Hi my friends! Today is a long post as I am soooo excited, so happy today to announce that my husband and I finally purchased our 1st and Forever Home!!
If you’ve been following me for a few years, then you know how badly I’ve wanted to move out of apartments and all the suffering I went through those years including developing PTSD due to terrible neighbors who deliberately hurt me. It left me with 2 major mental breakdowns and broken.
It’s been both my hubby and my dream to purchase a home and we thought at times we wondered if it would happen.
To God be the Glory
The current housing market is so tough and we lost 4 houses prior to the final purchase. It was heartbreaking and I can’t tell you how many tears I cried through this journey. I give all the praise and glory to my Savior, Jesus Christ because we didn’t have the resources, the finances nor the wisdom to make this dream happen.
The Lord led us to the right lender (went through 5 previous total lenders), a great realty team and financial help from two 1st Homebuying down payment assistance programs. All these people fought hard for us as we were determined to stay here on the Oregon coast. God brought us here 11 years ago in 2012 from Florida. We didn’t want to leave.
We would have never chosen this part of the U.S. to live and retire in, both of us were on the East coast for years but God had His plans, we obeyed and came here and through all the ups and downs, He orchestrated our steps and now we have this beautiful, new build, 2-story home. It’s still so unreal to us, we’re pinching ourselves wondering when will we wake up from this dream! LOL 😀
We work from home so we converted the master bedroom into our offices, half for my husband and the other half is my craft space. I get to decorate it anyway I like. No more restrictions like not allowed to hang anything on the walls. I hung a small pegboard that I bought from Dollar Tree today and it is so cute! Last year, I made 2 pegboard cubes from a YT tutorial since I couldn’t have one on the wall and I love and use them all the time. But, I wanted one on the wall too.
There are so many miracles Jesus did for us during the 14 months of house hunting, too many for me to list here, but I plan to write it all down in my personal journal. I want to remember how Big a God He is whenever I feel down again. It’s incredible now that we are all moved in that I can go back and see His Hand at every turn.
We moved into our home on February 6th, 2024 and it took 3 full days. Unfortunately, I got injured and my sweet hubby had to do most of the lifting and carrying our boxes into the house and most of them upstairs. We had about 71 total boxes not including the bed, 2 dressers, tables, chairs and computers. After we moved in, we quickly set up the office so I could go back to work my day job on the 13th.
Hubby and me with our Realtor, Taylor, with eXp Realty (center)
We didn’t have a couch nor dining room table so we bought both. The dining room table we purchased from a local Thrift store. It was darker than the color scheme we wanted but I found a pretty white lacy tablecloth to go over it and it’s perfect. Hubby and I are going with “Country French” as our home decor with neutral, light colors. Our couch is brand new and we got it at an incredible sale price.
We have a lot of other decorating plans, but we’re waiting because we want to see where we are with our upcoming bills. Our final bills from the apartment are all paid off so we’re through with that. But, since neither of us have ever owned a home, we don’t know how much our utilities will be. Our mortgage payment won’t be an issue for hubby to pay because we got such a great interest rate and the down payment assistance which made it easy to move in with confidence.
We are both so grateful, humbled and super excited to start this new chapter in our lives. And, the healing for both us begins.
It’s Time to Craft
So, after getting my craft space set up, I was itching to create again! To get my creative juices going, I turned to YT! Because I injured my arm and hip, I don’t have all my strength back yet so I opted to take help from Pink Fresh Studio’s “In the Meadow ” washi tape and die set from their collection. I’ve made so many cards with this set, you can check some of them out here. All I had to do was pull off the washi tape onto white cardstock and die cut the floral pieces out.
I made 2 cards, one has a pop up frame feature. Dawn Wholeslagle made a pretty card with the pop-up frame card feature here and this was my inspo for one of my cards. Both of them use Ellen’s Essentials Nested Arch die set. To make the pop up frame feature, I trimmed a sheet of cardstock from 8-1/2″ x 11″ to 5-1/2″ x 5-3/4″. From the left side, I scored this at 1/4, 3/4″ and 1/2″.
Then I flipped the cardstock over and scored again on the opposite side with the same dimensions. Then I folded those scorelines like an accordian. I then trimmed down another sheet of cardstock to A2 size which fits perfectly in the center of my pop-up frame, this will be my panel.
I took one of the arches and die cut the pop-up frame as well as the panel. This way I could decorate the panel with the washi tape florals as well as on top of the pop-up frame. One of the things I love about this nested arch die set is it cuts out the arches and borders for each size and I used all of it for my cards!
I tried to frame my card with as many florals as I could, I even cut out a few of the leaves to make the florals fit the card. And you can see some of them go off the card! For my sentiment, I used Simon Says Stamp’s “Hibiscus” stamp set and after stamping it , I die cut it out. Then, I glued it to a piece of acetate and taped it behind of the pop up frame with double sided tape on each end of the sentiment. 1st card done! I love how that sentiment floats on the card!
2nd Card
For my 2nd card, I ended up with a bunch of the washi tape florals left so I filled up a 4″ x 5-1/4″ panel with as many as I could. I glued 3 arch borders together and 3 arches together to build dimension. This time, I stamped my sentiments, die cut the main one out and glued it above the secondary sentiment. I’m not sure which card I like best, they’re both so pretty!
It felt so good to create again! Once my strength is back, I can begin ink blending, die cutting, stitching, alcohol-inking and whatever other medium I want to use. This is my craftspace now and I can do whatever I want. Dreams do come true and Freedom is such a blessing from God!
Thanks for Reading!
Some of the links to the products I used are affiliate links which means that when you shop with them, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Your support helps me run my small crafty business. Thank you so much!
- Pinkfresh Studio “In the Meadow” Washi Tape/Stencil/Stamp/Die
- Essential Arches by Essentials by Ellen
- Simon Says Stamp “Hibiscus” Stamp set
- Bearly Art Glue
- Simon Says Stamp “Intense Black” ink pad
- Accents Opaque 120 lb. White Cardstock
- Glassboard Craft Mat → Use my Code → KIMCARDS20 at checkout
- Craft Reverse Tweezers by EK Tools (great for picking up die cut pieces)
- Paper Trimmer: Tim Holtz here (Ranger), here (Scrapbook.com) or here (AZ)
- Teflon bone folder (I bought mine on AZ in 2018, no longer available), but here’s a similar one from Honey Bee Stamps here
- Scor-Buddy Scoreboard
- Crafter’s Edge Crossover II Fabric/paper Die Cutting Machine
- Acetate Sheets
- Double-sided Tape (AZ), (Scrapbook.com)
