe move. Originally that was the whole card. I was going to write "Happy Birthday Charlotte" underneath, but it didn't look right, so I looked through my stuff and found this yellow, metal clip thing by Making Memories.


Even with that addition, it still didn't look done, so I rummaged around a little more, found my mat pack from StampinUp (it's a paper piercer and stitching template together) and white gel pen. Added faux stitching to the outside and it finally looked complete.

Thanks for taking a look. I shall be posting more cards soon. As you know Father's Day is fast approaching and I am at a loss for what to do for cards. Masculine cards are the hardest thing for me to create, so we'll see how it goes. Off to search the "interwebs" for inspiration...

More Cards

There will probably be a few more of these posts coming soon. This time of year is always full of celebrations. Mother's Day, Father's Day, four birthdays and this year a graduation and our friends moving into their first house. So to start off the parade of cards this month is a birthday card, a birthday "card" and a graduation card.


This is my SIL Jacqi's birthday card. The flowers are BoBunny. The green behind the flowers is chipboard from the dollar section of JoAnn Fabrics that I used green Colorbok chalk ink to color, by just pressing the ink pad directly on the chipboard. I used a darker green chalk ink for the Happy Birthday greeting. The button is from Bag O Buttons.

This is the box I made (using a template) for my BIL Kevin. I was stupid and didn't stamp on the top lid until after it was already glued together, so I had to cut an additional piece of paper and stamp on that. I used my blender pen to color in the stars and it was finished.


My sister graduated from college last Saturday, so I made her this card. Personally, I don't like it, but she did and I guess that's all that matters. I couldn't find black cardstock, so I bought a pack of black cards and cut it out. The tassle and bling alpha I got at ACMoore.

Until next time...

Mother's Day Cards

Happy belated Mother's Day to everyone who is a mom. Hope it was a good one. Mine was wonderful. Joe made me breakfast, got me lunch and dinner and also had a fun idea for something we could do as a family. We dipped oranges and strawberries in chocolate, then put them in the fridge to harden, to have for dessert. It was a lot of fun and super yummy. I can't wait to do it again soon. For a present he told me I can spend $50 at Michaels AND Joann Fabrics. He wanted me to go there that day, but (I can't believe I'm gonna say this) I didn't need or want anything then, so I took a rain check for when I do. :-)

Elijah also did something for me. He drew me a picture and explained it to me...

Unfortunately, I don't speak "2-year-old", so what it is, is still a mystery to me. All I know is he said "monie" (which is me) while he was explaining it, so maybe one of those blobs is me... I dunno, but I watched him do it and he picked the colors he wanted to use, very carefully, so I know he was making sure I liked it, which I do. I love it.

Now, onto what I made my mom and mother-in-law. I was apparently feeling the 'hanging" type cards this year, so that's what I made.

This card is for my mother-in-law. She likes fat birds, so I try to find different ones to put on her cards. The card stock is Stampin Up. I have no idea what the bird stamp is. I thought I could just look on the card entry from last Mother's Day and find it, but I didn't say what it was. The silver string stuff I found in ACMoore in the ribbon section. The purple ribbon at the top I bought in the dollar section of Target. I colored the bird with purple Colorbox Chalk Ink and a blender pen. Cut the hole with my circle cutter and put a "transparency" behind it. I actually didn't have to buy a whole box of transparencies. They sell clear sheets of paper in ACMoore in the loose paper section. And I think that's it.


This is the card I made my mom. It's from this entry: Dawn's Purse Gift Card Holder

Originally I went through like the video said, but apparently the top part was bigger than it was suppose to be, because I don't have the die, so I got a bracket shape online and sized it to the size I looked up online that it was suppose to be. Well, I'm guessing the measurements were wrong, but anyway, after my not-so-mini crisis (because I was making this at like 2pm on Mother's Day). I came up with a plan, with my sister's help. I had already shaped the bottom, so I took the demensions of the top of it and resized my bracket to fit. It worked! Thankfully. The rest was super easy and took me about 15 minutes to do.

I used the same Stampin Up paper as my bottom for the card. The top is a random sheet of loose paper from ACMoore. The ribbon, again, was from the Target dollar section. I used my crop-a-dile to punch the holes for the ribbon. Little, sticky back, velcro squares to hold it together and a cute big button to make it look like that's what's holding it together. The bag inside is just a cut up sammich bag.

Slip the gift card in and you're all done. The only thing I will do differently when I make another one, is get thicker card stock for the bracket part, so it won't feel like I'm going to rip the paper when I try to open it.

That's all for now. One of these days I'll upload a new video, since Elijah is talking up a storm now. Til next time...

Laminated List

After much thought and searching thousands of pictures on the Internet my laminated list is finally done and ready for your viewing pleasure. Basically the definition of a laminated list is "a list of five people, usually celebrities, whom you would be free to pursue, if the opportunity arose, regardless of whether you were in a relationship or not." Basically it's just a bunch of hot guys who fit various categories.

My sister-in-law, Mandy, and her friends expanded on the list to not only include the top five, but also additional categories. You can find the list and rules at her blog. So without further ado I present my laminated list.

1. Zachary Quinto


You might have seen him on: Heroes and Star Trek


2. Dominic Monaghan


You might have seen him on: LOST and Flash Forward


3. Shia LaBeouf

You might have seen him on: Transformers


4. Joshua Jackson


You might have seen him on: Fringe


5. Johnny Depp


You might have seen him on: Pirate of the Caribbean



The Special Categories:

Barely Legal - Zac Efron

You might have seen him on: High School Musical, Hairspray and 17 Again


Older Men - Cal Ripken Jr.


Played for the Baltimore Orioles


Bad Boy - Joel Madden


A member of the band "Good Charlotte"


Good Guy - Matt Damon


You might have seen him on: Oceans 11 and Saving Private Ryan


Token Ethnic Guy - Will Smith


You might have seen him on: Fresh Prince of Belair, Independence Day and Men In Black


Nerd - Joseph Gordon-Levitt


You might have seen him on: 3rd Rock from the Sun, GI Joe and 500 Days of Summer


Goofball - Adam Sandler


You might have seen him on: The Waterboy, Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer


Athlete - Matt Stover


Played for the Baltimore Ravens (I refuse to acknowledge that he plays for another team)


Musician - Brad Paisley


Country music superstar

No one else gets it - Noah Wyle


You might have seen him on: ER


First Love - Joey McIntire

Used to be in the band New Kids on the Block (and still is? I don't keep track)


Singing Voice - Christian Bale


You might have seen him on: Newsies(haha), American Psycho, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight


Speaking Voice - Charles Shaughnessy


You might have seen him on: The Nanny



Fictional Character - Laurie from Little Women




Action Hero - Sam Witwicky from Transformers




Tough Guy - Tobey Maguire


You might have seen him on: Spider-Man


Tortured Soul - Milo Ventimiglia


You might have seen him on: Heroes


Brainiac - Charlie Eppes


You might have seen him on: Numb3ers


But his face - Josh Holloway


You might have seen him on: LOST


Chubby Hubby - Greg Grunberg


You might have seen him on: Heroes


Scruffy - Jake Gyllenhaal


You might have seen him on: Donnie Darko and The Day After Tomorrow


Gay - Elijah Wood


You might have seen him on: Lord of the Rings


Dapper Dan - No clue


Villain - Sylar from Heroes



I hope you enjoyed. If you do or did your own, please post a link, so I can take a look. :-) Until next time...

Smile...

It's FRIDAY!!!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

My Surprise...

Now, this is the surprise I was hoping to share with you.

"What is it?" You ask. Just press play on the video below to find out....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czs7GIOMVy0

That's it. I got it done at Shear Genius in Perry Hall Maryland. They cut and styled my hair for free because I'm donating it. The hair is going to the Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program to make wigs to give to cancer patients. I was originally doing Locks of Love, but in researching where I could get my hair cut for it, I found out they sell their wigs at a discounted rate, based on the person's income and they sell the unusable hair. I don't agree with that, so I found another organization to donate to.

That's about it, for now. Hope everyone had a great Easter! Until next time...

A trip to the ER...

So, in my last post when I said I had a surprise, this was not what I had in mind. I guess the surprise was on me. I actually wasn't going to post about this, but the scrapbooker and family historian in me said, "This is a part of Elijah's life, whether you like it or not. Just make it short and sweet and to the point." ... And that's what I shall do.

Thursday night Elijah had a run in with our entertainment center... Literally. The entertainment center didn't have a scratch on it, but Elijah didn't fair as well. He was bouncing on the floor in front of it and lost his footing. He went forward, smacking his mouth on the ledge, and busting his lip open. I yelled for Joe and we practically ran straight out to the car to take him to the ER.

Once we got there they checked us in right away (probably because there was an abundance of blood all over shirts and hands and faces) and took us back in about 20 minutes. He ended up having 5 stitches put in his top lip and we were done.

He needs to get the stitches out on Wednesday and hopefully that will go smoothly.

So, I guess I have surprises for you, God has surprises for me. I can never tell what crazy dramatic situation is going to happen next. Will it be a leak in the basement? The dishwasher breaking? The sink clogging up? My car dying? Hah, been there, done that, but I would have preferred any of those things over rushing my precious little big boy to the ER. The only thing that keeps me sane through all this crap is knowing that God will be with me through all the trials and tribulations of life and he won't give me anything more than I can handle.

Thursday night I learned two things. 1, don't sweat the small stuff. And 2. Don't wait to eat, cause you never know when you'll get to eat again. This whole incident happened -right- as our dinner was finished being cooked. There was no time to grab anything as we were running out the door, so while he was getting stitched up I almost passed out. Fun times... fun times....

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures in the world of Hybrid Simplicity.

Penelope's Birthday Card

The babiest baby of the family, Penelope, turns 1 in a few days, but we celebrated yesterday. This is the card I made her. Every "baby" has an animal that is representative of them. I actually forget what Elijah's is, but I use monkeys and dogs, cause he likes them so much. Charlotte's is a giraffe and Penelope's is a dragon/dragonfly. That is why there are dragonflies on the card.

It would be quite amazing if I could remember all the things I used. All I can really tell you is that the paper is DCWV - Pastels and DCWV - Animal Crackers. I'll update this when I get home with the exact stamp sets for the happy birthday and the hearts on either side. The chipboard letters I got in the dollar section of Target and the dragonflies I got from Target too. I still have some left in the package, I'll update that too. The white gel pen is the Signo broad white gel pen. And the circle cutter I bought about 900 years ago, so I have no clue who makes it or anything.

That's about it. I hope to update more in this thing. I have been working on my Laminated List for about a month now. It only took me about a week to come up with the names, the rest of the time has been made up of me finding the time to search the web for pictures and put them on the post. I hope to have that done sometime this week.... If I'm lucky.

I also have some other surprises in store. So stayed tuned.