Shelf GIVEAWAY winner

Thanks for entering our fun giveaway by CSN Stores. The giveaway winner as selected by random.org is:


Congratulations fong33! Now all you need to do is send your mailing address to us at seiblog(at)shopsei(dot)com to claim your new shelf.


We have at least one giveaway each month so keep checking back for more fun.

Giveaway Reminder

Hurry and enter the giveaway! You only have until midnight MST. Also, don't forget about our challenge.

Melissa Saul's Card

Today we are featuring this lovely card made by one of our giveaway winners, Melissa Sauls. We love the way she layered the ribbon, petals, and designer brads. Thank you for sharing, Melissa. We love to see everyone's creations. E-mail them to seiblog{at}shopsei{dot}com and you could be featured too!

Peony

One of my top five flowers would have to be the Peony Rose. I get all smiley and dreamy just looking at them. My ambition in life is to have a bed of glorious peonys at Castle Kiely, but like everything else it is just going to have to wait a bit longer.

The Back Area (doesn't qualify as a garden)

You've seen the front, now you can get an idea of how truly fabulous the back of the house was when we bought it. I know you are all feeling very smug about your gardens now and that's why I posted these shots - It is kind of like a public service to make everyone feel good about themselves at my expense.

Can someone explain to me why many new Australian families feel the need to concrete over every available inch of soil and then build multiple out-buildings? Surfer Boy was particularly unimpressed when he realised these delightful red brick structures had been built with concrete instead of mortar - apparently this is not good - who knew?
















Looking back at these shots I am particularly impressed with the care they took to get the house 'auction-ready'!!
Tomorrow you can come for a tour inside...
Till then,
JK

Jessica's Coasters

We would like to introduce you to Jessica. She is an interior designer who designs many of the projects for club and writes instructions. You may catch a glimpse of her beautiful little daughter on some of the layouts she creates. We love the stylish way she dresses and her quiet sense of humor.


Jessica made these pretty Claire drink coasters. Here are her instructions:

Supplies:
4” x 4” glass squares
copper foil tape (available at most craft stores or stained glass shops)
paper
die-cuts

Pick up 4” x 4” pieces of glass from your local glass shop. Mine cut them for me, no big deal.

Cut 4” x 4” pieces of paper – I used Claire
Cut flowers out of the paper or use die-cuts, layer them on the 4” x 4” pieces
Sandwich the paper between 2 pieces of glass
Use copper foil tape around the edge of the glass to hold the 2 pieces together

Who knew making glass coasters could be so simple? Thanks for sharing, Jessica!

Front Door

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I find doors fascinating. Whenever I pass an interesting door I am dying to see what treasures and delights lie within. I would love to be brave enough to have an outrageous front door but I fear I may never have the courage.

A House Becomes A Home

I'm going to revisit the very beginnings of Castle Kiely while I'm waiting 'oh so patiently' to move forward.

We bought in 2000 with grand plans of renovating and extending in a year or so!! As you can see it has proved to be a longer process than first anticipated due in part to the arrival of 2 small children.

I didn't fall in love with the house but I thought with a few cosmetic changes I could be on my way. It was never supposed to be our 'forever' house but now we don't want to live anywhere else.

Here is our lovely lady looking in dire need of some TLC on the day we bought her....

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Surfer Boy didn't see the house in the flesh, so to speak, until the morning of the auction but luckily after an inspection to check stumps, roof lines and boring stuff like that, he agreed with me that there was heaps of potential to be uncovered.

We tried to squint our eyes at the red brick garage, the ARC pool fence and the red concrete verandah and 'Wallah!!!' A beauty was born. Nothing Surfer Boy couldn't fix! Needless to say after some inspired bidding by yours truly she was all ours and the dream became a reality.

Next up I'll give you a glimpse at the paradise that was the back garden!

Till then..

JK

Shelf GIVEAWAY!

It's time for another giveaway! This one is special because it is sponsored by CSN Stores. They have a huge variety of items, including toys, speaker stands, cookware, modern decor, and tons more. Check out all 200+ stores here. So, what could you win? This beautiful storage shelf!


This shelf comes from CSN's bookcases website. It has an expresso finish and would be great for organizing craft supplies.

To enter:
1. Leave a comment on this post by Thursday, April 29th at midnight.
2. Check back Friday to see if you are the winner.
3. For an extra entry, post about this giveaway on your blog and include the phrase "CSN Stores has everything from speaker stands to home decor to cookware!" Then leave another comment saying that you blogged about it.

Good Luck & Happy Monday!

A Change Of Direction

It is getting tantalisingly close to 'renovation time' at our place. After 6 months at council we may finally have our plans approved in the next couple of weeks (or not, depending on the lovely people in the heritage department). I have been holding myself on a tight rein so as to not be too disappointed in the event of a knock back. My natural inclination to become completely immersed in paints finishes and floor treatment etc is on hold until we get a big red tick from the powers to be.

I had almost decided to stop this blog but I figure I may need an outlet for all my ideas so I am thinking Chalk & Talk may become heavily 'house obsessed' in the near future. I'm sure other stuff will make it's way on to the blog but I am going to try and focus on 'Castle Kiely' for the majority.

See you soon

JK

3rd Thursday - The Green Line

Club SEI's May kit features the green line scrapbook in a bag kit. This kit has everything you need to create a complete 8 x 8 album. There are also several bonus embellishments included in the kit. Click here to see a glimpse of what club members can make with this kit. If you aren't a club member, you can still sign-up and receive this kit.

This little gift project was made with some of the extra contents from May's club kit and the click-n-print. This would make a great gift for a friend or Father's Day. Happy Earth Day & 3rd Thursday!

Matchbook Gift Holder

I needed a quick, pretty way to present these bracelets for my niece. So, Mandi and I came up with this little matchbook gift holder.


Directions:
1. Print out this template, place it on your patterned paper (we used BTW) cut it out, and fold on the lines.
2. Punch two holes in the top folded section and thread your ribbon through your bracelets and the holes. Tie a bow on top (we used Mimosa ribbon).
3. Cut a piece of paper (we used pink riot) 3 x 6 and fold it in half. Place your card behind your gift.
4. Seal the matchbook shut with a sticker (we used Jocelyn epoxy stickers).

I hope she likes it and so do you!
Maria

Giveaway Winner

Thanks for your comments on Jen's posts last week. She got us all excited about home decor! The giveaway winner as selected by random.org is:


Congratulations Jennifer B.! Now all you need to do is send your mailing address to us at seiblog(at)shopsei(dot)com to claim your goodies.


Don't be too sad if you didn't win because we will have another giveaway next week. This one will be a little different and you won't want to miss it!

Giveaway Extension

We want to make sure everyone who doesn't check blogs over the weekend gets a chance to enter the giveaway so we are extending the giveaway till 5:00 pm MST. So hurry and enter! We will announce the winner then.

Quick 4x6 framed art + GIVEAWAY!!

Today is my last day here on the SEI blog. This has been truly an amazing experience, I have loved every second of it! Thank you all so very much for having me! ..and putting up with all of my rambling! hee heee! I leave you with one last home decor project. A 'hybrid' project of sorts.. if you dabble in digital scrapbooking as well, or know your way around a computer.. this will be right up your ally! Heck, thinking about it now, this could also easily be done using 100% traditional scrapbooking supplies!


Looooove that bird from the Playday Chiplets! So cute! The frame that I used here is 4x6. In Photoshop, I created a 4x6 canvas, and using the text tool, added the large 'H' ..then, using the shape tool, I added the speech bubble and finished off with the "h is for harley" ..it took a few tries to get the spacing right, just test printed on plain paper, and then when I was ready to final print, I used photo paper. Once printed, I added the bird chipboard accent and that was it!! Super fast and super easy.. and super budget friendly! Such a great way to customize something as a gift as well. I didn't make this one in particular as a gift.. this one went straight to my son's room.. but I could definitely see myself making a variation of this as a gift down the road sometime!

Thank you all again for having me! It has been a blast! It was truly an honour to be asked to guest blog for a week, seriously.. still giddy over it!! THANK YOU!!

Jen :)

Thanks for being our guest, Jen! We loved the diversity of projects you shared with us this week and your fun personality shines through in all of your posts. Don't forget to check her blog, the little things. You will notice she did cut her hair & it looks great!


Now for the giveaway, if you leave a comment on this post telling us which post was your favorite this week, you will be entered into a giveaway for a chance to win this package with all kinds of goodies Jen used this week.

Just leave your comment by Monday, April 19th at noon MST and we will announce the winner that day. Be sure to check back next week to see if you are the winner because if we don't hear from the winner we will pick a new one!

More scrappy projects..

I remember when I first saw the Playday line.. so full of fun! The animals are adorable, so cute and whimsy.. in a not over the top way at all. Perfection. Especially the elephant.. but I am not playing favourites or anything. hee! ;)

We recently went on a day trip to Edmonton (not too sure I have mentioned were I live yet have I? ooooops! lol ..we are about 4 hours northwest of Edmonton, Alberta).. anyhoo, we ended up at West Edmonton Mall.. which has an indoor amusement park.. we couldn't go to Edmonton and not go there now could we!? We spent a total of an hour and a half there and it was pretty much the perfect amount of time. Nobody got cranky, or tired, and everyone had fun.. and we left with smiles on our faces!

I printed off the pictures for another project that I was working on, but ended up saving them until I dug into the Playday ..the colours are a perfect match to the photos! Not that I usually go for that all the time or anything, it was just too good not to! hee! ;)

Here is a favourite photos from that day (ok, maybe 2!) ha ha ha! ;)


ha ha ha ha HA! That one seriously cracks me up! My oldest looks so bored (it was a kiddie ride for sure).. and my youngest can't even contain his excitement enough to actually keep his head in the ride! heeee! Love it!


So very blurry, but had to share anyway.. he is such a 'dirt bike' kid at the moment.. everything is dirt bikes! He was seriously in his glory here! :)

Then there was this ride.. my girl rode this one over and over and over and over and over and over... well, you get the idea!


Ooooops, that was 3 wasn't it? ;)

Here is the layout, using the perfect colour matching Playday..


And of course, had to make a card too..


OK ok.. the giraffe is pretty darn cute too! Hope everyone is having a fantastic day! Tomorrow is my last day on the SEI blog, it has been so fun! I have a fun and fairly quick home decor project to share with you.. had to get one more project out of the Playday collection! I can't wait to share it with you!! See you soon!! :)

What inspires you?

So many things inspire me.. anything from fashion, home decor, blogs, stores, magazines etc etc. The list goes on and on! I would definitely say though, that most of my inspiration comes from the internet. Like this image here, that I came across while blog surfing one day not too long ago. I knew I needed to try that somewhere in our house!


This was originally a very unique guestbook at a wedding! Seriously, how cool is that!? For my take on it, I decided to speed the process as much as possible and used an electronic die cutting machine, but you could also cut these beauties out by hand. They don't need to be complex butterflies at all to make a statement, so hand cutting could be fairly speedy as well!


After I cut them out, I dug through my junk drawer looking for my removable adhesive putty stuff (what is that stuff called anyway? lol ...can't think of it at the moment!).. eeek! Took me forever to find it, but it was well worth it! Here is a picture of the back side of it with adhesive ready to go. The beauty of using this adhesive to put them up is, they can come down just as easily! No holes no mess!


This might be one of my very most favourite projects ever! lol I love how it turned out! Like love love love it! I might have to do it in black in another main room.. as these pink ones were destined for my daughter's room (which is pink, orange and a coral/red colour).. sooo pretty!


So cool right? Gosh, I love the internet and it's vast unlimited inspiration! This project, start to finish took under an hour.. might have been faster had I not been tuned into One Tree Hill! hee heee! Also, should add that the Claire line was absolutely perfect for my daughter's bedroom! Hope everyone is having a fantastic day! :)

Scrapbook Talk!

Let's chat about scrapbooking today, shall we? Every now and then I see a new scrapbook line come out, and I immediately feel this need to have it all.. all of it! Well, the Jocelyn line totally did that to me! The colours are sooooo delish! AND it has the most fabulous pops of turquoise in it! How could you not fall head over heals for it? hee heee!

First off, I created a layout with the yummyness!


A fun layout about Valentine's this year.. that goes to show you how versatile this line is! *swooon!*


Here is a tutorial for the flower I made on the layout.. I googled 'fabric flowers' ages ago and came across this one, there is a pattern there to download and everything! After it was assembled, I cut it in half and sewed the edges to stop it from falling apart. This was my first time making this flower out of paper (usually I use fabric).. I love the dimension it added to the page!

Then, I couldn't stop there! I had it all out on my desk.. and for the sake of creating, I made some cards. I love doing that, using supplies that are out on the desk to carry onward to another project.. and so on and so on... ideally, one day.. I would love to do that until it is all used up in fun random projects! One day I will challenge myself to that, gather some supplies and use it all!




Yep, LOVE this line.. new BFF indeed! Hope everyone is having a fabulous day! Hope spring is treating you well, and that your snow (if you have snow) is melting faster than ours is! eeeeek! Maybe by May??? Anyhoo, Happy Tuesday! :)

Some easy projects for around the house!

Hellooooo! I'm back! hee! OK, since I left you with some pretty random facts about me, I figured I should give you a little bit more of an introduction! So, here we go.. a little bit more about me! I am married to my bestest friend in the whole entire world.. in fact, this month we celebrate our 10th anniversary! TEN!? How does time fly so quickly? We have 2 munchkins. A girl and a boy. Laine is 8 and Harley just turned 3. We all enjoy a day of family time, hanging out with books and movies.. all of us pile on the couch in our jammies... yep, those kind of days are a favourite around here! Throw in a crafting project and I am in heaven! hee!

I looooove to craft, like really really love it! Scrapbooking and crafting are my 'me time' ..not too sure what I would do without it, I neeeeeed to do something creative every day! I also enjoy photography.. capturing every day moments. My camera is always close by! Decorating our home also tops the list of things I love! I am always trying to find ways to incorporate fun things into our surroundings! Lately I have been looking around the house, trying to figure out what walls or rooms I can paint.. it is an obsession really! lol Actually, I wanted to share a few little 'around the house' projects with you today!

We recently painted our entry/mud room a light mint-ish green colour, and to add a bit of interest to the room, I decided to frame some of my favourite SEI patterns! LOVE how it turned out too!


This is a picture of the entire grouping, right when you walk into the door. This is actually our 'side door' ..but definitely the one that is used 100% of the time. It used to be a darker beige colour, and I love how the bright paint makes the room feel so much bigger! ..and the paper fits in perfectly!


I looove the metallic sheen in the lower paper, so very pretty! I also had this cut out word art that I had done before (words cut out and patterned paper placed behind).. but when I saw the colours of some of the SEI patterned paper, I figured it needed a little update as well! ;) I suppose I should fill you in on my obsession with all things green, yellow and turquoise.. definitely a theme throughout the house!


It sooo needed that pop of turquoise! And the flower peeking through the 'O' is a favourite!

I also was super inspired by images of garland floating around the net.. and even a few times on the SEI blog here! I just HAD to make my own! In the theme of the house (of course).. here is a little bit more of that soothing colour combo!


This is the window above my desk in my craft/scrapbooking room.. I am now wondering where else I can hang some fun garland!? It was so easy to make too! Just sewed with the machine and kept feeding in the punched circles and cut out flowers!


Yep, totally have these images that were previously blogged right here and here to blame! The SEI blog pulled me in like a magnet and before I knew it, I was making a garland! lol Thanks for the inspiration!

As you can see.. a big part of me is what I like to surround myself with... making or trying to make our house fun and practical for our family! I am the kind of person who likes things that make me the happiest close by. My family, my hobbies, my jammies (so totally not kidding).. and even fun garland hanging from my window! ;)

Hope you enjoyed todays post.. and I double dare you to go make a garland of your own! Or even frame some patterned paper (seriously the easiest project ever!)!! See you all tomorrow!! :)