a refresh

You may recall the infamous blue chair that I talked about in a previous post. I can't find the post, so I'll just summarize. My mom and I dragged it out of the trash, after having earlier discovered it at a yard sale. We offered a price, the sellers refused, we said forgettt that. Imagine our surprise to find it on the side of the road later! They should have taken our money while they could! Anyways, it was in awesome condition those many years ago when we got it, but has since gone downhill. I'm in the process of reupholstering it. It's a nightmare. What was I thinking.

Anyways...a few years ago when I was visiting my parents in Virginia, my mom and I went to an antique store and stumbled upon this gem. It's a GIANT print of a painting of a 70's style girl and her cats. It's titled "Harlequin with Kitten".

When we asked the worker how much it was, he looked at us like we were out of our minds and said "take it!"
Yay! More free goodies!
The other night I decided a nice coat of black paint along the frame would freshen it up. I don't know why it took me so long. The frame has always looked so stained and gross. I imagine some bozo was eating his greasy pizza over it.

And...ta-da! All better! And now it matches my other black frames.

DIY Funky Frames

Every now and then, I try to remember to take time to tackle crafty projects that don't have to do with my Etsy business. While I love painting figurines and making illustrations, I think it's good to take some time to create something new and different. Exercise that creativity muscle. Relaxing and stress free. No deadlines, no trying to fit into someone's custom vision, no worrying if a stray cat hair made it into the project.
I picked up two frames from Goodwill months ago. They've been sitting around collecting dust mostly. I kept meaning to go to Lowe's to pick up some spray paint to paint them a bright cheerful color. But I've been lazy. Partly due to the fact that I knew I'd be spray painting outside, and the weather has been less than great. I didn't want any rainstorm/monsoons ruining my crafty project.
So last night, I took it upon myself to just use acrylic paint, and I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out!

The first frame I painted a bright aqua. I picked it up from Goodwill for a dollar. It's not vintage, but it has the look of vintage and that's good enough for this girl. (pardon all the poorly lit cell phone photos)




The second frame is actually an oval mirror. I picked it up for $5. This one is definitely old. There's a label on the back that says Syroco Wood, which I googled and found a bunch of people selling various Syroco framed mirrors for $20 and up. (I win!)
I originally started painting this frame aqua too. I couldn't figure out what color would look best, so I thought if I painted it ANY color, I would get inspired. Halfway through, I realized a nice bright minty color would look awesome.



I sealed it with an acrylic gloss and hung it on the wall. Ta-da! I can't wait to hunt down some more frames. I'd like to dedicate a whole section of wall to brightly colored frilly ornate frames.

A fisherman's birthday

If there's ever a birthday to remember, it's my Pop-Pop's. His just so happens to be on 9/11. Every year I make or buy him something having to do with fishing or history, or both. This year I made him a card in the shape of the fish we most often fished for out on his boat. Fluke. You know, that ugly flat fish with it's eyes on one side of it's body.

I sandwiched together two fish-shaped pieces of card stock with a pink piece in the middle. Then I cut the fish open like I was "filleting" it. A few hand drawn bones on the inside and a happy birthday note to follow. Made sure to mention that "this card is a keeper".

a quick DIY butterfly wreath

In honor of Spring and my nana's love for butterflies (she passed away on Monday..), I made a quick butterfly wreath for my front door.
I took a medium-sized grapevine wreath and attached feather butterflies with hot glue all around. I love hot glue! It makes everything easier. My total cost was $9 ($5 for the pack of butterflies and $3 for the wreath) and the project only took me about a half hour at most to finish.
I bought all of my supplies at Michael's craft store. They have a lot of butterflies in all different colors and styles to choose from too! It was really hard deciding on a color theme. I considered making multiple wreaths in different colors. Do I sense a new gift idea possibility??? Mother's Day is just around the corner after all!




p.s. don't you just love how my pukey olive green apartment door matches my wreath? It was meant to be!

Paper Flower Template/Tutorial

Where I work, we acquire a lot of scrap paper. I thought a great "eco-friendly" thing to do with some of it and to also pretty up my desk area a bit was to make some paper flowers.
The flowers are three layers of paper - the large flower, then the small flower, then the circle. Any colorful paper will do. I used glue dots to stick them together, but tape or another glue would work too. Glue dots are just so easy!
Then I slightly folded the small flower's petals up a little to give it a little dimension.
Really simple, but fun to make. And just in time for Spring!



Click on the template to enlarge the image, then print it out, cut out the shapes and trace them on any scraps of paper you can find and you're all set!

updates for the new year!

Well a million things have happened since my last post. I wanted to dedicate an entire clutter-free post to my first craft show experience, but I still have yet to go through and organize the photos. So that can be for next time.

For Christmas, I tried to make most of my gifts this year. I think it went pretty well. I always feel a little funny giving people things I've made. I don't know why.
For the men in the family, who are terribly impossible to shop for, I made some mixed nut concoctions. They were SO good and really easy to make with basic ingredients like brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc etc. And look how pretty they pack up!




I also found time to bake some cookies. I made some cinnamon chocolate cookies. They tasted AWESOME right from the oven because they had a chewy inside and a crunchy outside. The best. They're kind of all crunchy now, but the flavor is still tasty.



For my nana I drew a caricature picture of her. I also drew one of my mom but I forgot to take a picture of it. She mentioned she'd blog about it, so I'll link to it when she does.



My sister and my friend Yesenia got these little trinket boxes that I painted and attached all kinds of clay goodies on top of. The first picture is the one for my sister and the second for my friend.




Thankfully the holidays are all over and done with and now I can get back to work! I have a mountain of things I'd like to list and another mountain of things I'm in the middle of working on. And lest we not forget I have a mountain of sketches I'd like to turn into finished pieces. One of these days I'll get prints made. I finally ordered some more printer ink, so maybe that's not too far off!