Wednesday, July 11, 2012

My Rant, Top Dog, Party Animal & Cutie Cat Sets

Hi Everyone,

Sometimes it seems like everything goes wrong like this week. It turns out our 3 new animal theme sets won’t arrive until tomorrow (Thurs) which is maddening after I promised they would be here Tues, July 10. I've been holding off posting until I got confirmation on all 3 sets.

My rant continues below from the flood in my new kitchen to the stain dilemma on my cupboard doors. Thank goodness it's finally all starting to work!
    
Below are the store links to our 3 NEW animal theme Clear Art stamp sets.  I'm also adding them to our new Etsy Store.

SL51 Top Dog Clear Art Stamp Set
Click the link to read the full description, see the stamps and more great samples made with this cute doggie set. I adore this cute dog card by Sophie La Fontaine made with the Top Dog Stamp Set!

SL52  Animal Party Clear Art Stamp Set
Click the link above to read the full description, see the stamps and some cool samples created with this fun party set. Look at this adorable card that dressed Duck card that DT Member Michele Kovack  created with Animal Party! 
 


SM45 Cutie Cat Clear Art Stamp Set 
Click the link above to read the full description, see the stamps and more samples created with this cute set. Look at this cool card Beverly Cole made using one of the cats from the Cutie Cats set along with stamps from 4 other sets to create this fun scene.


Kitchen re-do's are stressful and messy! My kitchen re-do started because our 18 yr old white fridge was on it's last legs and after we found a great deal on a fancy stainless bottom freezer drawer model none of our other appliances matched. Then our stove died so we decided to re-do the kitchen on budget. Here is a before photo of the kitchen (I will show more at my big reveal) but you can see the light oak cabinets and now that I have stainless steel I wanted darker cabinets - without spending a bunch of M$NEY.

Hey - they look darker in this photo but they are sun bleached so light in some areas.


After checking out our neighbors oak cabinets they stained walnut 2 years ago (and still look amazing) we decided to stain ours and use the same product; Saman, which is a seal, stain and varnish.  It's Canadian made but they must have similar products in USA and overseas. The first coat looked horrible!  I don't think we sanded the area enough where the hood fan will go and the Walnut color was way too dark. We switched to Dark Oak.


 Our cabinets were varnished and have a lot of raised panel detail so Scott cheated and took them to a sand blasting company who did them all for under $200.00 - but look - they are down to the bare wood.  Now we are stressed out about getting all the side panels, shelves and crown molding sanded this well.  I may be stripping this weekend - and I don't mean my clothes!

Here is one cupboard door with 3 coats of the dark oak stain/sealer. You just lightly sand in between.  I love this warm rich color and it will match our antique oak dinning set and sewing cabinet in the kitchen.

We have a big job to finish but Scott has the first coat on a bunch of the cupboards and they look so good.  Too bad that when the guy came to hook up the new dishwasher he crimped the hose too tight, never tested it, so water leaked and lifted our new tile looking laminate floor!  If you ever install floor keep some extra! We had a hard time finding more as we bought on clearance.  Granite was too $$ so we went with arborite and it looks great but I really love my new tiled window sill!

I ditched my ruffle valances and a bunch of the clutter and I'm on a mission to make a bike wheel photo holder for a wall in the kitchen like this one Vicki spotted at the Junkstock Show.  I'm taking photos along the way and will do a detailed kitchen post when we are all done.

Do you have any kitchen re-do nightmares or tricks you can pass on?

 Wishing you joy & creativity
Sandy Redburn

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5 comments:

Unknown said...

The new stamp sets are so adorable!! I can see so many possiblities for them...the Animal Party set is just too cute!

Wishing you best wishes and luck with the remodel Sandy. Knowing you, I'm sure you and Scott will do a gorgeous job! When we went through our remodel, we asked everyone we knew for tips and advice and I'm so glad we did! Everyone was so helpful and supportive and gave us lots of great advice, like which local stores had the best return policies...and which ones didn't!
I can't wait to more pictures. Big {{hugs}} :)

Rene said...

Thank you for the heads up about the stamp sets. I had ordered on Tuesday morning and hadn't seen a shipping notice, which is unusual for you. Can't wait to get them!!

Cynthia said...

Any remodel is a LOT of work, Sandy! When we bought our 1964 built home, DH did a complete kitchen remodel. At my request, most of it was completed before we moved in. But we did do some grilling and washing of dishes on the back deck for a few days!! Good luck and looking forward to more pics.

Charlotte Zweigoron said...

Ha!! Talk about horror stories... we gave a friend of the family $2000 to do the cabinets in our small kitchen. We agreed to to do the tear-out to save money. Well, we "tore out" but he never "put in". For 3 months all I had was a frig, a stove and boxes of everything that had been in the cabinets. My only water came from a tiny sink in the powder room. It took that long to get the money back from him so we could buy cabinets and put them in ourselves. To be fair, I should explain that he was a cabinet maker for a local company and they allowed him to use the machinery after hours for side jobs. Without his knowledge they decided not to renew their lease and moved to a newer facility. It took 3 months to accomplish the move and have the machinery re-calibrated which was why he couldn't do the job. His big mistake was spending the deposit we gave him and then being unable to return it to us so we could do the job ourselves. We didn't have an extra $2000 sitting around so we just had to wait.... His second mistake was not telling us what the problem was or returning our phone calls until he gave us the $$ back. Is that enough horror for you?

Beverly said...

Hi Sandy,

Thanks for posting my card on your blog. What an honor! There are so many talented women who make amazing projects. I am proud to be among them.

I am having a new backsplash put in right now, as we bought our house at auction and redid the whole thing. What fun, but it was alot to do. I do have a few pics of my kitchen on my blog...way back, and will post my new backsplash...so cool!

Enjoy your new kitchen,
Bev