Paint Chip Art

Here is a picture of our wall in the family room. 

 See that puny picture on the wall?  can you believe it is really 18 inches by 24 inches?  The reason it looks so small in this space is because it is in a huge room on a ridiculously tall wall.  My den is 17 feet wide and 24 feet long.  I have never known what to do with the room, and from what I saw the people who owned the house before us had no idea either.

On top of being a long and wide room, the room sweeps up to eighteen feet with a cat walk stairway.

I have decided that I love color so it is time that I embrace what I love.

My first bold purchase was a rug.  I love the colors.  It makes me happy.  I bought it one afternoon with my buddy the social planner.  Hubby would never have picked this out, but I brought it home and rolled it out.  He seems like he has warmed up to it.

 

 

 

Shortly after the rug, I purchased some neutral furniture.  It was before my blogging days but the stuff was a great deal.  I have moved slow because I really didn't have a direction to go. I love the wood floors, I like the room height, I am happy with the french doors, but something always seems a little off with this room.

  I painted this picture this past summer from something I saw on Pinterst.  I loved the colors because they are all in the rug.

I have been slowly collecting McCoy pottery as I find reasonable pieces.  I love the colors, and we have a family connection to the McCoys.

At my friend, Pam's house, I was inspired to make a paint chip art piece. Here is the link to how she did this. i really did follow her directions.
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4086884246929168617#editor/target=post;postID=159055830737770270
I loved the fact that I could choose my colors, the slightly vintage quality, but let's be honest... this is great looking almost free art. 


I bought this big frame for $3.00 up near the lake house.  I painted it the color of the craft table.  That color is in the rug.

It was big.  twenty four inches tall and forty eight inches wide. 

I used paint chips that match the colors in the rug to make my version of the paint chip art project.  I actually was able to use the picture in the frame as the base for the paint chip art piece.  This piece really meant that the cost of this whole project was $3.00. 

Here are the paint chips glued down.  I used Elmer's spray adhesive to get everything stuck down.  I did have to check the corners and press several down many times.

 

I thought the colors were too vivid when glued down.

 

Here it is with watered down brown acrylic paint washed over it.  I love the frame on the picture.  This is going to be a statement piece in the room.

 

To fill the big empty wall, I plan on bringing in a small buffet height dresser that I am going to paint an amazing color.  The wall is going to look great when I am done, but I still do not know what I want to do with the whole room.  Suggestions?

 

Finding Frames for the Charlotte Wedding

The Southern Belle asked me to look for small ornate frames for her June wedding.  She wants to turn them into chalkboards to write menu items and information to guests.  Because the chalk boards are black, I am painting the frames white until I get instructions from the Southern Belle.

Here is how the beauties started:

 Bought for $1.00 each

Bought for 25 cents each

The top two are Home Interiors specials from the 70's.  The bottom two are plastic faux wicker.  They will all make great chalkboards.

I am determined to become a better spray painter, and I believe I am on the right track finally.  I have discovered the spray paint handle. 

This is the best thing since sliced bread.  I love it.

It is amazing how they turned out.  I did not take a picture of the larger one when bought.  It was southwest style teal and salmon.  I bought it for a dollar.  Hubby already cut the chalkboard for the large one.
I am going to spray the mirrors for the narrow ones with chalkboard Sprint.  I can see them as direction signs at the reception.  On my way to collecting some frames for the girl.  It is nice to be able to help with her wedding- even from a distance.

Getting Close to Finishing the Yellow and Gray Bedroom

I am getting close to finishing the bedroom. I have been exhausted from my real work, so not much has been happening at the city house.  I am still waiting for two pillows to arrive and I need a curtain rod for the sheer curtains going in the window but other than that all the elements are in the room. 


Here is what I got done today.

Silhouette Birds for over the bed.

I used two frames that I have had since the Southern Belle moved to Savannah years ago.  I wrapped some fabric left from the owl project around a piece of cardboard.  A quick google search of royalty free silhouette birds landed several options. 

 

 

 

 



Here are two of the birds I found.

 



 

 

I printed the birds on the computer printed then carefully cut them out.  I used some spay adhesive to attache them to the fabric then put them in the frame.  Easy.  And best of all, free.

 



I have had some hob nail milk glass globes for a while.  I got them for fifty cents each and have been looking for a project to use them on.  I want the night stands to display some of the things I have collected for the room so I wanted hanging lights.  Hubby found the parts for the hanging lamps by shopping hardware stores around us because Lowe's and Home Depot did not have the hardware needed.  He spent $2.50 on each light kit and then $13.00 on each swag kit. 

 I had to sand and spray the light kits black.  They looked much better.

 

Hubby wired it together with the swag kit.

 

Swag Kit

 

I am not sure I love the light yet.  I am not happy with how the lamps came out but I have a plan to fix them. I think the chain is too distracting on the busy wall.  I have a plan, but I have to get Hubby to build what I need.  Thank goodness he is such a good sport.

 

 



 

 

Learning Curve

We have one Microsoft friendly computer at our house. With two people living there it seems like we could share this machine pretty easily.  We don't.  Because we are without Internet all weekend when we are up at Star Hill, we both want to use the computer when we get home.

I wish I could say we want use it for worthwhile pursuits like world peace or curing some horrible disease but really we want to check our Facebook pages, shop...and I want to blog.  Hubby is the actual owner of the computer  while I have an iPad.  I decided to see if I could find a blogging program that works on the iPad because Blogger stinks.

My first app was Blog Docs. It is probably a lovely program, but for the life of me I have not been able to figure it out.

I got online to see what others are using and discovered Blogsy. I am not in love with it yet, but we are at least dating.  Blogsy does some nice things but I have not quote figured out the picture situation yet. My blog on foundations was done on Blogsy, but it took me an hour to get things set up.

I am determined to conquer Blogsy, but please be patient with me.  I am an old dog and this is a new trick.

The Foundation Work Begins

If you know me, you know I hate to spend money. Right now we are spending tons of money on something that a dishonest homeowner should have taken care of before selling or disclosed.

 

The work has begun. We are about to be the proud owners of a steel I beam and new concrete wall.

These hunks of wood are holding up our house right now.

 

This is what the end of our house looks like.

They are removing the wall, supporting the house and preparing to weld in a huge beam before pouring a new wall.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Making Owls

My daughter "tagged" this nice lady from a bird sanctuary as me on her Facebook page last year.  I am not the bird lady at the sanctuary... but I do love birds.

I love wild birds.  I feed them at the lake house.  I have three bird feeders and four hummingbird feeders. I have bird books to identify the birds around our property.  Because of my obsession, I wanted to incorperate birds into my guest room.

I saw these  great owls on a post from All Things Thrifty.  Thanks to Brooke for telling us where she found them, because I loved the vintage quality they have. 

I headed for Kohls as soon as possible to snag them.  I was thrilled to find that they were 50% off.  I also had a 20% off coupon, and, best of all... a friend gave me her $10.00 Kohls cash that was about to expire.  Score!  The two owls cost me less than $5.00.  Once I got them home I knew that I wanted them on the night stand.  The other night stand needed some owls too. 

I found these owls on Pinterest. Efemera's awsome directions can be found by clicking the link to her blog.
Efimera Ink


The directions were super easy to follow.  Make a template.

Trace the template onto the fabric you choose.

 I created a small, medium and large pattern.  I placed the patterns on fabric I purchased at Hancocks.  I bought four 1/4 yard sections of fabric. That was not big enough for the largest template.  I had to use felt from the wreath on the big one.

Once the sections were cut out it was a simple matter of hand stitching them together. Remember put the good side of the fabric together... I had to redo one.  Stitch one side then match up the other side.  Super easy.  No sewing machine required.

Here are my owls with only the white part of the eye sewn on. My son said they looked like they had been moon blinked at this stage. ( Guardians of Gahoole.)

Here they are with the gray part of the eyes attached.

I  did get the button eyes on Tuesday night. They really "look" better now!

 

I am feeling too lazy to update my armoire cabinet blog... so here are the pictures with the candles in them.

 

 I love the gray and white on the black cabinet.  The light gray wall is perfect for this.  It is very soothing.



I do love a finished project.

I will be completing another bird art project this week to finish off the room.  Almost there.  Yeah!

Politics in the Woods

I voted today. I honestly did not know all the local candidates.  Have you voted yet? Do you know who you are voting for in the tax assessor position?  I will bet they do in Coldspring, Texas, the county seat of San Jacinto, Texas.  Politics are tricky in the Piney woods, and I love it!  Every business, intersection and many homes have signs in front of them... I wonder what happens if they have the loser's sign in front of their house?

This is the intersection in front of our neighborhood. 

 



Look at the signs around town( they are everywhere so you would have a hard time missing them.) It is possible in the country that you might not know who is running for president or that there are state and national elections at all. I tried, but I could not find a national election sign.



Sam Houston is running for constable along with an NRA member and Mr. Bonds. 


I wonder who attended the meet the candidate session?

 

I wonder who attended the meet the candidate session?  Who were the candidates? 

I love driving past this headquarters.  The Tri County Texas Tea Party Headquarters... love the Beware of Dog sign and the broken Coke machine on the porch. 

 

Politics in the Piney Woods of East Texas are really fun.  I am glad that I get to be an observer.