No computer for a week!!!! AArrggghhhhhh!!!!

I've had a very stressful weekend. (She said lightheartedly) My computer's hard drive quit on me Friday afternoon. THANKFULLY I had an external hard drive doing backups everyday so all my stuff didn't get lost forever. I am also grateful that the warranty was still good so the $450.00 new hard drive was covered. I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is to have some sort of backup system on your computer. The guy at the Mac store said hard drive failure can just happen randomly, to anyone, no matter what kind of computer you have. So... no computer for posting pictures for a couple more days. Except that it may be longer because over the weekend we emptied out my studio, ripped out all the old disgusting carpet and are putting in laminate wood floors. Everything is stacked in the sitting area of our bedroom which is where my computer desk is. The flooring has to rest for 48 hours in the room so we can't start until tonight. Then we still have to paint and install new molding. So I'm sure it will be the weekend before we are ready to put everything back. So.... no computer AND no studio for a week!!! AArrrggghhhh!!!! I guess I will focus on how grateful I am to be getting a nice new "wood" floor in there. Yeah, I'll do that! Have a wonderful week my friends. I have some really cool things to share with you as soon as I am up and running again!

New Artwork.

I've been working some art pieces to hang in my studio. I'm going to make 5 in total. Here is the first one I completed. I haven't come up with a title for it yet. If any one has any ideas please let me know! I've also been working on getting a blog shop put together. It's finished and loaded but I haven't quite figured out how to imbed the paypal button in each post. As soon as I do I will put some of my other artwork over there. There is still one of my small pieces that I first did available at Artfire here. As always, I cherish your feedback! Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Livingroom re-do finally finished! (almost)

Yeah!!! I finally got a room finished! (Well almost) I didn't re-arrange any furniture because the way that it is seems to work best for us. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It's not that I didn't like it before, but I have been wanting to do this for quite a while. All the public rooms can be see from each other and the way it was before, just didn't work for me anymore. (To many different color schemes)

I still need to have a slipcover made for the sofa above, but that will have to wait until I can save up some more money. I made all the pillows myself. (I'll show details further down) and took down the green and white drapes and made burlap drapes to take their place. I still had some of the brown that I used to trim out the sheers so I used that again for the burlap to keep a really finished look.

So here is the left side of the room before. You can see the big black hole of a TV in the corner.

And the other side... The coffee table was a bench that I cut the bottom of the legs off to make it a better coffee table height. The wood side table came from my husbands family. The ends fold down. It's a cool table but I have been wanting to paint it for a LONG time. I still haven't convinced him to let me do that.

After the face lift on the cabinet. I'm so thrilled with the change. No more black hole!!!

The coffee table got a new paint job as well. I added small touches of black all through the room since there is actually a lot of built in black in the house. I painted the small shelves on the wall black, added black trim details on the pillows, added black trim to the lampshade, and my DH found that great old metal R at a construction sight he was working on.


I used some of the vintage lace and vintage jewelry that I found on vacation for the pillow above. The bows on the corners are made from tea stained gauze.


The fabric for this pillow come from the old curtains in my studio. I made three of these in total.


This pillow I used an old beige crocheted doily I had. It actually matches the color of the beige denim fabric really well.


The detail on this pillow is a vintage hat!! I found it at a great shop here in town.


Here is the "before" of the cabinet. My mom gave us the TV and the cabinet about 4 years ago. It used to be an all in one cabinet and TV. Then the TV died and they pulled the old one out and just shoved the new one in it's place. There was a lot of ugly space around the new TV.


I decoupaged the outside with vintage sheet music. Then we taped it all off and sprayed the front with Krylon Fusion paint for plastic. Then I removed the front panel that housed the old speaker and re upholstered it with a quilted silk that I had in my fabric bin. Lastly I decoupaged some 3" wide balsa wood with more sheet music and framed out the opening. Presto! All the yucky stuff gone!


Well that's the new Livingroom! I still want to add 2 more frames to the window. I'll find them at a future garage sale. (Prime garage sale season is rapidly approaching!) The other rooms are almost finished. Just a few more things to do. Thanks for hanging out with me. I'll see you again soon!

Desk organizer

I thought I would do a quick post about a desk organizer that I made from an old book. An old hardback Readers Digest works great. Making it is really simple and fun and it hold scraps of paper, notes, really anything flat very well. First, make sure your book will lay flat. Sometimes you might have to break the spine by opening the book as far as you can. Then decoupage or glue the inside cover of the book with the papers of your choice. This is where you can be creative. Just remember, you'll only see the outer half of the inside cover. Now fold all the pages in half. This is a little time consuming but pretty mindless, so you could do while watching TV or something. Last, I added decorative twill tape to each side. (You could also use ribbon) I like to use Gel Medium as my glue. It really holds great. Just fold your ribbon over about 2 inches on the other side and glue down.

That's it!!! I use mine to hold business cards, paint swatches, notes I don't want to lose, etc... Have fun making one!!!

Finally getting off my scaredy-cat butt!

Well, I finally decided to get off my scaredy-cat butt and send some things in to Sommerset Studio. They are refrigerator magnets and not newly made, but they are my own designs and I don't recall seeing anything like them in the magazine. I thought about making some of the apothecary tags and sending them too, but I know that will postpone me sending these out. I don't know why I have avoided doing it. I've been wanting to contribute for a couple of years now. I guess it's just a fear of rejection. Silly huh? I would really like to continue to submit, so maybe now that that I'm getting my feet wet, it will be easier next time. Wish me luck!!!!

Rooms that make my heart go pitter-patter

I thought I would take a short break from posting vacation pics and show you some of the room photographs that I have been collecting in my inspiration file. Since tomorrow is White Wednesday over at Faded Charm and most of these are rooms are predominantly white I thought I would join in. Please go on over and say hi to Kathleen and see all the other wonderful White Wednesday wonders!
I have wanted to make some changes in my home for quite a while now. My tastes evolve over time and knew I wanted to go with a more neutral color pallete so I could make changes as I desired without spending a lot of money. I have been wanting to go with (shades 0f) white and this last trip was the kick in the butt I needed. I started almost as soon as we got home, and although you won't see any of the changes in this post I will show you what I have done as soon as I am finished. I love the room above. The architectural elements make it for me and this photo was the inspiration for alot of the pieces in my home.

Brown, white and green... I don't think a more soothing color palette exsists for me.

I ADORE green hydrangeas!! Slipcovers are my absolute favorite decorating secret. You can get a whole new look for your room every season if you want too!!! I'm having one made in off white as we speak!



Pottery Barn always has the most wonderful rooms. I love the clean modern feel with a major cottage influence. I'm going to try to get a bit more of that in my home.


Okay, I know this room isn't white. But you've got to admit it's FABULOUS!!! For those of you have a clock fetish like I do I know you will love it too!

I haven't been around Blogland as much as I would like these days. I am so absorbed in projects it's not even funny. In order to make these changes I want to make, as economically as possible, I am painting and sewing up a storm! I've made two sets of curtains and several pillows already but I have so much more to go! I'll show some photos soon!!

btw...Thanks to Country Living, ME Home Companion and Pottery Barn for there constant inspiration!