The Little Rug That Could...

It's so funny to me how much i like this little black and white striped rug... 

It just adds this little pop of personality wherever you put it

so i call it 

""the little rug that could"

I even posed some pink roses from the garden on it, because not many things look better to me than pink, and white and black !

 I see that color combination occasionally in magazines, like a zebra rug with a soft pink mohair sofa, and maybe lucite side tables...
oh my gosh....soooo yummy together 

Here it sits right at the front door

It's also been in front of the kitchen sink

I bought it at Crate and Barrel, and since it was small it didn't cost too much, so that was good...
they do have bigger ones

There's not much to it,... but it has alot of impact for such a small little feller...

Here it is posing with a dead dog...

ok, she's not really a dead dog...

have you ever looked around your house when the dogs are all crashing and sleeping on the floor, and thought it looked like you had a bunch of dead dog bodies lying around in your house?

ok, maybe it's just me that thinks that way

see the little table on the left, it was just all brown and boring when i found it at the thrift shop...

i just painted it white, and now it's a great spot for well, whatever... i have lots of glass jars in it, because for some reason i can hardly bear to get rid of glass jars...

pay no attention to all the crap on the stairs, and the random glass door behind the chair please..

i have some faux fleurs, old books from the thrift shop and a lantern from the TJ Maxx on the table right now

here is a little closeup

here are the same roses i posed on "the little rug that could", sitting on a silver tray

you see the two prints in the background... 

they are 'artist's proofs' of giclee prints of some of my paintings

i have the artist who creates my giclee prints, print these so i can compare and get the color just perfect for any prints i sell...

it's all a pretty big pain in the butt actually... and kind of expensive... the whole process 

but it is fun selling prints to people who appreciate them, so it makes it all worth it

ummm...  i see that the price tag is still on the silver tray, i don't see details, 

i'm pretty sure there's something wrong with me 

 

i sure have enjoyed my roses this summer

the little rug, peeking from behind the chair, so small, but so fun...

of course there is a random bag hanging on the doorknob in the background, details again...

 please lower your expectations of good staging and photographs from me

and one more photo of 

"the little rug that could"

bein' all pretty with pink roses...

...the end...

The Girl With The Pink Hair

What do you think... Probably not a big market for paintings of girls with pink hair...

But very very fun to paint

I like her expression... What do you think the combination of emotions are going on with her? 

I think i should make up a fractured fairy tale about her...

Once upon a time, there was a girl with hair the color of cotton candy...

And as you can imagine she was no ordinary girl...

One very fine summer morning she awoke with a feeling like something extra special was going to happen and she was filled with an electric energy and excitement that was quite unexpected...

As she tumbled out of the lilac scented white cotton sheets, and put her bare feet on the floor, she felt a vibration move up through her body from the old wooden floorboards...

hmmm, very strange indeed, and not unpleasant... it was if the floorboards were alive and resonating a sound within her body

As she walked by her bedroom dresser, she glanced in the mirror and gasped at the shocking sight!

Her hair had turned as pink as strawberries and whipped cream where just the night before it had been a soft girlish brown... 

She put her hand to her mouth in shock, and just stared for a moment... and then, in disbelief... she slowly reached her dainty hand out to touch the reflection in the mirror

The second she touched the reflection on the surface, she felt tingling in her fingers and the spot she touched lit up with a bright spark not unlike a glowing little star...

And it was at that moment that she remembered the dream...

...the end... ?

 

Carpet BEGONE! Painting Plywood Floors...

Have you ever done a project where your husband gave you a look like "just shoot me"???

We'll i kinda did that

again...

What seemed like perfectly good and harmless carpet and vinyl in our bathroom to mr. fracturedfairytale... 

seemed like evil, dirt and germ bearing, wrinkly, gucky, horrible floor covering that HAD to be removed to me

so remove it i did!

ted just wandered off quietly 

 I've just starting painting the wall... so you will see two different paint colors 

here i've already changed out the oval mirror from the first photo, to this cool little vintage mirror i found at the thrift shop years ago...

Anyway, what is the deal with carpet???
Who ever thought that was a good idea? to put synthetic fabric on the floor that has to stay there until it becomes so nasty your feet stick to it?


Especially if you have kids and pets..
kids throw up on it, pets pee and poop on it, 

and how about cat pee?

 go ahead, try to get the smell of cat pee out of anything, especially carpet and upholstery

you could fling a grenade in your house and blow it up

and in the smoldering embers, you would still smell cat pee 
( just want to note, i do really like cats, just not when they pee in your shoes)


carpet gives off toxic gases, and holds every germ and piece of dirt you walk onto it
it gets stained, and then you have to obsess about the stains...

well... i do

I see it in schools and pharmacies, and i'm like... really? 

A pharmacy where every sick person with strep and staph and ebola and tuberculosis, and small pox, and flesh eating bacteria.... 

ok a little exaggeration but... 

 schools,... come on !
one needs to be able to disinfect a floor at a school... !

The only reason i would ever have carpet, is if i couldn't afford anything else i could clean with a good rag

That being said

my house is mostly carpet...

because i can't afford to have stuff i can clean with a good rag...

well, except...
 i can rip that stuff up, and paint the floors!

Soooo, now that's out of my system, 
sorry....
 here is the progression

old carpet, starting to wrinkle and gather...

random vinyl

getting there...

ahhhh.... feels better already to me, i like wood, even if it's plywood!

 primed

 painted in a soft white glossy, water based floor enamel

a few of the 8 million squares i taped off... 

oh that was fun... 

i have about as much attention span as a gerbil, so that stretched my limits of patience

(no offense meant to gerbils out there)

anyway, i just eyeballed a square in about the center of the bathroom using a vinyl tile... drew a pencil line around each one,  and put tape in the inside of each white square

all done, except for the shiny sealer!  

I did learn that you should pull the tape off while the paint is still wet... i've done this before, and it's true... if the paint dries first, when you pull up the tape it pulls up paint from the surrounding square

The worst part, taping the squares, and getting up and down off of the floor...

i'm getting too old for this stuff!

here is the room with a pretty little vintage candelabra with pink candles... 

of course i had to put something pink in the mix 

i love this thing, but i never really know where to put it, so it gets moved around alot...

  

now here it is on my bedside dresser

moved even during this photo session...

Ok, so i'm sorry if some of you like carpet... 

I'm sure i'd love you anyway, it's me, it's not you...;)

There were two things i decided i would absolutely not compromise on  when Ted and I were buying a house we could afford...

Hardwood Floors

and

A Real Wood Burning Fireplace

Guess what...

We didn't end up with either one of them

and I'm ok with that...

this house gets alot of light from the sun all day 

and i love that

...the end...

Ugly Old Shed Door Updated... !

On the back side of our house, we have a little attached shed, thank the lord...

because it's a place where i can keep my 10,000 cans of paint...

 geeesh...that's another mess for another day, 

like not while i'm still alive...

Anyway, it has a metal door, and was painted white that had gotten dirty and grayed over the years, and it had greasy fingerprints all around the door handle... 

I wish i had a before photo

...but you know how it is... 

You are just laying (or is it lying) on your bed trying to take a nap with your dog,

(who is staring out the window, and barking at pretty much anything, each time you almost doze off)...

and you look at the wall color in your bedroom

 and think ... 

I think i'll just go paint the shed door this color

 mr. fracturedfairytale told me the other day that i was a bit impulsive, can you imagine that! 

and then realize later... 

Hey!  that would have made a good before and after!  

Anyway... it went from dirty grayish white to a kinda cool, 

beigey gray color...

the original door was even  muckier than that trim you see, which now needs to be freshened up... so you get the idea...

and... i know, i need to paint the glow in the dark gold wreath hanger too... it's pretty bad

but i was movin fast,

then, once it was dry, 

which was like 3 seconds because the door was hot and the heat index was like 115 degrees

it's been crazy hot !

i just grabbed a basket of faux and dried flowers

and hung it on the door with whatever hanger i had

Would you believe this is the same paint i painted my bedroom with... 

and the same paint i used for a wash on the French Market basket in the previous post

Benjamin Moore "Brandon Beige"

Anyway, i really like it, who knew an ordinary beigy gray could make stuff look so good...

I've been looking at that plain old ugly door for 5 years

it's so funny what a difference just a little change can make

why didn't i think of painting it sooner???

Here was my inspiration door

look how gorgeous this door is

This is from the cute blog 

Bliss Ranch

i hope she doesn't mind me showing her fabulous door!

everything about this is good...

I just found her blog, and can't wait to read more of her posts

 

 and to stay true to my ADHD style and go completely off topic,

i will end this post with some pictures of hydrangeas and roses... 

the rose is "Abraham Darby"

and i think it's wonderful

...the end...

Ok, So Let Me Explain, I Only Had One Stencil....

I was on vacation this week, and i wanted to do some projects, and well, i only had one stencil... which i ordered on Ebay

Anyway, pretty much everything in my house got stenciled with

 "French Market"  

- you'll see...

 Here is the before, and $6.00 basket from the thrift shop

I used the color i painted my bedroom wall, a kind of gray beige and with a wet brush, just brushed it all over the basket...

then i had a dirty old drop cloth in the shed, and i just cut a square out of it, ripped the edges

grabbed my "French Market" stencil

and used a sample container of dark brown paint i had

it is just plain old flat latex paint 

i'm sure it's better to use fabric paint, but i didn't have any... 

i checked Michaels and every fabric paint they

 had was sparkly or very stark black, so i said screw it, i'm using what i have...

i figure if i can't get latex paint off my clothes and my shoes

it's not gonna come off of this either!

 

I think it turned out pretty cute!

 

 ok, here are the two bloggers i stole the ideas from

Laurie from the blog Heaven's Walk  

for the basket idea

check out her insanely cute basket she redid

and for the "French Market"  stencil and curtain panel idea

Kathy from the adorable blog

"Kate's Place"

 

She did the cutest curtain panel ever in the whole wide world!

i printed a picure of it and put it under my pillow at night i loved her little curtain so much

i emailed her and asked her about the stencil, and she told me exactly where to look, she's a sweetheart

I copied her curtain, sorta... like in the most minimalist way...

this little panel is over my kitchen sink

it's just a linen napkin/bar cloth or something like that

i think i found a pack of 2 at Bed Bath and Beyond... 

it's literally just draped over a tension rod...

Go look at Kathy's 

 she put grosgraine ribbon and little box pleats on hers...

it's a thousand times cuter than mine...

 

then i had these old blinds in my art room... and lord have mercy they get so dirty!!!!

so i wanted to cover them up... 

you didn't think i was gonna wash each and every one of those 8 billion little blinds did you !???

i've tried that

...once...

 

 so anyway, guess what i put over the top of the window

well, duh...

"French Market"

i took finishing nails and tacked them up, how slack is that!!!

but i like how they blouse out and ruffle and move when the window is open... 

and they are alot cleaner looking than those old blinds

Ummmmmm, let me think if i put "French Market" on anything else...

you didn't think it would end with just a basket and 3 curtain panels did you???? 

no, no, no

ooops

poor Daisy...

 

dosen't it look like she's saying

"will you do something about my mommy, she has lost her mind" 

...the end...