Page Toppers

Quotes

• Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort. (Jane Austen)
• As for me and my house we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15
• Be it ever so hovel...there's no place like home!
• Bless this house as we come and go
  Bless this house as the children grow
  Bless our families when they gather in
  Bless this house with love and friends.
• A good neighbor is a welcome blessing!
• Having someplace to go is home.
  Having someone to love is family.
  Having both is a blessing.
• He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home. (Johann Von Goethe)
• Home is a starting place of love and dreams.
• Home is an invention which no one has yet improved.
• Home is any four walls that enclose the right person. (Helen Rowland)
• Home is not where you live but where they understand you. (Christian Morgenstern)
• Home is the father's kingdom, the mother's world and child's paradise
• Home is the heart of life...
  Home is where we feel at ease, where we belong,
  where we can create surroundings that reflect our tastes and pleasures...
  Making a home is a form of creativity open to everyone.
  (Terence Conran)
• Home is the place where we grumble the most and are loved the best.
• Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. (Robert Frost)
• Home is where friendships are formed and families are grown;
  where joy is shared and true love is known;
  where memories are made and seeds of life are sown.
  This is the place...that people call HOME.
• Home is where you keep your stuff while you're out buying new stuff!
• Home, where you always find warm words on a cold day.
• A house is built by human hands -
  But a home is built by human hearts.
• A House is made of brick and stone -
  a home is made of love alone.
• A house is made of walls and beams,
  but a home is built with hopes and dreams.
• A hundred men can make an encampment, but it requires a woman to make a home.
• It takes a heap of living in a house to make it home. (Edgar Guest)
• A little house, a house of my own, out of the wind's and the rain's way.
• 'Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam,
  Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home (John Howard Payne)
• Neighbors are simply good side-by-side friends.
• Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey. (Tad Williams)
• No matter what, no matter where
  It's always home when love is there.
• An open door, a kindly heart, a ready hand to lend.
  You're more than special neighbors, you're also special friends.
• A small house can hold as much happiness as a big one.
• So it's not home sweet home...adjust!
• There is nothing half as pleasant as coming home again
• There's No Place Like Home
  My safety harbor from the storm.
  My cozy haven safe and warm.
  No matter where I choose to roam...
  There's just no other place like home.
• Where is home? Home is where the heart can laugh without shyness. Home is where the heart's tears can dry at their own pace. (Vernon G. Baker)
• Whether you come in to visit,
  or just to rest,
  when you enter our home,
  may you be blessed.

Prayer for This House

(Louis Untermeyer)

Ours is a Happy Home, filled with Happy Memories

(each line is a double spread page in a sentiments album)

Kids of all sizes with all their surprises
Holiday Moods.. and great tasting foods
Being together.. whatever the weather
Fitting and puttering.. cleaning and cluttering
Losing and winning...but coming out grinning.
Planning and scheming...hoping and dreaming
playing like crazy...or just being lazy
Relating and clowning.. and hanging around-ing
Special events and warm sentiments
Marvelous creatures.. with mischievous features
Fun time and Birthdays.. and bring-on-the-mirth-days
Outrageous fashions and personal passions
Talents and skills...and performances that thrills..
Neighbors and friends...life's rich dividends...
Smiles and laughter and love ever after!

Home

Home is
where you can be silent
and still be heard...
When you can ask
and find out
who you are...
Where people laugh with you
about yourself...
Where sorrow is divided
and joy multiplied...
Where we share and love
and grow.

The House on the Hill

(Edwin Arlington Robinson)

Moving or New Home

Page Toppers

• Building Memories
• If I had a hammer...
• A Moving Experience
• New Digs
• A New Place to Call Home
• Out with the old and in with the new
• Smart Move
• Sold!
• Under Construction

This poem is great for 'before' photos of the empty lot where you house is built.

Under My House

(by Melvin Tuttlefield)

there is dirt
under my house
deep down
way down
under there, somewhere

I saw it once
before the house was built
and the land was empty
except for the
wild brown grasses and weeds
and the bugs and the sticks
and the kids who would play
and the neighbor man
who'd chase them out

they'd run home dirty
from the dirt
that's under the house

This Home

Bless this home, Lord
and all who are within,
whether it be the love of a family
or the closeness of friends

Watch over this home, Lord
come sunshine or rain,
with the sounds of laughter
to always remain.

For within these walls
is a love so dear
that grows in strength
from year to year.

This home...Your Blessing

New Home Album

(Lynn F. CMC)

My Title page has the prayer "This Home" (see above).

Then I used pictures of the empty lot with the poem "Under my house" (see above). I had a dump truck die cut 'emptying' the words of the poem.
Pictures of the progress on the house follow with each step. I used a few words to describe the progress, like (foundation poured, framing, windows, etc.) because it was obvious what was happening. Then I described our feelings about some of the things that happened. I used die cuts, stickers and paper to give it color.

Verses I used:

• Matthew 7:7 "Knock and the door will be opened to you" (our inside doors were stained and leaned against the walls to dry all over the house)
• Joshua 24:15 "As for me and my household we will serve the LORD"
• Proverbs 24:3-4 "By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge it's rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures."
• Deuteronomy 6:5-9 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. Write these commandments on the door frames of your homes and on your gates". (with a picture of the front porch)
• Psalm 51:10 "Create in me a clean heart, O God." (with picture of bathroom, could use laundry, etc.)

Sayings I used:

• A home with a little dust and a lot of laughter will win the heart of God...every time.
• A house is made of walls and beams, a home is built of love and dreams.
• God in you...the heartbeat of the home.
• Bless this home as we come and go, bless this home as the children grow, bless this home as we enter in, bless this home with love and friends.
• There's no place like home
• Home is where friendships are formed and families are grown; where joy is shared and true love is known; where memories are made and seeds of life are sown. This is the place...that people call HOME.
• A house is made of brick and stone...a home is made of love alone.
• This kitchen is seasoned with Love
• Home is where a father's strength surrounds, protects his own. Home is where a mother's love surrounds with tender care.

I used die cuts - saw, hammer, flower, etc. - and LOTS of stickers. I used ShortCuts for matting and decoration and the book went together VERY quickly.

Your New Home

Congratulations on your new home!  How exciting it is to get all moved in and to start in fixing things up to fit your own style.  Decorating and moving that couch from here to there, or maybe it would look good over there!  I just want to encourage you that although right now it may be a lot of work, someday you will look back on it with fond memories of your first few weeks in your home.  I want to encourage you to preserve those memories with pictures.  Pictures are a great way to document those special times in your lives that can so quickly fade from your memories.  Here are just a few tips I would like to pass on to best capture some of those memories.

Before you move in...

• Taking down the sold sign
• Have Realtor take a picture of you signing your contract (you can reenact this)
• You handing the check to the closing agent or signing the papers
• Realtor handing you the keys
• Have the Realtor drive ahead of you so they can take a picture of you pulling into your street, then your driveway
• Entering your home for the first time (it is always fun to have the husband carry the wife over the threshold, even if it is not your first house
• Take pictures of all your rooms during the walk through

Moving day...

• The moving van or cars that are holding all your valuables (don't forget to take a picture of everything while it is inside the van)
• People moving in the furniture
• Group shot of everyone that helped move in (looking exhausted)
• Family picture in front of the house
• Eating meals on boxes
• Rooms filled with boxes

After you're all in...

• Take pictures of any neighbors that come buy to introduce themselves
• Any house warming gifts you receive
• Old friends that stop by to see your new home
• If you have kids take pictures of your kids playing with all the neighbor kids. (They all change so fast)
• New furniture
• Any custom work (drapery, stairs, garden, window, landscapes, carpeting etc.)
• Of course pictures of the house itself and landscaping (or no landscaping)
• A picture of the family all peeking out the front door is fun
• Unpacking
• Any parties
• Street sign and mailbox pictures are fun to have to show your address
• After pictures of all the rooms once unpacked
• Hanging a wreath or decoration on the front door

Remember the styles will all change someday and you may change things in the house. It is fun to look back at how things were.
With pictures you won't have to say, "Do you remember back when we had the old carpet? What color was it?"  All you will have to do is pull out those photos and have a great time of reminiscing, laughing and reviving those memories.

Moving page Ideas

Use the blue landscape house die-cut with the navy gingham paper behind it, then make a mini white envelope with a stamp and the new address on it.

Moving page (this is a variation on the celebrate page on page 69 of the new idea book - 4?). Use the ABC stickers to write "Moving On" at the top of the page - start at the left and go about 2/3 of the way across the page. Make the box out of tan paper so it looks like a cardboard box. For more realism you can cut it slightly irregularly. Put some toys (or household object) stickers in the box and some beside the box if desired. But a label out of a different color paper. Write "To CITY" (using the name of where you are moving to). Draw a string to make it look like the tag is hanging from the box. Brenda W.

 Going Away Album

Start with a Sentiments album, title page is a 2" square of PMP in cement or cinnamon to represent a moving box, and label, like a moving box, with the friend's last name and TO (new town). Write, "We will miss you in (current town)," and then put stickers in and around the "box". Since we are young mothers, we use toy stickers. The next section is sort of an Around Town bunch. You and/or your friends run around and take photos of places you all hung out. Our list includes the moving friend's current house and her vehicle, the library, McDonalds, local pool, ball diamond, soccer field, Wal-Mart (no mall here), children's schools, husband's and wife's place of employment, etc. These are mounted VERY simply, maybe a triangle or two, and have a running commentary like, This will always be YOUR house to us...Your favorite drive-through...You sure know how the benches feel here...etc. Then the next set of pages consists of photos from your friends of themselves and their children, and duplicates of any they have of themselves with the family that's moving. Each friend then writes on the page with his or her photos. I should mention that each friend who wants to participate gives $3 toward the effort with the understanding that this is THE going-away gift from us all. Putting it together can be an individual or group effort. It goes really quickly. I've gotten thank-you notes saying things like, "We have looked at this album more than I ever thought we would," and "Now I have a place for my other photos of you all and the town."  (Mgp)

Note: If there are a lot of people involved or a lot of photos you might want to use a Reflections album.

Make a sentiments album with a photo of you and/or your friend on each page along with a quote from the Friendship Pages file. Also see the Retirement file for ideas about going away type albums.

Saying Goodbye

(from "The Muppets Take Manhattan")

Saying goodbye, going away
Seems like goodbye's such a hard thing to say
Touching our hands, wondering why
It's time for saying goodbye.

Saying goodbye, why is it sad?
Makes us remember the good times we've had
Much more to say, foolish to try
It's time for saying goodbye.

Don't want to leave, but we both know
Sometimes its better to go
Somehow I know, we'll meet again
Not sure quite where and I don't know just when

You're in my heart, so until then
It's time for saying goodbye.

Don't be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends. (Richard Bach)

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Page Toppers

Quotes

• The first rule of tinkering is to save all the parts. (Paul Erlich)
• If a woman can't find you handsome, let her find you handy!
• If it doesn't fit, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacement anyway.
• If it moves and it shouldn't use duct tape, if it doesn't move and it should use WD40.
• I'm the kind of person who always hits the nail right on the thumb!
• Man of Many Vises (and cool tools!)
• A man who owns his own home is always just coming out of a hardware store. (Franklin McKinney Hubbard)
• On our anniversary I want to thank you for being with me for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, through thinness and thickness, in joy and in home improvement...
• One only needs two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop. (G. M. Weilacher)
• The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture, finished, and put inside boxes. (Dave Barry)
• There's nothing to match curling up with a good book when there's a repair job to be done around the house. (Joe Ryan)
• A tool is an object that allows you to take advantage of the laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure yourself. (Dave Barry)
• When the going gets touch, the tough use duct tape

The Homeowner's Guide to Basic Tools

Hammer:

In ancient times a hammer was used to inflict pain on one's enemies. Modern hammers are used to inflict pain on oneself.

Screwdriver:

The drink ordered at the local bar after you call in a professional repairman to undo the $500 in damage you did while trying to change out a light socket with your handy screwdriver.

Phillips Screwdriver:

The bar drink that you order when the damage estimate is over $1,000. Contains twice the vodka.

Pliers:

A device used to extend your reach the necessary few inches when you drop a one-of-a-kind screw down behind the new wall it took you two weeks to install.

Multi-Pliers:

Contain a handy assortment of sharp and dangerous tools. Best left in it's leather sheath and worn on a homeowner's belt to increase testosterone levels.

Halogen Light:

A work light that lights up your backyard with the incandescence of a football stadium, causing you to cast a heavy shadow over the area you're working on so that you need to use a flashlight anyway.

Cordless Drill:

A device that lessens your chance of electrocution 90% over a standard plug-in tool.

Chainsaw:

Allows you to cut your way out of the shed that you accidentally built completely around yourself.

Vise Grips:

A pair of helping hands that doesn't critique the job you're doing or offer advice.

Trace the ocean wave border line one the edge of a piece of gray paper. After you cut it out cut off the rest of the paper so the strip is about an inch wide. Put it down the side of a page with the "wave" tips pointing downward. It looks, surprisingly enough, very much like the edge of a saw blade. (Nancy R. CMC)

At the top left of a page write the title "The Money Pit". In the upper right of the page put a sticker or die-cut basket with some money stickers in it. Cut a simple house shape out of colored paper. Cut the roof from a different color. Put the house in the lower left corner of the page. Put the roof on the page tilted so it looks sort of like an open box. Scatter more money stickers diagonally across the page from the basket to the house with a few inside the house. Add photos of your latest remodeling project. (Monlea M. CMC)

 Life is to Share

A silver tea set, shining bright,
Romantic in the candle light.
Appliances costly, copper and brass,
Clothes of linen, china and glass.
These are gifts, lovely and rare,
Showered on the bridal pair.

But I would give with all wedding bands,
The joy of laboring with loving hands.
The pleasure that comes with painting a chair,
And the love that grows with the chores we share.
If I had my way, I'd make it a law,
Each bride gets a paintbrush,
Each groom a saw!