An Abstract Masterpiece

Hey you!

Do you love to create?

Do you have kids who love to create too? Kids who want to be involved in every little project they see you doing?

Or maybe you have one who just LOVES to cut things up, rip things apart, and make a mess in general!

This project is for you! I mean them!

I simply challenged the tikes to use little pieces of scrap paper to cover every little bit of brown on a big cardboard rectangle. It proudly hangs in the toy room!

Little by little!

Hi there!

Remember this table? I actually finished it quite some time ago, I have just been way too busy, traveling to Utah and dealing with sick kids....AGAIN, to get it posted.

This is not the best picture but the table's not too bad eh? There are some things about it that need fixing but I'll get around to that someday I suppose. The spray primer that I used had issues and so some parts of the table have way more texture than I wanted. I was tired and just wanted to finish it. I should have run to buy a non faulty bottle but I thought I could live with it! I probably can't dagnabit! Oh well!

Ok and remember the fabric that I was waiting for? Well it came and I was anxious to do something with my purchase. So I tore apart an old red lamp shade. I saved the the red pieces and (very sloppily) cut out pieces in this fun orange. With a little time, hot glue, and some great folding skills...WALA! I saved the white lining from the red shade and re-attached it inside the lamp. Not bad! This is my first shade recovering attempt. I dare say I'd do it again!

As for the rest of the fabric well some of them were not what I expected. I did love the Amy Butler, Belle/ Duck Egg though. So, I've decided to do most of the pillows in that fabric. If only I could find enough courage to get it done! I really want piping but I am not a seamstress...I'm scared, really really scared! Lucky that I have some brilliant seamstress friends who can whip stuff like this out without even looking. Whew!

After the pillows I will be attempting to repaint the table that you see under the lamp. Then I'll be painting all of the walls. Look for a paint color survey in the near future! Still so many projects and so little time!

We are alive! Kinda...

So sorry that we have been MIA!

I received a comment the other day wondering if we were OK. It made me feel happy that someone cares. So this post is for Cap Creations! Thanks for checking in on us! And anyone else that reads this post should head on over to her website, she has some beautiful jewelry. I am eyeing a particular ring in fact!

So, I was in a USO show with our local community theater! That took up all of my free time for a while. Then yesterday I had a big ol' mean kidney stone blasted to smithereens so I am excited to get feeling better! (And milking some down time)!

Mandy is PREGGERS! So she is busy trying to keep her food down while she chases a toddler around. I don't know if we'll be hearing from her anytime soon.

As for Katie, well, we've never heard from her much have we? She is a busy single mommy, trying to get some schooling going. So, she is dismissed...for now!

We do have a teen sis who hasn't participated with us at all but maybe I can convince her to do a post about a recent project she did for FCCLA about breast cancer awareness. She did an assembly for the girls in her high school and it was GREAT! I was there!

In the meantime I have remained obsessed with pulling my house together a little more. I got a new couch (see the photo above) and now I just need to get everything else going on in there. I have a lot of projects in the works and others still in my brain! I think that I am tired of the red. I'm looking for pillows, fabric, and curtains in blues and oranges. I am also planning on painting a light greyish blue on the walls...maybe! I'm so VERY tired of BEIGE BEIGE BEIGE! Although I did buy a fantastic new beige rug from West Elm. It was on clearance!!!!

I found this table at Goodwill for $10 that I have now painted black. I still have some finishing touches before I show you the final product. I busted that glass out all on my own. It was SO MUCH FUN!

I got this little chandelier at goodwill as well. $5 I think! I wanted to paint it turquoise or something...well my hubby VETOED that idea! I really have to push him when it comes to color.

So I painted it black instead. Again I still have finishing touches before we can hang it. I am thinking of wrapping the white "candle" bases in twine to add some texture. We'll see! I might end up painting it turquoise one of these days after all...while hubby's a work! ;) He probably wouldn't even notice!

Random Art Projects in the making

Hi! Sally here!

You know keeping enough things going on to keep this little bloggety blog interesting can be tricky. Lucky that I invited the adorable little sisters to participate so ya'll can see some good stuff. I am excited for the arrival of Katie's quilt and I happen to know that Mandy Moo has been working on some stuff for a craft fair. Can't wait to see more.

In the meantime my fidgety mind has moved onto some new ideas in the making. Nevermind that I am ice ages behind on the kids scrapbooks. Instead of doing their pages I have been playing around with designing my own digital papers. It is sooo much fun and super addictive. I still have a lot to learn.

This is a little sneek peek for a plaque that I am painting...although I think I am going to change the blue to red instead. It's all about transfer paper my friends. I love it! Anyone else feeling blessed?

And finally I was sitting in my Living Room watching the kids run around like crazy. My attention got stuck on the boringness of that room...the unfinished chair that I started (I am waiting on some $ to buy the final supplies that I need), the ugly faded blue "should I cover it or just replace it" couch, and the plain white boring lamp shades. I had this over powering desire to do something about the drab in there. So I walked into the craft room and returned with a sharpie ready to take on the ugly lamp shade. Is it exactly what I want? No, but it makes me feel a little better.

PS I should mention that someone else deserves the credit for the idea of decorating a lamp shade with a sharpie. I don't quite remember where I saw it, but it sure was a great idea. My mind has been turning with lots of other ideas for decorating lamp shades since then.

Do you have any great ideas?

The Chair Part II

Hi! Thanks Mandy for doing a post! I can't wait to see more! I am trying to figure out a standard way to clarify who is blogging on each post. I think we'll have to come up with some signatures or something. In the meantime...this is Sally.

Ok, so thanks to this blog I am getting things done a lot quicker! Let me rephrase that...I am actually getting things done. I'm going to start pulling out all of those "gonna do it one day" projects and get 'er done!

So, I tore the chair apart! I probably could have just covered the fabric with another fabric but once I started into it I felt better about getting rid of most of that dirty yucky stuff. I am so glad I did...I feel like it's a cleaner chair now.

I painted it black and just tossed a couple of cushions from our IKEA love-seat on it. I have other plans for the love-seat! The cushions don't fit perfectly but close enough for me! It looks pretty good though don't you think?

Now I just need to decide on some throw pillows, but can't really until I decide what colors I am going to go with in the rest of the living room. I am soooo tired of tan tile, tan walls, tan rocks outside, tan stucco...YUCK! I am looking for something bright and colorful but not to over the top. Any ideas for me?

The Chair

I came across a blog called Pink and Polka Dot via Today's Creative Blog.  She is so creative and has lots of great ideas AND she makes them look easy.  She even has me thinking about making a slip cover for our ugly blue couch.  Ok so maybe she has me a little delusional about my capabilities!  We'll see!

I recently decided to heck with dreaming of the day when I can afford to go buy my dream furniture for my hodge podge living room.  We have had our newer sectional in the front room simply because it looks nicer.  Still we really bought the leather sectional for the tv...it is so comfy.  Enough!  I moved the leather sectional back to the family room where it belongs and have been looking for inexpensive ways to dress up the living room.  I saw THIS post on Pink and Polka Dot where she refinished an old chair.  I really love the outcome.  Still I figured I'd never find a chair like that.  Then the very next day I found the chair below at Goodwill.  The price?  

$7.00!  That'll work!

 

The fabric reminds me of a couch that we had in my apartment in college.  We called it Patrick the lucky couch.  It was a lucky couch indeed!  You know...innocent stuff like kisses and hand holding.  To bad it was so ugly with it's orange, brown, and green stripes.  That was probably the magic in it though.  We girls probably looked pretty darn good especially compared to the yucky couch.

 

I didn't notice the fabric on the back of the chair when I bought it.  Hmmmm...I'll have to figure out what to do back here. 

 

I got started on demolition.  The kids wanted to help but I convinced them to watch.  I was surprised at how long they lasted watching from the piano bench (that bench is going to get a make over too).

So have you done any projects like this?  Was it worth it?  If you blogged about it leave the link for us in comments so we can all check out your handy work.