living artfully

decorating inspiration

Color. Pattern. Texture. Balance. Good design. I think that home decor and scrapbooking have a lot more in common than you might think. My favorite layouts have kraft cardstock and a few key embellishments. At home I like a neutral base with well-placed pops of color. I don't like my pages or my home to be visually overloaded.

As a young girl, I loved to rearrange my bedroom and was always wishing for a new comforter set and paint color. These days, we're renters who are pinching pennies for our dream home. So I get my design fix from this list of blogs that I love love love. My favorite home bloggers are real people, featuring their own homes, diy-ing and solving real-life design dilemmas.

russet street reno
 

 

Sara from Russet Street Reno is easily one of my favorite bloggers. She blogs from south-eastern Wisconsin. Gotta love a local girl! She's an honest and hilarious DIY-er, fixing up a two-story home with her soon-to-be hubby.


house tweaking
 

 

When I picture the decor in our dream home, Dana's house at House Tweaking immediately comes to mind. Dana's family just put their house on the market to down-size into a home they can pay off quickly, so Dana can pursue her design dreams. I'm cheering her on!


nesting place
 

 

Nesting Place is my favorite place to go for DIY projects, like her fur ottoman, tree tump side tables, and wall of plates. Love her thoughts on imperfection, living in a rented home, and thrifting.


young house love
 

 

John and Sherry of Young House Love are immensely popular, and for good reason. They're remodeling and redecorating their second home, keeping it fun, affordable, and inspirational along the way.

I'm seriously hooked on these home design blogs. It's fun to be invited into their homes to see how they decorate and make each space their own. What about you? Do you find inspiration in home design?

hugs, sharyn

unfinished projects

Raise your hand if you have unfinished scrapbooking projects. I'm over here, throwing both hands up in the air!

I think most crafters have unfinished layouts and projects... and that this can be an unfortunate source of guilt or embarrassment. It's not always fun to admit that you didn't complete a class or finish an album you started.

When I recently shared my completed December album, some of you shared that you weren't able to complete yours. I may have finished this project, but I have my own list of old projects that aren't quite done yet. Like my Project 365 from 2010. I started using Becky Higgins' Project Life kit, but didn't like the format as much as I had expected. At first I felt guilty for giving up on the album, especially because the kit wasn't cheap. But I've moved on from worrying about the unused kit and have decided on a different digital format for the photos from my 365. It will be a book that I can print through a printer like Shutterfly, and now it's something I can actually finish.

 

And my Week in the Life album from 2010. Well, it's not even close to being done. Turns out I'm not crazy about editing and resizing that many photos. When Ali Edwards announced earlier this week that she'll be repeating the project this summer, I honestly felt a little panic. But wait, I'm not done yet!! How can we be starting again?! Momentary panic aside, I realized it's so not a big deal. I love the album and want to finish it, so I will pick up bits and pieces when I'm feeling inspired to. When I look back on it years from now, it's not going to matter how quickly I finished the album.

 

 

There's also the high school album I want to make, inspired by Cathy Zielske's Me: The Abridged Version class. Paper has been purchased and I've started my journaling. And, well, that's it. As for classes, those are sometimes hard to finish, too. I signed up for Shimelle's True Stories class and never managed to participate. Thank goodness for "forever access!"

Sometimes a project takes a while; that's perfectly okay. As long as it's still something you want to do, take your time! If you're absolutely dreading the crafting project, maybe it's time to rethink if it's something you even want to complete. Rachel from Small Notebook recently shared a thought-provoking post on breaking  up with old hobbies and projects. The lesson: just because you started it, you don't have to finish it. It's a great read.

What are your thoughts on unfinished projects?

hugs, sharyn

december daily - journal your christmas: 17-31

The snow is just finally melting away here in Wisconsin. And as the last signs of the season disappear, I finished up my Journal Your Christmas album. There were a number of things I decided to change this year from my previous albums, like following JYC, keeping a consistent page size with flat embellishments, and including December 26th-31st in the album. The verdict? I loved it!

Here are my pages for December 17th through the 31st...

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I waited to bind the album until it was complete, so I could add photos and embellishments all the way to the inner edges. So glad I made that decision; I love the full page photos and couldn't have done this if the album had rings from the beginning.

 

 
click on any image for full-size
to see the full album, visit "dec daily / jyc: 2010"
for all december album posts, visit "december daily / jyc"

Is it crazy that I caught myself wishing for snow and Christmas again?!

hugs, sharyn

one little word check-in

We're nearly a quarter of the way into 2011! Where does the time go?! My one little word for the year is simplify.

 
 Studio Calico OLW challenge by Davinie Fiero

Some of my favorite ways this word is influencing me this year? The less is more philosophy has helped us to streamline a variety of things, from our purchases to our mealplans. We found a super-useful (and free!) online system for keeping track of our budget and savings goals. And we're meal planning with easier recipes, two weeks at a time. That planning time up-front equals less grocery trips, less obsessing over what to make at the last minute, and less time spent on preparing food. Love it!

We still have other changes in mind, like cleaning out our ca-raaaazy basement. And I'd love to change up our cleaning routine with simple homemade cleaners (that are hopefully more ecofriendly, too!). And of course just continuing to think about what we're bringing into the house and what we're committing to. The "simplify" approach is helping us focus on needs vs wants, and on whether something is worth our time and/or money.

How are you doing with your one little word?