A Canvas Makeover

In my last post, I said that I had a few paintings for the beach house in the works, and now I've got one to share. Here it is!  What do you think?  Isn't it great?

Juuuuuust kidding.  That painting will not be hanging on a wall in the beach house.  At least, not looking like that.

This masterpiece came from Target.  Let's zoom in so you can see why I bought it.

Less than 8 bucks...holla!  You can't buy a plain canvas that size for anywhere near that low of a price, so you know me, I decided I could just paint over it.  I loaded that clearance rack gem into the MINI and brought it home with me.

I've been hanging on to this for a couple months now.  Of course I bought it without knowing exactly what I'd do with it, but I knew the perfect idea would come.  And it finally did.  After Beth finished all her paintings, it hit me that we still didn't have anything at all for the walls in the downstairs bedroom.  That's where the yellow dresser will go.

So with a general idea in my head, I got to work.  Keep in mind that I am by no means an artist.  I was totally wingin' it.  First, I knew I wanted to add some texture to it.  I'm sure modeling paste or something would've been ideal to use, but you can't find modeling paste in our woodshop so I was outta luck.  I improvised with something you can buy from a hardware store...if it ends up holding up, maybe I'll share my secret!  I figure if it doesn't hold up, I'm only out $7.56.

I started slapping my medium on using a putty knife.  Again, probably not what real artists use, but it worked.  Then, I used the wrong end of a paintbrush to draw in my general design.  Then I had to waaaaaaaaaait.  I am so not patient when it comes to things having to dry!  But I absolutely had to give this stuff 24 hours, so I left it alone for the night.

Doc saw it while it was drying and said, "Oh cool, bubbles in the grass."  That's when I thought oh crap, this may be harder than I thought.  They weren't supposed to be bubbles...I was going for whimsical flowers!

The next day I was able to start painting.  I didn't have good paint, so it was craft paint for me.  I was planning to start with the sky, so I filled my plate with several shades of blue, some white and cream, and even some grey.  I tried really hard to tap into my inner artist and not be too much of a perfectionist with how things looked.  I told myself it was ok for things to look a little messy and not perfectly blended.

For the grass, I used several different shades of green with a little brown and black mixed in.  It started out looking very camo-ish, but I think I eventually got it looking a little better.

The main color in this bedroom is yellow, so I chose a couple shades of it for the flowers and started filling in my circles.

I'm pretty sure this is when my dad came in and commented on the "weeds in front of the ocean."  Awesome.  Clearly, I still had more work to do.

I knew when I was painting the yellow that I'd have to come back and add in some more green over the flowers so they didn't all look like they were on top of the grass.  My mom became an expert painting dryer.  We broke out the hair dryer since I was too impatient to wait for things to dry!

I also didn't like how flat the flowers looked, so I went back and added some outlines to some of them.  I think it made a big difference.  (Before is on the left, after is on the right.)

  

Here are some more shots of the finished flowers.

And finally, the whole painting, hanging a little caddy-whampus on a plywood wall.

So, do you think it's an upgrade or downgrade from its original $8 look?  I can't wait to see it with the fabric we're using in that room.  Not too much longer!

Beach House Paintings

This post is all about bragging on my sister-in-law Beth and the fantastic works of art she made for the beach house.  About a month or so ago, she and I sat down to talk about color schemes in rooms and flip through paintings we liked, before coming up with some ideas for her to paint.  Now she's done and they all look fantastic! This beach scene is something you might expect to find in a house near the beach, but Beth made it more abstract than your average sand-waves-sunset painting.  I like the tree line in the background and how it's chock-full of texture.  This will be for one of the jack-and-jill bedrooms.

At the time that we talked about the paintings, we still hadn't purchased a bed for the last bedroom - the other jack-and-jill one.  We were in a bit of debate about another queen bed versus bunk beds.  So, Beth painted not one but two paintings for this room.  The idea was that they could be hung together as a pair, but would also look fine hanging separately on two sides of a window if we need to split them up.  Gotta love polka dots!

This next one - for the dining room - is my personal favorite.  I will most definitely be placing an order for one of these for my house sometime!  Chocolate cake on a cake stand.  Does it get better than that?  And it will look even yummier when it's not hanging on a plywood wall.

The last one is for the living room and is a trio of whimsical birds.  I love them too!  Beth and I have gone back and forth about whether or not the birds need a black dot for eyes?  What do you think?  Doc says they're looking away so they don't need them.  Sometimes I think it would take away from the whimsical-ness of the birds, other times I think they need eyes.  Help?

Didn't Beth do a great job?  I've got a few things in the wall-hanging category that I'm working on too, but they won't even compare to these.  You know I'll share them with you anyway!

Beach House Update

Back when we first broke ground on the beach house, I just knew that we'd be spending the week between Christmas and New Year's there.  That seemed like a reasonable amount of time to build a house to me, especially since at that time, December was so. far. away.  As it turns out, we need not spend the last week of 2011 chillin' in our beach house.  I guess we could've, but it wouldn't have been that much fun without any heat, air, electriciy, flooring, furniture, and so on.  Thanks to a fair amount of rain, the holidays, and the cabinets being late, our house still isn't done.  (Side note: What is up with the cabinets always being late?  We ordered them back in August, sheesh!)  But we're getting close! We may not have been at the beach a couple of weeks ago, but our friends Chris and Allison where and they graciously checked on the house for us.  As usual, let's start our update with the exterior.

Still no landscaping (that won't come til the end), but it looks like since the last update, the railing has been finished around the front porch and the steps have been added.

Here's a picture that Allison sent of the main living space.  If you'll remember, this is the room that has horizontal paneling on the walls.  You really can't see it at all in this pic, but I think it will [hopefully] be more noticeable in person.  I'm pretty sure the stack of wood on the floor is what they'll use to do the banding around the ceiling and floor.

Since they've started the interior painting, I asked Allison for pics of the master bedroom.  The fabric we've chosen for that room has some blue in it, so we picked out a blue for the walls.  I was eager to see how it looked.

I like the blue!  I hope the stuff we've picked out will look ok.  We chose more of a cream for the bedspread instead of bright white like the trim, but surely that will look fine.  This room, as well as the other three bedrooms, will get a neutral shade of shag carpet.

We had not yet seen what kind of banister would go around the stairwell in the upstairs hallway, but Allison said it was up so she sent pics of it too.  I like it - plain and casual is what we're going for in this house so I think it's perfect.

If you peek through the rails in the picture above, you can kinda see the grey walls in one of the jack-and-jill bedrooms.

On their way out, Allison also grabbed a quick shot of our teeny, tiny pool.

This past week we got an email from our builder.  More money equals more pictures.  Here's the picture of the pool that we got this week; I'm not sure that there's much difference from when Allison was there.

But there's a BIG difference in the kitchen.  Finally, cabinets!

That picture makes me very excited, especially since our builder says everything should be pretty fast-moving from here.  Apparently, cabinets hold up progress on everything.

Might as well end this post the same way it started, with a shot of the exterior.  This time it's more of a side view and if you look closely on the downstairs porch, you can see they've framed out the doors for the screened-in portion.

That's all the pictures I have for now.  Doc and I will be the next ones to check it out, and it's possible the next time any of us go, it will be to move in.  Hooray!  Many, many more pics to come after our quick trip...I'm sure I'll be trigger happy with my camera!

Before and After: Jett's Room

My nephew, Jett, is 6 years old and obsessed with all things army.  He reads about wars and loves to play with his plastic army men and was even an "army guy" for Halloween.  So for Christmas, his surprise gift from his mom and dad was a new army room. I won't lie, when my brother told me they were giving him an army room I immediately pictured camoflauge from floor to ceiling.  Oy.  In reality, there's not a lick of camo in there, but it's very much an army bedroom.

Nick and Beth waited until the kids fell asleep on Christmas Eve before switching out everything in his room.  I'm glad they did it all at one time instead of bit by bit...I love a big reveal!  This was not a complete room overhaul, but instead just new bedding and a few new accessories.  Furniture, paint colors, and major things like that stayed the same.

These pictures are all courtesy of sister-in-law, Beth.

As you can (hopefully) see in the pics above and below, before the army room, Jett's room was all about cars, trucks, and trains.  He used to be OBSESSED with Thomas the Train and any kind of car, truck, object with wheels.  It was amazing to me how early he could distinguish between dump trucks and diggers and bulldozers and cranes.  I probably would've called them all tractors or something.  And he knew every Thomas character way before that.

So when he graduated from his crib and his "outdoorsy" nursery, all kinds of automobiles moved in.  His bedspread was just a madras plaid, but hidden underneath it were sheets covered in cars.  His throw pillows had cars and so did his rug.  What you can't really see in the picture above is that my mom had even embroidered trains, trucks, and cars on his bedskirt.  The wall art above his bed (painted by my sister-in-law Erin) was of a dump truck and tractor.

Here's a picture looking head-on to his bed.

See that shelf above his bed?  It holds a couple - you guessed it - automobiles, as well as Jett's trophies.  It looks like he also stuck an army man up there.  Maybe he secretly knew what was coming...

Now let's fast-forward to what Jett got to see Christmas morning - his new army room!

Here it is mostly done.  The rug is still there but I'm not sure that that's staying.

No camo.  It's a Patriotic army room.  The shelf above his bed now holds 3 clipboards with real army manuals.  He was excited to show that off.  Every good soldier needs a working set of walkie-talkies, so he's got some of those up there too.

His new bedding came from Pottery Barn, I think, and is an olive-y khaki.  If I'm remembering correctly, it has an army patch on it somewhere, maybe where it's folded back in the picture above.  My mom made him a new blue gingham bed skirt and Beth made the throw pillow.  She also made his plaid throw blanket that my mom monogrammed.

The wooden flag on the wall was made by my brother.  He's so proud of it.  It's painted on four 1x4s and trimmed with 1x2s.  I won't tell you exactly how many times it took him to get the measurements right for 13 stripes instead of 14, but let's just say 3rd times a charm.  According to Nick, it's an old timey flag so he didn't have to do as many stars.  I think it turned out really well!

My favorite accessory in the new army room is this picture that sits on the dresser by his bed.  It's my maternal grandfather and also Jett's namesake.  He was a funny guy and a sweet, sweet man, my Pepaw Jett.

Thanks for sharing the pics, Beth, so that we could all see.  I think the room turned out great!  I asked Jett if we could have a sleepover soon and he said yes, but that I couldn't sleep in his new bed.  Guess I'll just have to admire it all from an air mattress on the floor.

Books... Check 'Em Out!

I did it!  I completed my reading resolution for 2011! {{{Sorta.}}}

For any newcomers around here, the resolution I made last January was to read People Magazine's Top Ten Books from 2010.  Equipped with a brand-new kindle, I figured this would be a fun way to expand my horizons by reading books I wouldn't normally choose.  The goal was to read all ten books from the list, and even 3 of the honorable mentions if time allowed.  Here's a quick refresher of the list, but you can read the short descriptions and my thoughts by clicking over to my original post (that I've updated along the way).

Room by Emma Donoghue The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot Freedom by Jonathan Franzen Life by Keith Richards I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand Just Kids by Patti Smith Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 One Day by David Nicholls

Here's the truth: I only made it through 8 of the books.  Technically 7.5 because I gave up on the one shaded in green.  The two in blue are the ones I didn't make it to at all.  I have two friends that are completely different who both read Freedom and neither enjoyed it.  That zapped my motivation to squeeze it in.  The Mark Twain autobiography just seemed like a daunting task since it's so long.  I put it off and put it off until it was too late to read it in 2011.  I may come back to it another day, who knows.  I decided mid-December that these two just weren't going to get read.  I had one more left to make it to 8 so I buckled down and read during the holidays.  I finished the last couple chapters a mere hour before we left for our New Year's Eve party.

As for the 3 honorable mentions (The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo trilogy), they didn't get touched in 2011.  Now that the first movie's out, I'm trying to jump on the bandwagon and read them.  I just started it a night or two ago and have only read 1 chapter.  Everyone has told me it's hard to get into so I've been bad about not picking it up to keep going.  I hate books that have a slow start!

But the 8 books from the top ten aren't all that I read this year.  In between these, I had to turn to books that were more my style to keep my reading momentum going.  Here are the books that round out my complete reading list:

True Colors by Kristin Hannah The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

I know 15.5 books is not very many for one year (it certainly doesn't compare to the 68 my sister-in-law Jill read!), but I'm still proud of myself.  It's hard to find time to read between working full time and all my craft/woodshop projects!  And I'm a slow reader, especially if I don't like the book, so there's that.  I haven't set any real resolutions yet for 2012, but maybe it should be to read 20 books.  I'll just up my number a little, but I'm not going back to People Magazine's suggestions!  The plan is to read the Dragon Tattoo trilogy first.  After that, I think I want to re-read the Hunger Games series - at least the first one - before the movie comes out in March.  Can. Not. Wait.  The trailer looks so good!

So with that, I'll call this little reading adventure over.  Now the question is, what should I read in 2012?  Any suggestions?

And for what it's worth, my suggestions from these lists would be the Hunger Games if you haven't already read them, and definitely Unbroken.