projects, projects

~ antique croquet balls make me HAPPY ~

Hey gang! It's been a few days, and now we're heading into the July 4th weekend. Yay! Thanks so much for your sweet comments here and there regarding my last post - much appreciated.

I've been up to all kinds of projects lately! I keep meaning to post them but the last 2 times I tried, I was so tired I literally fell asleep sitting up with my laptop on my lap! :-0

The photo above shows all my antique croquet balls - and a few leather cricket balls - in my favorite antique doll cradle (I used to collect primitive doll cradles, but just have my favorite 2 now). I took all the croquet balls out of my big glass jars, and now I'm getting them all ready for a photo shoot. I've been wanting to do this for a long time! Hopefully the photos will end up on my skins for Zagg, and in my new notecard sets, etc. 

 And here are my glass jars! I did some rearranging in my kitchen - and have more to do, of course - and now everything is out and accessible. I'm debating over some cool labels or not.... what think ye?

 The dog treats look so cute in the huge jars - I actually like how they turned out the best! 

And of course you can't have boys and all their friends without fishies. It's a staple in their diet. This container is on the kitchen table now. It's ginormous: at least 2 gallons, and I bet it will barely last through the long weekend! Mark my words! 

Pedicure love!!! This one I did myself, in a moment of desperation fatigue stress frustration spare time, when I knew it would make me feel sooo much better! And of course, it did! It always does! 

 Do you see what's missing? THE RED BED! It sold on Craigslist - in fact it was sold, disassembled, and gone in just a few hours! I have a plethora - PLETHORA! - of ideas for what to get next, and I am so excited! It won't be for a while though. And by the way, the quilt that is on my bed now is my mother-in-law's wedding quilt, made for her by her sisters. Isn't it so lovely? I treasure it :)

{This cute little red table is still for sale on Craigslist too. It's 42" across and is a great table. I'm hoping to use that space for a kitchen island of some sort}

DONE!!! I had a really enjoyable time working on this puzzle. I always forget how much I love doing them. It's just peaceful somehow. And several nights Matthew brought his guitar in and we sang while I worked on it - that was awesome. Now I'm trying to decide which puzzle I want to do next. 

Ahhh... my prized pink croquet ball... happy happy joy joy!

Stay tuned for lots more projects, etc... I'm on a roll! :)

weekend round-up/mayhem

~ Happy 40th Birthday to my dear friend Kerrie! ~

My friend Kerrie celebrated the Big 4-OHHH Friday. She is the president of the young women's organization at church, and she is one fabulous person! She can do anything and everything, and I have never - EVER - seen her without a smile on her face! I admire and appreciate her so much - and I know all the girls love and adore her - so this is what I made her for her birthday. I put it in a turquoise frame :)

~ Congratulations Kacy! Class of 2011 ~

Kacy just happens to be Kerrie's niece! I made one of these for each of the 7 graduates in our young women's program, cuz as you know, I love those girls ever so much... but Kacy is the only one that has hers so far... mua-ha-haaa :D 

Okay - I'm not even going to try to explain this... it's just Matthew being Matthew and generally driving me nutsy fagan :/

~ Mouse Recovery ~

So Matthew goes dirt biking with a friend. He is a wild man. Very skilled, but scary wild. He clears a 90 foot triple jump. He's just not expecting a berm (a walled turn) to be right there as he lands. He hits the berm, flies 30 feet, lands in a heap, dislocates his shoulder, hurts his hip, knocks himself out and gets a concussion..... and the first thing he says when he comes to is "DID YOU SEE THAT?!?! I CLEARED THE TRIPLE JUMP!!!" :/

~ FINALLY! My mid-century modern chair! ~

Okay, you don't even KNOW how excited I am to have this! I have looked for a chair for my bedroom forever! Found on Craigslist after losing several others... original condition and PERFECT! We picked it up Saturday and, as you can see, we ALL love it!

~ that's right: I WIN ~

Remember *THIS POST* and how my boys wreck everything?!?! Well I was not going to let them get away with it. I adore my colorful paper lanterns and so I got these patterned ones on sale at Pier 1 and made them replace the ones they ruined. SCORE ONE FOR ME! HAH!

~ GNOME GNAME GAME: UPDATE ~

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your gnome gname ideas! They've been pouring in from every which way! Wow, I have some very fun and creative friends! Below are all the names that have been suggested so far..... Keep them coming peeps - I LOVE IT!

* Corky Mugwiggen

* Wimbiddle

* Periwinkle http://www.gnomefrenzy.com/gnome-names.html

* Conehead O'Brian

* Comfortably Gnome

* true to form, my friend Traci went above and beyond:

SCOTTISH NAMES-

Alastair

Angus Podgorney: 

(Monty Python skit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySl_Nk_G-cw) Her personal favorite. :)

Jock

MacDuff

IRISH NAMES-

Alphonsus

Aillén (prnounces All-ayn which means Elf)

Declan

Fergal

Gallagher

Connolly 

O'Rourke

Gnome Names-

Wimfoodle

Elwinkle

Folwicket

Wimwinkle

Boddywocket

Yorkshire NAMES-

Mardybum  :)))

* Lord Bunbury

* Gnomeo

* Mr. Baggins

P.S. I've decided I'm never going to plan on 

relaxing over the weekend again, hehe!

List Tuesday - curiouser and curiouser

Welcome to List Tuesday, the brainchild of Aimee of Artsyville.

"Curiouser and curiouser!", as Alice stated upon her arrival in Wonderland.

Today's list is dedicated to my dear friend Liam, who is in London

perfecting his accent, making taco salad, loitering at Top Man, going to concerts,

eating bangers & mash, drinking, carousing, getting no sleep attending art school.

Just recently on *HIS BLOG*, he revealed a list he knew I would love!

He made it as part of his process in researching & creating an assignment.

It was a lovely surprise, and I immediately wanted to include it here :)

Clearly, Liam has the mind of an artist through and through!

If you'd like to see some of his genius projects, click on 'his blog' above.

AND

I liked this idea so much, that I'm going to join him in a list of my own curiosities.

BTW Liam, my favorite part is in your far right column:

~ eyeliner, clocks, handwriting ~

Eyeliner for Davy of course, clocks because I can never have enough of them, 

and handwriting because it's a favorite hobby of mine and I LOVE typography!

And so, grainy as usual (!@#$%^&*!), here's my list:

Have a great day everyone - and please feel free to join in w/ a list if you like! 

Fall Porch

DONE! I'm very happy with how my white pumpkins turned out - both the 2 big fakies and the small real one. And I think I'm liking how my little porch turned out. So come take a tour!
This year I added a few of my antique doll cradles among other things, and I like how they look. I put all the Halloween decor out front and kept the porch "Fall" so it can remain up through November. It looks just a tad sparse (?)... perhaps I need to add a trade blanket or a quilt... or perhaps I need to leave well enough alone :) Truth be told, I would love to do the whole porch in white & black pumpkins with big white candles - wouldn't that be spectacular!!!
Okay, back to reality - LOL :) I approached drawing on each white pumpkin a little differently. The large stars came from a stencil I had made for some terra cotta pots. I used a thin black Sharpie to outline the design onto the pumpkin (making sure it was straight!), and then used a larger black Sharpie to fill in the stars.
This little wreath is really nothing special, but it had lots of color and interest from all kinds of different cones, pods, berries, leaves, etc, and it was very cheerful.
I actually taped off and spray painted a few small orange pumpkins with white spray paint! See the "W" pumpkin? Well, it was lots of fun but you will definitely not be seeing any close-ups! LOL!
As shown in my sneak peek, the other large pumpkin was done by free-handing large numbers in pencil, then I filled the numbers in with different sizes of black Sharpies. That fakie pumpkin material, by the way, was very easy & fun to work with - FYI.
The small pumpkin with all the dots I just drew free-handed with the Sharpies - no pencil required!
Thanks for taking the tour! Hope you liked it! Happy Friday, Happy Halloween, Happy Weekend, and Happy Fall!

sneak peek!

So this year I decided to decorate my front porch with something a just little different than the norm for Halloween and fall decor. I really like white pumpkins but I've never used them before. They're such a blank canvas - I don't know why I've never had some fun with them!
Well I'm sure having some fun now! I bought one real pumpkin - the cute, little one - and two fakies on clearance, figuring it will be fun to use them again next year. I had some ideas of what I could do to embellish them, so without further ado, here is your little sneak peek:
Tee hee! That's all you get to see right now... but the whole porch should be done tomorrow and you'll be the first to see how everything turned out! I'm very excited to put it all together. So don't touch that dial - c'mon back! Same bat time - same bat channel!

I know, I know... I couldn't resist my white Luna posing with the white pumpkins :)

Crusty Old Windows

Hmmm... now what do you suppose I would be doing with 3 crusty, old windows? I have had these windows for years. They've quietly waited in the garage, outside in the dirt, and are currently loitering on the side of the house. For all the potential they have, I'm afraid I haven't been very kind to them. But their time is coming...
Very chippy, as you can see. Quite a bit of that paint is going to have to go... I think it's actually begging to be gone... but I'm going to keep as much as possible. All 3 windows still have their glass panes, though 1 pane has a crack.
Three different windows... three different possibilities. What could my deviously creative mind possibly be cooking up? Oh don't worry. Just eat your Ruffles and drink your diet Coke and stay tuned. I've got these covered :)

upcoming projects w/ a few teasers

So here is a cool fuzzy picture of our ever-changing entry way, taken by the Mouse, via the mirror in front of him, of the wall of albums behind him. Kind of a confusing sentence for something pretty simple. I like the fuzz. I like the image of his 13 year old self taking it. I love all those albums. Do you recognize any? You must! Tell me you do! 

The wall of albums came down shortly after this photo was taken. I had finished a new painting and needed a fairly long wall space for it. But first I need to paint the entry way a chocolate milk color like we have in some of our other rooms. So.... another project :)
Here is a teaser of my new painting. This is actually a departure from my usual scraping and layering of color with spatulas. This is just a small section of it. It's only about a foot high, but it's about 3 feet long. I'm still thinking of what to put up with it. We'll see. 
Still here in the entry way. Love, love, love my coffee table books :) Do you recognize any of these authors? I bet you do. This is my favorite stack of design books but there's another one right next to this one! Yikes!
Moving on..... things are always changing around here! For those of you who were Red Bed lovers and avid supporters of my saga, do you notice anything slightly different? Well, I finally had my mattress lowered. Six inches, to be exact. I have to admit, it took away a tiny bit of the Red Bed's grandeur. But after all the work I put into sanding and painting that doggone headboard, I just had to see it! So I am happy as a lark :) 

And just one more teaser..... a pretty big project is coming up on the opposite wall from my bed. You can't see it now of course, because it's still hideous. I've already taken the "befores", so stay tuned! Hah! 

lamps and ribbon and coasters - oh my!

A few days ago was Creativity Day. I ripped myself away from watching Tim Gunn's Guide to Style --------> that's not true - I mean from reading my scriptures........ and I decided to tackle a few projects I had been wanting to do. First the lamps.

The lamp above is a perfectly nice lamp. Nice color, nice style, nice shape........ zzzzzzzzzzzzz. In other words, a great lamp but I can't leave well enough alone. I must embellish. I live to embellish. If you've ever seen my jeans I wouldn't have to explain myself.

I had previously measured the lamp shades and found some suitable trim that was almost what I had envisioned. Not quite... not quite... but close enough for now. Nothing ever gets too comfortable in my house. I like to change things around a lot. Anyway, I got all my supplies together and heated up my glue gun.....................
I started with the striped grossgrain ribbon. I left just a slight band of the white lamp shade showing at the top.
Then on went the fringe - I left a small band of the white shade at the bottom too.

Ta-daaaaaaa!

I was really happy with how it turned out. And it only took my observant all-male family several hours of being in the very same room to notice. Okay that was a slight exaggeration.

Pretty cool. And it kept me out of trouble for a whole afternoon :)

Okay, here is my next little project because obviously I've got way too much time on my hands. 

I had noticed that my favorite coasters were still allowing some moisture to sneak through onto the wood surface below. Not good. So I decided to put a layer of cork on the bottom.
This was a no-brainer project. I just traced a circle, cut the circle, and hot glued the coasters to the cork. Done! They turned out GREAT and have worked really, really well. 
So of course I had to celebrate with some DC and get back to Tim Gunn's Guide to Style ;)

Imagine - spotlight on photographer Maria Nissen

When my friend Maria Nissen returned home to Mesa Arizona after visiting New York, and I saw her photo of the famous tribute to the late John Lennon, something powerful stirred inside me and I knew that it was time to spotlight Maria. 

Maria. We have been friends for a long time - many years actually. We met when our boys who are now nearly grown, went to preschool together. Those were fun, busy, exhausting, sweet years. And even though I'll never get over her moving to Mesa six years ago, I am truly grateful we have remained friends. I have learned so much from Maria - much more than she knows.  
Ah, above is another of my favorites. Love, love, love this one. It tells it's own amazing story. As do most of Maria's photos. Such a gifted photographer. But first, a gifted person.

It's hard to describe someone like Maria. She's one of those people who sounds too good to be real. But you know, some people really have been given extraordinary gifts, and Maria is blessed to be one of those people. Aside from all her talents, she is first and foremost a genuine, friendly, lovely person. And she radiates it. She truly loves people and people of all walks of life are instantly drawn to her. I have never - and I mean never - seen Maria without a smile on her face. Case in point, catch her smiling on her blog with her beautiful family.

Ever since I have known Maria, she has been involved in many things. Not only is she a wife and a mother to five - yes, FIVE - wonderful children, she is constantly learning, growing, living. I have never known her not be taking at least one class. I have seen her build things, remodel things, embellish things, upholster furniture, sew quilts, garden, stain, paint, run - well. She serves her family, her community, her church, her neighbors. Everyone that knows Maria has been blessed by her in one way or another. 
And a constant thread running through all of this living Maria thrives on, is photography. At a young age she was deeply touched by a series of photos in a museum, and she knew that photography had to be part of her life. She called it "a connector - it has the potential to move people". So the uncanny gift she has for bringing out the very best in everyone and everything, is now documented through her talented lens. And now that her children are a bit older and a bit more independent, Maria is finally living her dream as a professional photographer. It has been a joy to see her take this journey. 
True to her nature, she still continues taking classes. For a recent final project she even had her own photography book published - a portfolio of sorts. To quote from her book, "I love to photograph people. If someone tells me they're not photogenic I don't believe them. Everyone has a good side". Ever the optimist :) Maria's goal is to put people at ease and make them feel special. It is evident in every photograph she takes. 
Oh just look at this sweet little piece of pumpkin pie! What a love!
Along with families and individuals, Maria is an amazing wedding photographer. From the most formal photo to catching the bride and groom running and jumping barefooted, Maria instantly picks up on the vibe of the couple and always hits the mark. She is especially talented with candid photos. Above is one of my favorites. 
And how she can get multiple young children at their best is incredible!

Oh Maria, I'm so happy we are friends :)