Rose Tint my World

Guest Artist Mary Cook, in Memorium

2014-08-14T22:07:00.000-04:00

My Grandmother passed away a week ago, just 11 days shy of her 96th birthday. She taught me many things; baking, sewing, crocheting and china painting. She painted china for decades, giving much away as presents and selling some pieces with the local China Painting club. By far her favorite and best subject was flowers, all types beautifully rendered. These are some of the pieces that my mother, my aunt and I have to remember her by.

Painted China

My dear old aunt was gifted, I remember her today

Painting pretty cups and saucers for the family to display.

The guests who came to dinner would discover as they ate

A lovely bed of pansies, blue and yellow, on the plate.

Every bowl became a garden. Who emptied one of soup

Found daffodils and tulips in a gaily colored group.

Water lilies, most exquisite, came to bloom upon a dish.

"Appropiate," said Father "for the day we're serving fish!"

I have never seen such blossoms, and I'm sure I never will,

As those my aunt created with such artistry and skill.

When I've finished with the pudding, was it chocolate, bread or rice,

To discover sweet peas blooming, I considered rather nice.

Has the plate rail gone forever from the family dining room

With the china ware exhibit on which poppies came to bloom?

Are for-get-me-nots forgotten? Did that painting art decline

And vanish with the passing of that gifted aunt of mine?

Edgar A. Guest

New Old Front Porch Chairs

2012-05-14T21:37:00.000-04:00

Up until a couple of weeks ago my porch was bare. I have done quite a bit of work on the enclosed porch, and it is nearly complete. I am living on a budget, so I had been searching garage sales and second hand stores for outdoor patio furniture to dress up the outside. My hard work paid off with these two beauties from a local antique mall.

They were still in great shape and just needed a little face lift. At $20 a piece these were a steal. Now they just need a little spray paint.

I decided to do them in two different shades of blue with white trim. First I covered allover in the blue on each, then I covered them with newspaper to do the white. It is very important when using 2 different colors of spray paint to tape around the different areas to control what spot gets which color, since spray paint goes everywhere.

After a couple coats these babies are ready to add some curb appeal to my house.

All in all, definitely worth the investment. They made my aunt very jealous.

First Signs of Spring

2012-03-25T21:19:00.000-04:00

Spring is here! Thanks to an unseasonably warm winter, and sudden change to summer like weather for a few weeks my garden is pretty green already.

The first to peak up are the Hyacinth, and apparently the weeds!

These smell amazing! So wonderfully sweet!

My Lilacs are getting ready too! I can't wait to have my favorite flowers again!

In the front yard my Bleeding Heart is coming up. I am so happy it came back! I was worried by how sad it looked at the end of July, that it might just be dead.

And of course my Crocus!

My New Dining Room Floor

2012-03-11T23:46:00.000-04:00

So I have been in my house a year now. I have 3 cats I have "inherited" from my sister (she is alive and well, her husband became allergic and they needed a home). As any cat owner knows, cats can be a bit destructive towards certain home furnishings; carpets, furniture, etc. One thing that has suffered quite a lot was the old carpet in my dining room.

It has to be decades old, and was never anything to write home about, but the cats made it look a lot worse. One liked to use it for her scratching post. The one that has hairballs preferred to throw up on this low ply carpet, which is very difficult to clean.

What you are seeing is the remains of several hairball stains. Obviously this carpet had to go.

I had decided to put in a wood looking laminate floor, something that would look nice, be easy to install, and not cost too much (it is a rental house). I found some laminate self adhesive planks on sale at my local ACO Hardware that fit the bill. My Mom offered to help me tear the old carpet up and lay the new floor down. She prepared by watching some DIY youtube videos, noting that we should have some paper masks for the demolition.

Here we are in our fancy masks.

First step was getting up the old carpet, made all the easier by my new raptor tool (it is really a tile cutter, but it works great on tearing carpet, much better than a box cutter. Best $5 I have ever spent).

We were working under the belief that under the carpet was plywood. The rest of the house is hard wood, but some of the carpet came up and it appeared like it was a plywood flooring. However, we soon discovered it was some sort of cardboard wall cover over top of, surprise surprise, hard wood floor.

We don't know exactly what the black stuff is, aside from it being some sort of adhesive. Luckily the carpet came up much easier than we thought, because it wasn't glued down too much. Same with the cardboard, probably due to the age of the glue.

I can't figure out why someone would have done this to a nice hard wood floor. Once we got all that stuff up, I scraped of as much of the black glue off the floor, and removed all the various staples & nails that were also holding down the cardboard. Seriously, glue, nails and staples. I had to use pliers to get most of them out, as I cannot figure out how they were able to nail some of them down nearly under the trim.

Next came the fun transformation part. Using a fancy double laser level to assure straight lines, I began to lay the laminate planks. Since they were self adhesive, this went by much faster than I thought it would.

I staggered them, first laying down the whole planks. Next came measuring and cutting the partial planks. I used the level to mark the backside of the planks, then with Mom helping to hold them down, cut them on a cutting board.

I had a couple odd shaped pieces that we saved till the end. 8 hours after beginning this project I now have a brand new, beautiful dining room floor. Thanks for your help Mom!

That is Morley slinking by, probably lamenting the loss of her scratching post carpet. I also bought the same flooring for the enclosed porch, which will be completed at a later date, since all my muscles ache. It is worth it though because everytime I glance in the general direction of my dining room I smile.

Gift Box for the Porch

2012-01-29T15:44:00.002-05:00

My sister had gotten me a very nice Sweet Pea gift set from Bath & Body Works as a Maid of Honor gift that came in a very nice box. So nice that I couldn't justify throwing it away.

Yes, I have become my Grandmother. And while it is a very nice box, it is also a very pink box. I do like pink, but most of my home decorating is more of the cool purple, green & teal variety. So I decided to make it suit the enclosed porch. First I had to prime it, and I used a spray primer from Rustoleum.

I couldn't find exactly the color paint I was looking for, so I combined a teal and green paint, and after it dried I used a dry brush technique with a brown over the whole thing, and then brushed the whole thing with a damp paper towel.

I really liked the raised pattern on the box, so I highlighted it with liquid copper leaf.

Next I lined the inside of the box with scrap book paper, and Modge Podged it down. I also Modge Podged a thick ribbon along the base of the box.

Lastly I put a piece of the same scrap book paper in the little window on the front, and glued some teal crystals on the front.

And Voila! I not have a nice decorative piece for my enclosed porch.

On a related note, I have recently discovered that my camera does indeed has a macro function, so my close up shots will start to look a lot better ;)

Paint Chip Artworks

2011-08-01T21:07:00.005-04:00

If you have had a lot of painting projects like me, then you have quite a few paint chips sitting around. This is a cool way to use some of them, instead of throwing them away, or letting them sit around in piles. I got the idea for this project from Mel the Crafty Scientist, using paint chips (samples) to make a fun easy piece of art.

For some years I have had 6 small picture frames, in different shapes & sizes. I decided to put them to use by making some mini art for them. I wanted something to hang in the porch, so I chose my colors accordingly. I wanted the frames to match the wicker furniture, so I used the leftover dark brown satin Rustoleum spray paint I used.

I did this indoors, though you would usually want to use spray paint outside. I was painting a small amount on a well covered surface. While that dried I got to work punching out circles from the paint chips. I used a 0.75" inch craft hole punch due to the small size of the frames. You can use whatever size or shape you want, though some of the craft punch shapes probably won't work as well. I created 6 separate color palettes.

Next I arranged & glued the circles to index cards. I used index card since I have a lot of them, and the pieces were small. I would recommend using card stock or something a bit stronger, since the glue starts to curl the index cards after not too long.

Then I arranged them so they overlap each other & over the edges so the entire piece gets covered.

Once they dry, I used a gel medium, like Modge Podge to cover the entire piece. It comes in many finishes, mine is a satin finish. I used a few layers to make sure it would stay on.

Once they dry, I just trimmed the edges, and put them into their frames. I used some Command hooks to hang them, as I want to keep my walls relatively hole free.

I have FINALLY utilized the old pavers

2011-07-31T17:02:00.002-04:00

It is a steamy 91 degrees in the Metro Detroit area, so I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to do some yard work. The original owner of my house had at some point purchased a large amount of pavers. However, they had also only used about a third of them in one flower bed.

So earlier this year I decided to use some to line the other front flower bed, though at the time I did not have a shovel, so they are more or less sitting on the ground.

As this bed is overrun with Hostas, I don't think it really makes a huge difference. While moving the pavers I did uncover an extensive colony of things that crawled out of my nightmares. I'm not kidding. I am normally not too squeamish about bugs, unless they are crawling all over me. These, however, were foot long centipedes, earwigs as far as the eye can see, and spiders so large I had never seen any that size out of tropical rain forests.

This was their former home. Just imagine it filled with pavers & HP Lovecraft's little beasties.

I had decided to use the remaining pavers in the backyard. Next year I plan to buy more to line the last bed with pavers, as I find it works better that vinyl edging to keep grass out. To keep the ugly beasties at bay I hosed down the paver pile well, and hosed before and after removing each stone.

Once they were bug free, I moved them to the back. Then I just had to dig out some space for them, which I do not recommend in 91 degree weather. Then it was just a matter of placing them in the ground, filling the holes with dirt, and removing the displaced dirt & grass. The end results look pretty good, if I do say so myself.

It is currently the Tiki's temporary home, as I am not yet sure where would be best. He was a housewarming gift from some good friends, made by a local artist. I have the Tiki, now I need the tiki bar!

My New Old Clock

2011-07-21T18:31:00.004-04:00

I got the idea for this from Caitlin over at Caits Creates about this clock redo. It was super simple, and only took about 30 minutes. My clock is a basic Target clock, for $12.99.

It does the job but it's kinda boring! So first I took the whole thing apart (there are 3 "pins" holding the frame to the clock, which I had to pry out with my kitchen scissors). Then I took the frame & the clock numbers I got from Michaels for $1.99 outside to paint. I used a satin black rustoleum that I already had, but it only costs $3-6 a can depending on the store.

The numbers only came in a lovely shiney gold. Since that didn't work with the color cheme I had the quick fix is spray paint!

When spray painting you want to hold the can away about 6-12 inches and move it evenly around the item, so you don't get large dribbly drips.

While that was drying I put the new face on. I used this adorable purple argyle scrapbook paper from Michaels for $0.20.

I used the old face paper as the template to cut out the new face.

The new face then went back in the clock. The frame and the numbers were now dry, so I began to put the numbers on. The four cardnial directions were easiest, and I used a drawing compass to situate the other numbers.

Once I was sure the numbers were in the right positions, I put the hands back on, followed by the glass and the frame. I am very happy with the end results.