Citrus Twist for Paper Players #703

Happy Sunday

It's the fabulous Claire's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and it's Clean and Simple Week.  I brought out a set that I got as part of a Pinkfresh Studio online class called Citrus Twist.  This set comes with the stamps, dies and stencils, making it really easy to use.

Here's a sneak peek:

And just in case you hadn't guessed the theme for our challenge this week :-)  Here is Claire's Clean and Simple Challenge,

I stamped the image with versamark and heat set with gold embossing powder.   I used the stencils to color the images and then die-cut with the matching dies.  I used a gold pen to add dots to each of the lemon/lime slices and then added a sentiment and the flowers.  I popped up the fruit with two die-cut layers of white card stock.

Here's my card:

I hope you will join us and play along with our challenge this week.  We would love to see what you create.  As always, the design team have some fabulous inspiration for you:

• Ann
• Claire
• Joanne
• Laurie
• LeAnne
• Anne Marie
• Jolanda
• Eliz
• Jen
• Stef

On a personal note:

We have spent several hours at the new house this week meeting with painters and flooring people.  We really don't like the vinyl plank that is in a lot of the downstairs area.  It's not the vinyl plank that is the issue – it's the color.  It is such a dark brown that it is almost black and, as a lot of the back of the house is north facing, the very dark flooring and the lack of natural sunlight, really makes the rooms look so much smaller and darker.  There is also carpet in the master bedroom and den area that we want to take out.  So, it's been fun choosing new flooring and carpeting.  The walls are also a greyish color that reads really flat and cold in those darker areas.  So, changing the paint is required.  We are hoping to get the flooring in sometime in the second week of September, along with a couple of the rooms painted, and the new appliances fitted.  If we can do that, it means we can move in around the 3rd week of September.  

I'm looking forward to dressing the house for fall and winter as there is a massive fireplace in the living room that just screams "decorate me"!  It has a shelf hearth that we know will be filled with puttytats during winter as these guys really are heat seeking missiles!

I've also chosen lights to replace the "eyeballs" that I highlighted in my post last week.  Those should be going up as soon as the flooring is in and we can't wait to see what a difference they make.

I took this photo on a bright sunny day and my phone does a tremendous job of picking up as much light as it can.  So, the photo below makes the room look much lighter than it really is, but you can see the massive fireplace.  Can't you see it draped with fir garlands for Christmas?

In contrast, the kitchen gets a decent amount of light, but the lighting they chose has Edison globes and they have used low wattage warm lights in a lot of the kitchen, giving it a very strange yellow glow.  So, the pendant lights will be changed out and the globes changed to a brighter light.  Things should look much less golden then!  They really did a great job of upgrading and updating the kitchen – and even put in a waterfall edge, but the lighting just doesn't work for me.  So, we will be donating the lights for someone to use in an environment that is better suited to them.

You can see the grey paint here – on some walls is shows as green, on the entry way it shows as violet and on the kitchen counter – behind the stools – it shows as as grey-green and, in the kitchen – above the window – it shows yellow/beige.  We know from experience that grey is an incredibly difficult color to get right.  This modern grey works beautifully in rooms with lots of light, but, with the cold, dark colored floors, (as you can see they look really dark around the end of the kitchen counter into the entry way) it just doesn't work as well.  In the areas were we don't get a lot of light, the dark floors look almost black.  Once again, the floor is good quality and is in really good shape, so we have asked our installers to be careful with the boards when they take them out so that we can donate the floors.  That way they don't go into the landfill and the good quality flooring can be reused.

Enough of the house… let's take a look at little – well not so little – Chilli.  I cannot believe how quickly he is growing.  He's such a handsome boy, but it is getting waaay too big to come for a cuddle, so he compensates for that by hanging out between my legs on the recliner when we are watching TV and then either at my feet, or Lou's feet at the bottom of the bed at night.

That toe floof is certainly developing between his toes and his tail is starting to get really fluffy.  His mane is also starting to come in and I swear those ear tassels have grown!

Who could resist THIS face!

Lou and I are travelling for the next week and a half.  We are visiting Scotland and Ireland and will be visiting the Orkney's and the Inner Hebrides.  Both of those places are on my life list!  So, we are really looking forward to it – even though the timing isn't great considering we just bought a house!  If the connection is good enough, I will pop in and share some photos of our travels.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe:

• Stamps, dies, stencils:  Citrus Twist, Pinkfresh Studio
• Inks:  Pinkfresh Studio