Wednesday, October 14, 2009

So what do you think???

I'm moving along with my little craft room.  Yesterday I bought the paint to get the two bookcases and my sewing machine cabinet painted.  I think I'm going to paint my chair as well.  I'm going to recover it and that leads me to my question for y'all!









I picked this fabric up last night thinking it would be a good choice to recover my office chair with.  I love the colors!  I'm just wondering if it's not too serious for the room?  Maybe I need something a bit more whimsical?  What do you think??

Sunday, October 11, 2009

My craft room overhaul!


I'm blogging today and linking to Susan's Met Monday!




Several months ago I decided that I wanted to do more things crafty and creative.  I actually felt that I really needed to get back in touch with that side of me.  When I went back to school a few years ago I really had to set aside all things extra, school was all science and logic, no room or time for creative thinking in the nursing program.  When we moved here the teenager pretty much took up in the living room like he lives there.  I can't complain, because he's not locked away in his room ignoring the rest of the house, I'm actually happy that he wants to be a part of the household.  Hubby has his home office to go to.  It's where he goes to work everyday.  That's completely his space.

Me, I didn't really have a space and I was feeling it.  Y'all know that craft projects aren't always done in one day and that often they are messy.  That really leaves the dining room out!  You see my dining room the second you walk in the door!  The only space left was the master bedroom.  So, I was working ON the bed.  Each evening I would put everything on the bed onto the floor next to the bed, on my side.  My side of the bed is not that big, so it was a careful tiptoe to the my side of the bed.  I grew more and more frustrated!  One day I had just had enough and I did a major overhaul of our little rental house.  Our third bedroom was completely taken over by our ebay business.  It was being used as our warehouse, storing our products and mailing supplies.  I moved our "warehouse" into the formal living room that was really never used.  I wanted a space that I could close the door on either to work without interruption or to not look at the mess I've created!

This summer I went and picked out paint.  I'm not a professional, but I love color!  I also love to paint!  Y'all know that as a mom, everything you do gets undone, daily.  I do laundry, cook, clean...and the next day it all needs to be done again!  When you paint, it stays painted, you can walk in everyday and say to yourself, I did that and it's not undone today! Ahhhhh!  I wanted the room to feel light and airy, fresh!  I have an antique chair that's upholstered in a nice lime green and blue stripe, I knew I wanted that chair in the room.  I chose colors from a chip card with a sunroom picture on it.  The green for the walls is Valspar Garden Fairy.  The ceiling is Valspar Summer Sorbet.  I also got a gallon of  Bella Mint from the same card to use as an accent.  Here's the colors all painted and done:




It was okay and I lived with it, my son hated it and said it looked like a babies room.  I had to admit that it was paler than I had wanted, just not lime-y enough, although I knew that the Garden Fairy color was not lime-y I kind of chickened out and went light!  I hate that!  I know not to do that, and still I do it!  You'll notice that the ceiling just doesn't look like I thought it would.  The blue just doesn't look right!  I painted an old window the ceiling color and hung it on the wall, it was TERRIBLE!  That's when I knew that I had to do something else.  I got out the Bella Mint and painted it on a small area of the wall just to see what it would look like:





Much better!  That's the color I was going for!  Here's a look at the paint on a larger scaled comparison:



What a difference!  It looks so much richer!  Not washed out and baby roomish like the first paint.  So here's the paint done, you can see the ceiling blue looks much better with this green.



Here's a close up of the wall color:




Here's the window I painted the ceiling color:



Obviously the room is still in progress, but I'm much happier every time I walk in.  I'll post the completed room in a week or two!

Hope y'all like the progress!

Friday, October 9, 2009

Fall is here and so are the butterflies!

I just had to blog! I have had the windows open all day! Fall has finally shown her face way down here in south Texas!! Yesterday it was in the high 90's and today it's in the 70's! The wind is from the north and so fresh!!

BUT, the most exciting thing is that I went out just a few minutes ago and the first of the Monarch Butterflies are here!!!! Hundreds and hundreds of butterflies are coming from the north and headed for Mexico! Every year they come through, usually we start seeing them in September, but I guess its just been too hot. I will get off now and go sit outside until its too dark to see them! I tried to take some pictures, but I can't find my cord to plug it into the computer, I thing the teenager has it. If any of them came out I will be posting them soon!

Have a wonderful weekend all!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Project ADD

Hey y'all! Sorry for the extended break last week. I didn't even mean too, it just happened! I've been plugging along with all of my projects. My usual MO is fully intact, lots of projects at once. I'm not sure if its that I'm easily distracted, overly ambitious or a bit of both?

Last week my hubby surprised me! He called me and told me to meet him at Lowe's. Okay, off I go and he let me pick out a new hand sander! My old one was just square and one of the arms didn't hold the sandpaper well. He's been watching me sand - by hand - on all of my projects around the house and I guess he felt sorry for me! LOL Now my sander has a round wheel, the iron shaped attachment with a long skinny attachment for tight spots! So I have completely sanded two of my six antique chairs and I've been working on doing a spindle-y leg or two at a time on the chairs and the table.

One of my other projects is a mid-century modern bar. I found it for $50 at the Salvation Army. I removed all of the doors and I've sanded it and it's getting wiped down and ready for primer tomorrow.

I am also working on a cross stitch project of the 23rd Psalm. I've painted my little office space - again! That's a post for another day! Plus all of my little crafty projects that I sell like my altered notebooks, smaller cross stitch projects and I've started working on Christmas-y things and three quilts for some new babies in my life. I'm thinking of opening an Etsy shop, but I'm not sure about that. See easily distracted!

I'm really having super guilty feelings about painting that bar/soon to be tv cabinet. I know that there must be some law somewhere I'm breaking by painting teak wood!! It really is gorgeous wood and if I still lived in Houston I probably would have craigslisted that puppy for a pretty penny, but here where I am there just isn't the same market. I keep telling my self that I can always sand all the paint and primer off and restain it. If that's not something I can do, please don't tell me!! Or do tell me! Oh, I don't know. I guess I have gone too far to stop now!

I'm going to go work on my tablescape for tomorrow!

Hasta!