Stitching and Zombies

No, this post isn't actually about zombies, so if that's what you're looking for, turn back now. I am just going to go a head and put this out here, I'm a little obsessed with the color blue right now. Especially teal. For me, I'm more attracted to certain colors with the weather and my moods. Not the, it's rainy and cold, and I'm feeling blue, moods. More like in the spring I'm all about coral colors, but that could change at any moment. 

Right now, we are moving into fall and I keep seeing the beautiful burn oranges and red. Don't get me wrong, I love those colors too, but I'm just not ready to let go of summer yet. So, I'm going to hold onto summer for a few weeks longer. 

This photo was taken during our Disney trip this year. I was hanging out with the girls and was leaning against this teal pillar, when I realized the teal, lavender and white made a somewhat stunning color combination. 

I went ahead and snapped a photo because I knew with my memory issues I would not remember later. Of course I forgot all about it, and it wasn't until my partner was showing his family the photos at the lake that we ran across it again. He was like, What is that, why did you take that picture? 

Well, he didn't understand, but I did. So, as soon as I could, I went to work. I just love the way the white pops with the teal, and how the lavender makes the white faceted beads almost seem translucent. The teals are not exactly the same, the teal in the bracelet has a little touch of grey. I also pictured the bracelet a little different in my head, but I still really like the way it turned out.

A little side note, I almost always watch a TV series when I'm making stitched pieces. This was no exception, I came late to the series The Walking Dead but caught up quickly with marathon sessions of stitching and zombies.

How Not Screw Up a Painted Table

Okay, so let me start this post out by saying I had never painted furniture before painting this desk. At least I think it's a desk, or maybe a side table? If someone knows, please let me know, for now I'm calling it a desk. So, anyways painting furniture kind of scared me. I stared at the desk for a couple of months wanting to pain it but not sure. I was just really freaked out I was going to screw it up somehow. I have this weird issue that when I do something like this it has to be perfect, even though I'd never done anything like it before. 

I realized the desk had some issues already and the only way to fix it would be to paint it. I knew no matter what I did to it, it would look better than it did at that point. 

Sorry about the bad photo of the before desk, but I didn't realize I was going to blog about it. 

There are so many things wrong with this photo, but I'm just focusing on the desk! I had found it in our basement about 2 years after we moved into our home and brought it upstairs. The top of it was pretty much ruined from years of use. I thought it would be a good place for our daughter to do homework- she didn't by the way. It pretty much just got covered up with beads and unfinished projects! I figured if I added a couple of coats of a fresh colored paint I'd want to make sure it's nice and picked up all of the time.

Alright, here is what I used and how I updated the desk. I found everything I needed at Lowe's. You can certainly purchase these items at your favorite store, except for the name brand paint. I just went to Lowe's because it's super close.  

1. TSP Heavy Duty Cleaner

2. Rubber Gloves

3. Cleaning Sponges

4. 3M Fine Sanding Sponge

5. Kilz Odorless- Oil Based Primer

6. Valspar Signature, Semi-Gloss- Grass Stain & Monteray Bay Teal

7. Goof off- Not pictured

8. Rust-Oleum- Oil Rubbed Bronze

I will break this down into steps, just to make it a little easier to read. First off I wanted to make sure the desk was nice and clean and the TSP cleans and helps to remove some of the shine so the paint will adhere better.

1. I mixed up the TSP according to the directions in the yellow bucket, on the left. The         blue held water and you absolutely need to wear gloves, the TSP will burn your               beautifully manicured hands. 

 In this photo above my daughter had just finished wiping the desk down.

2. She used 2 sponges, one for the TSP and one for the water. Working in small sections       she wiped down the desk with the TSP and followed with a wipe down of water to             remove the TSP. Easy!

Okay, I have heard that you don't need to sand before using a oil based primer, but I didn't trust that so I went ahead and sanded.

3. I did hand sand it. I only need to hit the sides because the TSP worked really well. 

    I really just need to rough the surface up a little. This was an old piece of furniture 

    and it really didn't have any shine left to it.

Moving on to priming, which for some reason I love to use. I think it has to do with once whatever you're working on is painted white, it makes it look like a wide open canvas, just waiting for you to make it beautiful.

4. Even though I love this step, I was in the process of teaching my daughter how to paint     so I let her do it. She used a brush in the tight spots and a roller on the top. She did 

    give it 2 coats, which might be overkill, but whatever. I went ahead and sanded 

    between coats to make it nice and smooth, and get rid of a few drips. 

5. After I let the primer dry over night I went ahead and gave the desk it's first coat of 

    amazing Grass Stain color. I have seriously always wanted to paint something this           color and was so excited to use it! I used the same method to paint that my daughter       used to prime, brushed everything, but used a foam roller on the top. This photo was       taken after the first coat.

This one was taken after the second, which leads to the drawer...

I'm going to leave out the steps, because the drawer follows the same ones as the desk, except for the knobs.

This is why you always buy a test pot of paint before purchasing a gallon! When I put this paint on I loved it, but when it started to dry it became this super bright screaming blue. Seriously, if I would have held in up in my window, my neighbor across the street would have told me it was too bright! I still love it for an accent color, but I was planning on using it on a dresser. 

NO, FLIPPING WAY!

So, I brought it back to Lowe's and asked if they could darken if for me. At first they looked at me like I was a crazy person and I could tell they didn't want to do it, but the crazy person I am persisted. 

They ended up adding 1 ounce of black and it calmed the color down. I think half an ounce would have been better, but I loved it! Come to find out later what I should have done (and no one bothered to tell me) since the color was so dark, I should have used a tinted primer and the color would have been more true. Oh well, I'll do that next time!

6. Alright back to the steps. I could not afford new drawer knobs, so I spray painted             them instead, and I'm so glad I did. I think they turned out awesome!  The spray paint 
    I used had primer in it so I just needed to give them a few coats and they looked like 
    new. 

7. Step back and enjoy! When I finished this project, I just stared at the desk and smiled 
    like an idiot, and I may or may not have danced around the room. 

This project was my first painting project and I'm pretty sure it broke my fear messing things up, well not broke, but definitely softened it a little. I've been coming up with new projects constantly!  

Your turn, do you remember your first project? Were you scared or exhilarated, somewhere in between?

If you follow these steps and paint your own furniture, please post a photo or a link in the comments section. I would love to see them!    

It Started with a Plant

I love making jewelry and have been doing it for 11 years. My style has evolved with time and changes with my moods. I really truly enjoy exploring unique color combinations. I take my inspiration from everything I see, from nature, scrapbook paper, lining up nail polish bottles (which I'm obsessed with and might have a problem with) to checking out Pinterest. 

So, from time to time I'm going to show you where I get my inspiration for specific pieces of jewelry. Eventually, I'll leave the link for my soon-to-open Etsy shop, and if you're interested you can purchase the jewelry there.

For this bracelet I pretty much had two inspirations for it. Mainly one inspired the other which paved the way for the third, the bracelet. 

The first one was at the beginning of the summer I became obsessed with a lime and purple color combination for my annual pots. In this pot there are three plants, two Coleus and a Petunia. I did not save the Petunia tag, so I'm not sure what it's called, but Fishnet Stockings and Gays Delight are the Coleus. In the photo you can barely see the Fishnet Stockings, it's in the top right corner. If you're close to Fort Wayne, you can pick up all three plants from Stuckey's Greenhouse on Tyler.

This is the second one that helped play a part in the creation of the bracelet. I had just discovered the joy of scrapbook paper (I know, I'm super late to the party) and wanted to do something with the Pretty as a Peacock paper I had picked up at Michael's for 50% off. I decided to dust off my dormant craft skills and bust out the Mod Podge for a super fast and simple canvas wall art project for my daughter's bedroom, and purple is her favorite color right now. 

Both of these, the plants and the peacock with their gorgeous color combinations stuck in my head and I couldn't stop thinking about them. That's when my peacock bracelet was born. From the teal and lavender seed beads, and lime green drops to the iridescent tile like beads, and crystals which flash different colors in the light, I feel it's a good representation of a peacock's feathers.

Here is the bracelet again, can you see the idea behind it? 

The TV show I was watching while making this bracelet was Lost Girl.

How about you, is there any place you like to take your inspiration from? Is there a certain color combination you just can't get out of your head? Let me know in the comments section.

In the Trenches With a Preteen

This must be a week of writing about things that I wasn't planning on writing about. I never had any plans for writing about parenting, but sometimes you just have to. I have a daughter who is firmly in the grasp of the preteen bracket in her life, so for her things are stressful and responsibility has grown by leaps and bounds. Which leads me to knowing there is not much I can do besides help ease her load, and just be there for her while she is transitioning. Even when she doesn't want me to be there, especially when she doesn't want me.

The thing about this is, I remember her as a baby like it was yesterday.  My first niece was born a couple of days ago and you better believe my daughter and I have spent as much time with her as possible. My sister is 12 years younger than me and I took care of her a lot. I became extremely protective of her just like she was mine. I have a feeling my daughter is going to be the same way with her new cousin. I already feel that same protectiveness for my niece that I felt for her mom (and my own daughter).

So, yesterday my sister, daughter and I were hanging out in her hospital room and I was holding the baby when the nurse came in to collect blood from my niece. If I would have known what the nurse was actually going to do I might have had the nurse wait until my mom had came back and handed her off to grandma. See, 11 years ago when I had my own daughter all of the heal pricking tests were not done in front of me, which is exactly the way it should be. No new mother wants to see their baby hurt while they sit there and watch, trust me there is plenty of instances where that will happen later. In fact, in the preteen times it happens a lot.

Well, it came down to me to hold her while the nurse pricked her heal and squeezed the ever living crap out of my niece's foot. What was even more crappy was the way I had to hold her, which was her back to my chest. That is not a comforting way to hold a baby at all! She took it like a champ and only screamed when the nurse was actually squeezing, which was six (long) times. Seriously, it felt like she was squeezing her for hours! When she stopped each time, the baby quit crying. Man, that crying was not the pissed off crying of changing her diaper. It was the, I'm hurt cry, the one every mother in the world feels in their chest. The one you carry with you for a while.

You might not even have to be a mother to feel it because I looked over at my daughter and she was crying along with my sister. I was straight up horrified and slightly shocked. The only thing I could do was hold her close to my face with skin to skin contact and babel in her ear. While we are all standing there like, what the hell just happened?! My niece is like, sweet, it's over, I'm going back to sleep, like Nothing. Ever. Happened. I gave her back to my sister and had to get out of there. I think we spent 10 more minutes visiting and drove home in a shocked silence where my daughter actually fell asleep for a few minutes.

Having a new baby around I can't help think of how it was when my daughter was small and how easy it was. Don't get me wrong, it is NOT easy to a new mother, but trust me when you have a preteen you'll look back and remember when you could hold them and their hurt and pain went away. I feel like at this point in our lives I spend a lot of time just being there for her and making sure in whatever way possible that my daughter lets me in. A lot of times she gets mad at me for asking so many questions, but it's my job to stay relevant to her. When she is hurt and mad, even when it's at us, I give her some space to think, then go and talk with her. There are very few times now that I can hold her and make the hurt and pain go away, but I'll still try with everything I have.
   

I don't get to see this girls as much as I'd like to, the one who would try anything to make me laugh, but sometimes she comes out to play and all is right with the world.

Does this sound familiar to any of you parents out there? I'd really like to hear your take on it, and/or any advice for a first time mom of a preteen?

Spoon Pendants

For this blog I really wasn't planning on writing about other people's work, but I just love this lady's spoon pendants so much I think everyone should know about them!

That's Erin from Sunshyne Silverwear  with my daughter, at this year's All Good Music Festival. Erin is out of New York and you can find her hitting the craft and festival circuits. I had the opportunity to meet her at last year's All Good, where I picked up this beautiful necklace.

The moon on the top left of the pendant glows in the dark. I had a hard time picking just one. She also has a big selection of pressed flower pendants. And, if you know anything about me, you know I love flowers. 

Last year out daughter picked a necklace from another vendor and was bummed she couldn't get one. She talked about it all year! Well, when we found out we were going back this year the first thing out of both of our mouths was, "Spoon Pendants!" Yep, a new tradition was born. 

This fuchsia pendant is what I picked up this year. I was so excited because I totally wanted to buy it last year, but picked up the other one instead. I was incredibly lucky it was there. Apparently, it was meant to be mine!

There was another one that I had my eye on. I'm still thinking about this one because the colors in it match this bracelet. And come on it has a hummingbird on it, love!

My daughter picked out a soup spoon. Check out the moon on the top left of the pendant, it's a sun that glows in the dark, so at night it becomes the moon!

Erin is truly a nice and patient lady. I know lat year I talked with her for a while. Also, both years I've been at her both it's been over 90 degrees without a cloud in the sky. She was still there smiling and talking with customers. She even indulged my daughter by looking through many different pendants which were not out on display.

Her prices are great, the hummingbird pendant is $25. If that's too much, the spoon handle pendants are $15. The flattened one like the photo below is around $60. The filled spoon pendants come with cotton and lace cord which for me has held up just fine. There is really a price point for any budget. They are great for unique gifts. Oh and the best part, she gives discounts for spoons you send to her. Check it out here.

Here is our collection thus far, can't wait to add to it. Our pendants are a way of remembering our fun times at All Good Festival throughout the year.