Tiling Behind The Naked Lady

Too pretty outside to craft. I've been spending all spare moments pulling weeds and nurturing my vegetable garden.
But eventually a free Sunday came up so I got to a house project I've been planning forever. Took it to a good stopping point. Still need to cut the sides (Can someone lend me a wet saw?) and grout and work on the trim and paint the trim...Wow... Up until this point I was thinking that I was almost finished.


A little something I'm working on:

Guest Room Progress

Lots of progress this week. I still need a new bedspread and a macrame plant holder, but besides that, the Red Room is complete! Beware, it still spells heavily of spray paint.
And now allow me to present The Allegory to the 1970's in Red and Yellow, by Elisabeth:

Quick & Cheap Table Refinish

$7 for an unfinished bedside table at Goodwill? Yes please. Only spray paint, tissue paper and glue are needed to take this little table from raw and useless to retro-super.
I forgot (!) to take a 'before' picture, but you get the idea from the mid-way spray down:


Don't forget to wear a mask and properly ventilate, peee-yew!
Let it dry, you'll have to apply several coats for raw wood.

Next, mix up elmers and water and slop all over the place:


Lay down strips of tissue paper. Smooth out and paint over with glue:


Dry over night. Done!



Slow but steady progress on the guest room!:

Guest Bedroom 2

Guest bedroom #2 is suffering the 'I don't have time/money to think about you" syndrome. Its symptoms include a brass/weave ceiling fan from 1980, pull down vinyl blinds, craigslist furniture and the "It's a Boy!" beadspread.
Yet I have dreams, plans and inspirations as usual. The inspiration comes from our the lovely Bed & Breakfast room where Joey and I recently stayed:


Only three major unchangeable- furniture, tan walls and ceiling fan.
The furniture is really good quality and I'm reluctant/too poor/too lazy to refinish it. But I'll change up the hardware. Something like:


The ceiling fan is necessary, our lovely old house has no central air. But I can switch out the blades and the shades:


The old fireplace wall behind the headboard would look amazing covered in this wallpaper from the endless resource blinds-wallpaper.net


I love those pops of coral in the paper. I would incorporate a few pops of coral through the rooms- vases, pillows? Still need to find them... (Trader Jacks, here I come.)

Oh and a ceiling medallion if I'm dreaming. Replica plaster medallions are actually pretty affordable.

(i love you i love you i love you)

Ah, and the headboard. I fell in love with three ideas:
1) I have so many pictures. I could easily do this

2) I love I love old window frames

3) I constructed something like this for my room in one of my college apartments. It looked nice next to the indoor/outdoor carpet, 6'9 drop ceilings and fluorescent lighting. Ah college.


Bedspread would be simple, historical, feminine:


And I still have to figure out window covering.
Anyway I'm still working on the red room and, oh yeah, working 45 hours a week so.... I'll just let you know when its done.

Feather Headbands

This feather love affair started with my wedding. While searching for a veil, I stumbled onto Neva Plume's amazing Etsy site. From that day I was hooked.
I am going to visit some pretty little girls this weekend and decided to make them some feather headbands. Quick, cheap, easy.
The supplies include hot glue guns, feathers from a craft store, a very small amount of felt and some plain headbands. The felt is cut into a small circle; that is what the feathers are glued to. Then glue the felt circle to the band. Done!


the last one is for me. My sister bought me that beautiful feather in the form of a clip, but it just didn't sit right on my head. Now I wear it all the time!

Hanna's Birthday

So few and far between. I've been doing things, I swear. Just nothing to write home about I guess.

My sister is going back to school and needs a good tote bag. I decided I could push the limits of my sewing knowledge far enough to create something decent. I spent 3 full days hunched over my sewing machine with nothing but determination.



I saw this fabric at Joann's and in the words of Bella Swan, "About three things i was absolutely positive. First, this fabric would give the tote bag that funky punch I was looking for. Second, it was on 50% sale that day only. And third, i was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with it."

So basically I had no patten that I followed and messed up so many times that I don't feel comfortable explaining the process yet. I can list the supplies and give some words of advise:

2 yards of heavy cloth like duck cloth
1 yard lighter fabric used for liner and lid decoration
1 yard quilt padding
1 yard medium flex fusible interfacing
1 buckle
3 yards nylon strap- 2", 1", whatever
1 packet of adjustable thingies for straps
1 packet of hook thingies for straps
Mega Heavy duty machine needles, no all-purpose needles need apply.

Tip: Anything sewn on (lid decoration, pockets, buckle, strap hooks, etc must be planned out and affixed before putting together the inner and outer layers.



I also found a use for those amazing 1960's Good Houskeeping gardening encyclopedias. Greeting cards! My sister lives so far away so maybe this will force her to write me a little note.

Stretched Fabric Art

It's lovely out and the flea markets have started back up. Let's take a moment to appreciate some of the wonderful things that you can find for $10 or under at flea markets:


I wanted to make some stretched fabric art for my guest bedroom so I drug my chop saw outside and set up shop:


I used some 1"x2" pine scraps and made frames:


Then just wrapped the fabric and securing with a staple gun.


I'm not ready to hang the ones for the guest bedroom quite yet, but I finally made a a frame for our awesome picture that we bought in Belize:


Coming up soon:


Art made from killer Better Homes and Gardens book covers found for .50 each at the flea market. Also coming up soon, installation of the glass tile behind my Klimt picture in the living room.