Life is Art...

Sitting down and putting together a blog post has been exceptionally difficult for me lately and I can't quite put my finger on why because the boys are still being boys, the wiener dogs are still being wiener dogs and I still have a million thoughts running through my mind at any given time.  


Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I've still been making over furniture like a mad woman with a paint brush and a piece of sandpaper in hand or maybe it's simply because I have become too hard on myself.  I'll think of writing something and then I'm all, "no, you don't want to write about that...that's boring! Who would want to read that?"


I really must learn to silence that inner critic.  Easier said than done, right?


Devin is taking an art class as an elective this year in his first year of middle school (which by the way, is going very well so far, thank the good Lord!) and I could not be more pleased with his choice because he has never shown much interest in anything much other than sports and video games.


I  always wanted to be a good artist when I was younger but back then I simply defined an "artist" as someone who could draw well and as much time and effort as I put into it, it just never came easy for me so I eventually gave up trying.  Instead I focused on other things, like learning to play clarinet, twirl a flag, apply my makeup, accessorize with the best of them, or style my big ol' 80's hairdo to perfection.  


Yet I never saw those things as art.  I never saw my ability to put together cute little outfits or my ability to pick up on reading music and learning to play an instrument with ease as art.  I couldn't draw worth a flip so I wasn't an artist.  


But lately, I am beginning to see and understand that the definition of  "artist" is made up of so much more...


I shared the following words that I found at pinterest in my post on Monday...
I


I believe everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk. Your smile and your personality.  What you believe in, and all your dreams. The way you drink your tea. How you decorate your home. Or party. Your grocery list. The food you make. How your writing looks. And the way you feel.  Life is art. 



I have no idea who those words belong to but when I first read them, I had sort of an Aha moment because there is so much truth in them.  Whatever you do that makes you feel the best...the most alive, whether it be working in your garden, teaching, taking pictures, cooking, writing, or painting a piece of furniture, is most likely coming from the artist within your soul and is one of your true gifts from God.  


So please, by all means, do more of that because (from the brilliant words of Howard Thurman) "what the world needs is people who have come alive"...

Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.  ~Amy Lowell

Let's Paint!

The first day back to school yesterday went pretty smoothly other than the fact that Devin didn't really get any of his close friends in his classes and had rather drop dead than ride that bus with those older high school kids again.  His words: "I don't know...they were just wild and dropping the F bomb all over the place."  


Okay, okay, that was enough for me to hear.  The mornings aren't so bad with the time difference between middle and elementary schools but in the afternoon I will have a good 35 to 40 minutes after picking up Dray before getting Devin and the schools are very close and it's too far to come back home.  So looks like we'll be doing our 3rd grade reading in the car while we wait in the afternoons.   


Dracen set his alarm this morning for 6:00 and had taken a shower and was dressed and wanting breakfast by the time I got up.  You go on with your little bad 8 year old self, Dray Dray!  If this is any indication as to how our school year is going to go then I'm gonna be one happy mama.  (fingers crossed) 


In other news, I have been painting on some furniture around here like a crazy person.  It's like I was bitten by the furniture painting bug and now I have this crazy itch to constantly be making something over. I'm finding it extremely rewarding to take a a tired and worn or plain and boring piece and turn it into something I love to look at.  


This little cabinet has been in Dracen's room as a little nightstand. I believe it belonged to Charlie's grandmother and had obviously seen its better days years ago...

After painting his room last week it was really standing out as an eye sore and I had a burning itch to paint something so I took that tired old hardware off, sanded it a little, primed and painted it with some of the leftover paint I had used in Devin's room.  But of course it looked lighter over the white primer which I actually liked.  Then I freshened her (or maybe it's a him) up with a new little glass knob and spray painted the hinges with oil rubbed bronze spray paint.  Much better, I think... (and no, his whole room is not that dark...just the one wall!)

 My mother had given Charlie and me this little cabinet as a wedding gift because we had such an overflow in the kitchen at our old house.  My kitchen here is mostly white with red and black accents and I just kept seeing this cabinet black every time I looked at it...

And I know  you can't see the whole kitchen but it really goes so much better...

The following table belonged to my grandmother who died when I was four and it has been at my mother's house all these years.  It had been painted brown at one point in its life and was looking pretty sad...

Those before shots were taken in April of 2010 because that's about when I got it from my mom's garage and started trying to strip the paint.  At the time I had never painted, stained, stripped or even so much as thought about making over a piece of furniture.  I (with Charlie's help) ended up getting all the paint off the top but finally gave up on the legs and it has been sitting in the basement all this time collecting spider webs that Charlie was so kind to clean off for me before I would touch it with a ten foot pole.


I had originally thought I'd just stain the wood but that was before I found all these great do-it-yourself blogs by some amazingingly talented women and discovered Annie Sloan chalk paint which was designed specifically for painting furniture and giving it that old antique and/or distressed look.  You don't even have to sand or prime first...just start painting.  


There are really only a handful of stockist in the U.S. who sell it so I found one on the east coast and ordered a little starter kit which came with the old white paint, two waxes, a brush and a book by Annie Sloan.   


I'm so in love with this paint and how this table turned out that I ordered more in 3 other colors to use on my next victims projects around here.


She is currently residing in my bedroom...

And I can't stop looking at her...


Y'all have a great weekend!


  

Slow down, you're going too fast!

Why does painting a room always end up taking way longer than I anticipate?  I spent the majority of my day, until 11:00 last night, painting Dracen's room...three walls "cosmic blue" and one wall "midnight hour", which is basically black.  He picked the colors and while I think we may be slightly off from the Duke blue he was aiming for, what's done is done and he seems pleased with it anyway.   


I should have learned my lesson after painting that bathroom red last year but somehow a full gallon of blue paint seemed like more than enough to paint three walls.  Nope.  No matter how hard I tried to squeeze every last drop out, I had to stop after one coat, throw some presentable clothes and a ball cap on and make a run for Lowe's.  Those dark colors get me every time.  


Next up is Devin's room but I think it will have to wait until tomorrow because the house is upside down, there's laundry to be done and the floors need cleaning in a bad way.  And it's looking like that no good stinking housecleaning fairy skipped my house again today.  The witch.  


And plus, Dracen is getting antsy about his school supplies.  We bought a new book bag the other day and now he wants his supplies to go in it which means I must endure the joys of the wonderful world of Wal-mart today too.  


School starts back here next Thursday and I know at least three of us who are gonna be out of sorts for a week or two.  We've gotten into the bad habit of sleeping in every morning (boys aren't up as I type this at 10:30 a.m.) and then the elementary school went and pulled that evil stunt of starting us at 7:35 this year.  Morning people really grate on my nerves.  


Devin is starting middle school which makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry if I spend too much time thinking about.  It seems like yesterday that I came home after dropping him off for his first day of second grade, feeling compelled to write a poem because he didn't want me to walk him in and as he got out of the car he told his little brother he'd miss him.  


Now his little brother is starting third grade and he's going to middle school, never to be in the same school together again since they are four years/grades apart. Where's the pause button?  This ride is going a little too fast for my taste.  


But oh what a good ride it is...

"Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can."  ~Danny Kaye

Another Paint Makeover and a Little R & R

We have been living in our house for well over a year now, since April 2010, and this weekend I finally got around to doing something about that brass light fixture in the entryway.  I replaced the brass ones (I loathe brass) over the kitchen table and dining room table quite awhile back and thought I would replace this one next...

But then I discovered spray paint and thought "why the heck not?...can't make it any worse!"   So Charlie took it down for me and after taking it apart, I painted that sucker with Rustoleum bronze spray paint...

  
Now it matches the one I bought for the dining room...Yay for a cheap and semi-easy fix!  

Now I'm ready to tackle all the brass door knobs and ceiling fans in the house!  But they will have to wait until we return from our little getaway because tomorrow morning Charlie and I are hopping on a plane and heading to a cottage on the coast of Maine for four nights, sans kids...  

I've never been there but it sure looks nice and is bound to be cooler than it is here.  I can't ever recall a summer of having this many consecutive days with temps. in the 90's.  I checked the forecast where we're going and the highest temp predicted for the entire time is 76.  Sweet.  


Y'all have a great week! :) 

Paint is my friend...

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that you can spray paint/paint just about anything that will stand still and now I'm like an addict, constantly seeking out my next victim around the house.  Charlie joked the other night and said he wasn't going to sit still too long for fear I'd try and paint him. Hmm...maybe we'll try that for Halloween. 


I started small with some picture frames, candlesticks, lamp bases... Then I got brave enough to tackle a piece of furniture after pouring through some amazingly talented ladies' blogs that I have added to my blogroll.  Check them out if you want some inspiration.  But be warned, it is addictive!  


Last Saturday I got it in my head that I was gonna paint that old  brown wooden bench in the kitchen I found at a thrift store last year.  Many of the blogs I read said spray paint was best while others prefer brush painting.  I decided I'd start out with spray paint.


If I had that one to do over though I probably would have gone with brush painting, mainly because I ended up going for the distressed look and it was over 100 degrees outside and spray paint can't be used in the house.  


I moved the car out of the garage, put down my drop cloth and got busy sweating it out with the sandpaper and primer.  I think I took about a hundred and two breaks, coming in the house, turning the ceiling fan in the bedroom wide open and crashing on the bed for about 15 minutes, allowing my sweat to dry out before heading back out into the sauna.


While I really had no clue how to properly go about distressing a piece of furniture, I decided about halfway through that this bench needed that look so while the paint was still tacky, I hit it up here and there with the sanding block. And all in all, I think it turned out pretty good for my first time (and sorry, but I was so anxious to get started that I forgot to take a before shot)...

This clock tower pillow I found at TJMaxx.  It made me think of the clock tower in the town I grew up in, Rome Georgia...

These are pillow covers I found at Bed, Bath and Beyond and put some old ratty pillows from the bonus room in them...

I was so happy with the bench, that I couldn't wait to get started on my old childhood dresser I brought home from my mom's house several months ago.  And again, I got ahead of myself and remembered that I had not taken the before shot until after I started disassembling it but this gives you an idea what it looked like...

I planned on putting it in the entryway since it still remained barren. I debated on whether or not to brush or spray paint and finally decided that since I had so much of that aqua smoke paint left over from my bedroom that I'd just go with that.  I did a little light sanding, then applied two coats of primer and then two coats of the aqua smoke the next day.  After another 24 hours, I applied a polyacrylic to protect the paint job.  What do you think? 

That lamp also got a makeover.  I scored it yesterday for seven bucks at the thrift store.  This is what it looked like before...

  
And this is what looks like after a couple of coats of Krylon spray paint in brushed metallic nickel and a new shade I picked up at Hobby Lobby for 50 percent off....

These candlesticks were given to me by a dear friend for Christmas several years ago and I gave them a new look with some white spray paint.  Hope you don't mind, Michelle!  

I plan to move this picture to another place and hang the perfect mirror here...once I find it, that is!  This frame was a wedding gift from some friends and those notes were written to us at our reception.  We asked that everyone write a little something to us and put it in a box.  These are only the ones from our parents.  I still need to do something with all the others.  They are priceless to me...

 And that's it!  Now I must go find my next paint victim...

Being Still a Minute...

This poor little blog has been seriously neglected for the past week and a half but what with the four day beach trip last week and my newly discovered love for painting old furniture and trying to keep from having a heat stroke in this 100 degree heat we've been having, I just haven't taken the time to sit down here and be still a minute...


Saturday I painted and distressed a wooden bench in my kitchen that I scored at a thrift store last year and I could not be happier with how it turned out.  So now I've moved on to painting my old childhood dresser that came home with me from my mom's house several months ago and has been taking up residence in my master bathroom.


I promise to show y'all some pics later in the week but today I thought I'd just stop in here a minute and share some awesome quotes I've pinned onto my wonderful words board over at Pinterest...

Y'all have  great day!   

Around the House

I decided to tackle the trimming of the five hundred and thirty two shrubs around my house on Friday.  When it was a humid 90 degrees outside.  Why do I do these things?    


Okay, so it's probably really more like 32 instead of five hundred and 32 but still, that is an awful lot of dang bushes, wouldn't you agree?  And most of them have stickers on them.  Or angry wasps and yellow jackets living in them which is why I didn't completely finish the ones in the front.  


Overgrown scraggly shrubs? or Several painful stings to the flesh?  I'll go with door number one, thank you very much.  


And I still haven't cleaned up all the mess I clipped off because I was slap tuckered out so I mosied out there in the boiling heat and humidity on Saturday, loaded up my little yard wagon, broke into a full on sticky sweat, put down my gloves and came back inside with my laptop and sweet tea.  


The verdict is still out as to whether I will attempt to venture out there today.  Or ever again.  But I have been known to surprise myself on occasion so we shall see.  


My current obsession is my master bedroom that I finally painted a week ago.  I'm working my way through painting every room in this house and so far all that's left are the boys' rooms, the bonus room/bedroom upstairs and my master bath which is waiting for a complete remodel because the people who built the house didn't feel a tub was necessary in there.  


They didn't have two male offspring running amok either.  


I tried to show y'all a pic of my new bedroom wall color, Aqua Smoke, on the one little post I managed to muster up all of last week but Blogger was being a pain in the sticker bush and would not, in any way, shape, form, or fashion, allow me to do so.  So here it is...

I am in no way done in there so I can't show you the whole room just yet but I scored the most adorable little peacock lamp at Stein Mart one day last week and was just tickled pink aqua smoke over it! 


Never saw myself with a peacock lamp but this little number just kept calling to me from across the store,  "Me! Me!  Pick Me!"  


Or maybe it was the heat going to my head.  


Either way, I am now the proud owner of this glorious peacock lamp...

 Happy Monday, Y'all!  

In the name of paint

We are now on day 3 of no school.  The sun is finally shining today but not supposed to get out of the mid 30s.  I see a lot of makeup days in the demolition duo's future. 

When I told Devin yesterday afternoon that school had been called off again for today, he actually said, Nooo!  I think he fears Saturday school and the loss of Spring Break.  Because I can guarantee you he is not missing long division with decimals or the school lunch menu. 

I have to admit, the sleeping in is nice, especially this morning since I wore myself slap out yesterday by painting the foyer and hallway.  That doesn't sound like a big job, does out?  Oh, I think I'll slap this paint I bought on the foyer and hallway!  I finally finished around 8 last night.  

I am so happy to report that the pale yellow that covered the walls in the living room, sunroom, hall and foyer when we moved into this house last April have all now been replaced with veridian green, fudgecicle, gold coin and caraway seed.  

Don't you just love the names they come up with for paint colors?  I always think I have a somewhat pretty good idea of what color I'm looking for when I walk into the paint section at Lowe's and every. single.time. I become overwhelmed once I'm face to face with all those countless shades with their big fancy names. 

Don't laugh.  But when I find myself down to 2 or 3 shades that I can't make up my mind about, I will finally choose the one whose name I like the best.  I'm silly like that.

I'm sure I'm looking silly again right about now too because y'all remember the fever blisters I told you about that popped up on my lips on New Year's Eve that I treated with my google-found remedy of tootpaste and salt?  They came back yesterday! In the exact same places. WTH?!  That never happens.

Except that it does because they did and now I'm walking around with a nasty salty white paste on my lips.  AGAIN! And I didn't touch the pistachios with a ten foot pole after I read that they trigger them so what.is.up?  Luckily, they are not as bad this time around and I've been fiercely attacking them with the lysine pills and the paste concoction since yesterday morning. 

Ugh!

Now I must go put the smackdown on that mountain of laundry before it starts thinking it deserves its own fancy name too.  Mount Clothesmore?  I think not. 

Oh, here's a pic of the curtains I've ordered for my dining room I painted that awesome shade of Gold Coin over the weekend.  It was love at first sight...

Snow Day

Well, the one week back to our normal routine was kinda nice while it lasted.  Now there is snow in the South again which means no school.  And judging by the forecast, this stuff is gonna stay on the ground for a few days. 

And I didn't leave the house all weekend long because I was head deep in housework and  paint so I now fear that there will be cabin fever in my very near future since I now can't leave the house.

I painted the dining room a lovely warm shade of gold that I am absolutely in love with.  It is the exact color I was shooting for a few years back in the hallway at my old house that instead appeared to have a very nauseating orange hue once it was on the walls.

The Dracenator was a toddler when I painted it and apparently did not find it appealing either because a couple of weeks after I painted it, he took a black Sharpie to it.  It stayed that way for about 3 years before I finally repainted it. 

When he was in kindergarten a couple of years ago, his teacher informed me that hairspray will take Sharpie marks off and to my surprise, it does work most of the time.  Thank God we have outgrown the marking on walls and furniture phases around here. 

We have not, however, outgrown the stage of running our dirty, grubby little monkey paws down every wall we pass which is why I must now paint the hallway here.  Oh, I was planning on painting it anyway because it and the foyer are still the pale yellow that covered a big majority of the walls in this house. 

Not a nauseating color but not my taste either.  I have the paint but whether I will embark on another painting adventure today or not remains to be determined.  But if I was a betting woman, I would go with no since it is now after 11 and I have yet to run a comb through my hair. 

Something about snow on the ground and still falling from the sky gives me a sense of entitled laziness which is why I must go enjoy it while it lasts.  I give it about 3 more hours before the cabin fever kicks in...