Archive for December, 2010
Some Ho-Ho-Holiday Love
It’s time again for our monthly shout out of gratitude to our sponsors for making the other 40+ posts possible and helping to keep food on the table (even if that table is covered with moving boxes at the moment). And in the spirit of the season, let’s focus on another kind of box – the gift box. Instead of just listing everyone, we’ve whipped up a little roundup of our favorite gift-worthy things. Not that we’ve been gifted any of these things ourselves (see our new no-swag policy here) but we did have some fun trolling around their sites on a virtual shopping spree of sorts. And as always, there’s something in it for you (you know we love to hook you guys up) so scroll down to the bottom for some wallet friendly discounts. Oh and stay tuned for some pretty crazy moving pics in a bit. Our house is actually starting to echo!
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- A vintage atomic tree topper found in one of Ruby Lane‘s virtual antique shops.
- An unapologetically preppy set of recipe cards plus apron from Sarah Langley.
- Dolan Geiman‘s richly layered and textured mixed media art prints.
- Totally distinct and amazingly eco-friendly coconut tiles from Design for Less.
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- Adding some sparkle with a mercury glass pendant from Shades of Light.
- The Z Gallerie color-coded gift guide, featuring some incredible icy blue gifts.
- A gift card to the The Tile Shop (for filling up on tile, tools, & free tips).
- Free downloadable holiday gift tags from the folks at WallQuotes (yay free!).
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- These deer heads from Cardboard Safari. We just bought one for someone on our list…
- A sweet wrapped canvas for your sweetheart from Red Letter Words.
- Frame The Date‘s beautiful wrapped and personally meaningful gifts.
- Customized handmade jewelry (or an ornament!) from Lisa Leonard Designs.
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- Hoot Design Co’s print that brings fun & personalization to the ABCs.
- A virtual design consultation from one of My Design Guide‘s interior designers.
- Durock‘s Tile Membrane “Project In A Box” that’ll simplify your honey’s next project.
- Pretty and eco-friendly paper and other letterpress goodies from Smock Paper.
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- A punchy patterned print or playfully personalized pillow from Freshline.
- Heart & Stone Jewelry‘s endless combination of charms and pendants.
- This uber charming winter-tastic silhouette print from Le Papier Studios.
- A book or an online class from scrapbooking expert Ali Edwards.
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- A custom photo canvas from Trendy Peas. After all, it is Christmas, baby.
- A pop or three of color with this hand crafted Mexican pillow found on Ruby Plaza.
- To get you into the spirit, here’s Burger in his holiday best (it has a trap door).
- And we can’t forget the beanette with a festive reindeer on those buns of hers.
And now for the JUICY DISCOUNTS:
- WallQuotes.com: 15% off with the code YHL15
- The Tile Shop: 10% off when you use the code YHL10
- Le Papier Studio: 15% off any purchase with the code YHL15OFF (thru Dec 20)
- Freshline: 10% off any orders with the code YHL10
- Heart & Stone Jewelry: 10% off your purchase with the code YHL10
- Sara Langley: 15% off your purchase with code YHL15
The Ghost Of Owners Past
We made a little time capsule to leave behind and it was actually a lot of fun more fun than packing. Our big hope is that someone finds it at least a few decades from now (when there are flying cars and precogs) since it would be kind of a wop-wop moment if the new owners discover it as soon as they move in on Monday. Which is why we hid it very very well. So well that it may never be found. Of course we can’t reveal its location because that could ruin the surprise, but consider it to be something along the lines of “inside the walls” trickery. No “taped under the sink” easy stuff.
Anyway, the “capsule” included a hand written letter and a sheet of paper with two photos on it (one of me, John, and Clara from this year & one of our backyard wedding from ’07 – both of which were labeled with the date and the event/our names). Here’s what the letter says:
Dear finder of this note,
We lived in this house from May of 2006 to December of 2010. Our names are John and Sherry Petersik and we moved in as a 25 year old engaged couple and left as a family of four (we got married, adopted a puppy, and had a daughter all during our time here). We actually got married in the backyard on July 7th, 2007 among our friends and family. This was our first house, and we loved it so much that getting married here just made sense.
We actually started an online blog about our life and our renovations here in 2007 called younghouselove.com. You might still be able to find it online if we’re still blogging about our home improvement adventures when you find this note. We had a lot of fun here, from gutting and renovating the kitchen and the bathrooms to getting the driveway paved and adding a cobblestone patio in the backyard. We also closed off a doorway that led from the kitchen to the bedroom behind it (which used to be a formal dining room) to create a true 3rd bedroom, which eventually became our daughter Clara’s nursery.
We hope that you enjoy your time here as much as we have enjoyed ours!
-xoxo, Sherry, John, Baby Clara & Burger the chihuahua
The “dear finder of this note” line makes me laugh. It was all John. I wonder who the heck will find it! And when they do, will they teleport to a friend’s house and show it to them? Only time will tell. Or will it? (Cue the ominous duh-duh-duhhhhhhhh sound effect).
Psst- We announced the winner of this week’s giveaway. Click here to see if it’s you (and check out a sweet discount for everyone).
Here’s A First
Back when we admitted to putting up our Christmas tree before Thanksgiving (oh the shame) a bunch of you asked if Clara was getting a special “First Christmas” ornament. Well, we finally got around to DIYing one right before moving boxes took over our house (at which point we got so caught up in packing that we neglected to write this post, which is why it’s getting posted about a week after our tree came down). Oops.
Anyway we decided to make something silver so it would have a good chance of matching our tree for years to come (we tend to use some element of silver since we have so many silver ornaments and you know we like to use what we’ve got). But of course we wanted it to be distinctly Clara circa 2010, so it would feel as special and customized as possible. So at the craft store (Ben Franklin) we grabbed this plain white ceramic ornament for just a buck and some 50 cent silver acrylic paint. Well, the real story is that we actually bought two ornaments in case the first one didn’t work out. They only cost a buck, after all. And we’re paranoid like that.
The plan was to create a silver backdrop onto which we could Mod Podge a scaled down version of Clara’s baby silhouette. That way we’d get something that definitely says “baby” but also creates a silhouette theme that we can carry on year-after-year if we’d like. It’ll be sweet to see how much she has grown and changed (here’s hoping she decides to grow hair one of these years). And since I still had the digital file of her silhouette from this project we just resized it, printed it, and started cutting. Sidenote: those are the haircutting scissors Sherry got from CVS a million years ago that she also uses to cut my hair. But I guess they’re better than a Flowbee.
When it came to painting the silver backdrop, my hairdresser wife noticed that it was a bit streakier than she’d like. So she figured she’d give the metallic Sharpie that we had in our junk drawer (which has since been packed up- yessssss) a try on the back-up ornament. Good call lady wife. It wasn’t much less streaky, but we later learned that the dried acrylic paint just peeled right off the ornament in one puffy-paint-esque blob. Duh. The lesson? Metallic sharpie grabs glossy ceramic far better than peelable acrylic paint. And a second “coat” of Sharpie about three hours later leaves it looking pretty seamless. So use that if you’re going to DIY one of these baby headed ornaments for yourself.
Anyway, after Sharpie-ing both sides of the ceramic ornament for a shiny silver coin-like finish, we placed Clara’s cutout silhouette in the middle of one side and glued it in place using Aileen’s Tacky Glue (being careful not to let too much squeeze out the sides onto the silver part – if any did we quickly wiped it). After the glue dried, Sherry got her Mod Podge on (covering the entire surface of the black paper silhouette with a few thin and even coats so it was a bit more sealed and protected for the long haul). The result was nothing short of charming. Especially for an under $2.50 project.
Oh, and we also wrote “Clara’s 1st Christmas, 2010″ in small handwriting with a black Sharpie on the back. But our marker fun didn’t stop there. Since our spare ornament was now peeled of its paint (it really did cleanly peel off just like puffy paint) we were able to start from scratch and create an alternate version featuring Clara’s hand-print (which we got by tracing her hand on paper, cutting it out, and using it as a stencil to trace the outline right onto the ornament with silver Sharpie). Then we filled it in. I love how her hand just fits. We probably can’t do this one from year to year unless we hunt down some bigger ornaments, but she’ll totally get a kick out of knowing that her hand was once that small.
So that’s how Clara’s first Chirstmas was officially represented on our tree in two fun DIY ways (at least for a few days before we packed everything up). But here’s hoping they make an encore appearance at the new house when we do some quick & dirty Christmas decorating over there. Have you guys DIYed any ornaments? I should mention that Sherry wanted to shove a pink baby sock into one of those round glass ornaments with removable tops to create a third Clara themed ornament but I thought that was weird. So I’d love to know if anyone else out there has tastefully created a baby sock ornament that they’d like to share. I might just change my tune.
Psst- Check out some other ornaments we DIYed a few years back here and here.
Pack It Up, Pack It In
Look how spiffy our house is looking these days:
With less than 5 days until the big move, we’ve learned that packing is no joke. But we’ve got our eye on the prize (our exciting new digs) so we’re trying to keep our spirits up, stay hydrated, and play some good music for dancing as we go (the dancing is for Clara- gotta keep the baby entertained or packing progress can screech to a halt). Oh and we got many of our “secondhand boxes” as we’re lovingly calling them by trolling craigslist and freecycle (and even driving to a local reader’s house when she offered some up to us on Facebook). But admittedly we did have to grab a few from Walmart when we ran out of pre-used ones. Oh well, at least they’re made from 100% recycled material and we can craigslist/freecycle them when we’re done so they’ll live on like Leo’s memory in Titanic. Sidenote: anyone else still have a grade school crush on Leo?
Our to-do list is pretty nuts, but so far we’ve managed to cross these things off:
- remove every single item from the wall and patch/paint every nail hole in the house (this was actually about 500 times easier than I expected- just remove all the nails at once, spackle everything at once, and then paint room by room. It’s a lot faster than doing those three things in each room before moving onto the next one since you’d be opening and closing the spackle and cleaning the putty knife about a million times).
- transfer all of our utilities so they start over at the new place on move-in day
- pack the entire bathroom (except for travel sized shampoo & conditioner, our toothbrushes, and the shower curtain)
- pack all of our frames, mirrors, books, ceramic animals, and 80% of the breakables (still need to do our dishware – yikes!)
- pack all of the clothes we won’t be using in the next 7 days (we created a little “vacation stash” of everything from clothes to baby supplies and toiletries that we’ll appreciate having on hand instead of needing to unpack a million boxes to find those necessities).
As for what’s still on the list, here’s what we’ve got on the agenda:
- pack the rest of the kitchen along with about 20% of the other rooms that still need to be done
- rake the yard so the new owners don’t think they’re moving into a giant leaf pile
- oversee the completion of a few random inspection items (some flue work is being done by a pro tomorrow)
- get our oil measured for closing (new buyers pay for the oil that’s left in the tank, isn’t that a nice fair way to do it?)
- wave goodbye to our tan slipcovered Pottery Barn sofa in the den (someone from craigslist is supposed to be picking it up at 4)
- clean the oven and the fridge (can’t really do this until right before we go)
- vacuum/sweep/scrub the house spotless before locking the door with a tear in my eye
Assuming all goes well, the new owners are supposed to be closing on our house on Monday morning and once those funds come through we can close on our new place on Monday afternoon. So for a few odd hours in the middle of the day we actually won’t be homeowners at all. Weird, right? This necessitates an airtight moving plan, which doesn’t exactly sound easy but we’re sure we’ll somehow get ‘er done. We’re planning to move all of our stuff into a giant U-Haul by Sunday night and are paying to keep the truck overnight so it’ll essentially become a huge storage locker on wheels until we can unpack it on Monday afternoon at the new house (where our alarm system will be getting installed at the same time). Should be interesting total chaos, especially since we’re used to a few trips back and forth when it comes to a big move like this. Thankfully we have John’s awesome family helping with the loading and unloading. Did you think we’d hire movers? Come on, we’re total cheap-os. Besides, we love a good DIY adventure. Here’s hoping it has a happy ending and none of my ceramic animal friends have to die for the cause…
Everyone Loves A Freebie…
Ain’t free stuff awesome? If it weren’t, why would Oprah’s audiences blow a gasket on national TV every year when she says “Faaaay-vo-rit thiiiiiings!”
But enough about Ms. Winfrey (Sherry’s perma-smiling over here, because Oprah’s her jam). We’re bringing up freebies because we’re making a swag related declaration. Moving forward, we’re just saying no. We’ll still offer up free house stuff to you guys in the form of our weekly giveaways, but we’re not going to accept products or services for our casa at any special “blogger discount” or for free – even if we genuinely love them.
We have absolutely nothing against other bloggers who do (it’s definitely an obvious perk of the job) but especially since we’re both able to do this full time, we’re appreciative of a few other perks (like working from home with our pooch & our girl by our side). This way it makes it easy to recommend an amazing piece of furniture or a great floor refinisher based on the job that person has done or the item they’ve sold – not based on any special arrangement behind the scenes. We don’t want you guys to ever question our motives for blogging about something. And although we’ve always tried to be totally transparent when we’re writing about an item that was gifted (like this faucet & this lawnmower) and only agreed if it was something we really liked (and always tried to snag a second freebie for a reader, like we did with the faucet & the lawnmower), now no one even has to wonder if we’re endorsing something because we truly love it or because it was free.
Why now? Well, over the next few years, our new house will need lots of stuff. But we want to stalk every single thing down ourselves and buy it (or make it) without any other reason than it’s what we love and it’s actually within our price range. And we don’t want a post about how we need a new dining table to be misconstrued by you guys as “fishing for a freebie” (and we don’t want companies to consider it to be an invitation for them to offer something up in exchange for a post about it). Besides, being constrained by a real budget is when we come up with our most creative ideas.
And although we’re happy to pass on the free stuff from now on, we’ll do our best to pass it onto you guys whenever we can. A lot of our weekly giveaways already come from that technique, so we’ll continue to give away stuff that we think you’ll love. Our little declaration definitely means we’ll be hunting down discounts, sales, and even free stuff on craigslist like it’s our job (oddly enough, it kind of is). As long as it’s a deal that each of you could score too, we’re game (special blogger discounts & freebies are out, but deal hunting in the clearance section & haggling at garage sales are definitely still in).
Oh and this is probably a good time to remind you guys that things in the new home will be happening on a real timeline. No same day 10K makeovers a la HGTV. So we hope you’ll bear with us as we save our pennies and take on Operation New House one project at a time, just as we did when we started this blog during our big kitchen reno three years ago. We’re definitely not high enough rollers to get our new place renovated and decorated anytime soon (remember our current house took 4.5 years to get to where it is today!). So the new one will be a work in progress for a while as we slowly decorate in stages and share diary style updates as they occur. Hopefully you guys are more into the journey than the destination…
Psst- By this time next week we should be settling into the new casa. Just 5 days (!!!) until we get the keys. Can you tell we’re craaaaazy excited? As in Oprah audience excited.
