Project: Paint What You See

One of my goals for spring cleaning this year is to use up a bunch of miscellaneous art supplies I have sitting around. I saw something like this (much larger and with three horses) at Ross and decided to make one for myself to use up a bunch of odds and end of paint. I didn’t use up as much paint as I would have liked but I did get to throw away a few empty tubes. My husband says I missed my calling in life, that I should have been an art forger. Well, I suppose it’s not too late. I wonder if there’s any money in it? Lol If you like drawing and painting, copying something you see that's expensive for yourself is fine, just remember not to try to sell it as it might be copyrighted!

Project: Make Your Own Art: Birds and Butterflies

Spring cleaning 2014 goals: use up art supplies that are sitting around and pretty up my patio.
I’ve always had an obsession with all things bird related: bird baths, bird houses, bird cages, little concrete birds, etc. It is a strange sickness for someone with a taste for modern art, so I rarely allow myself to purchase any decorative items in this genre; however, I couldn’t stop myself when I saw these little wooden birdcage cutouts at Michaels. It was a good way to use up some paint, a canvas board and a frame, and thankfully I have a screen porch that I can decorate in cutesy outdoor stuff for the moment. The butterfly was on clearance for $2, so I couldn’t pass it up either.

Staging: Make Your Own Art: Collage and Decoupage

One thing I have never been particularly good at is collage. I can't figure this out since I can paint or draw just about anything I can see, but when it comes to arranging pre-made images on a piece of poster board, my creative skills all fly out the window. However, for the longest time, I have been wanting something with a garden feel for my powder room, and I knew I wanted it to have that vintage collage feel. After an inordinate amount of planning--and much procrastinating time that was spent on making a super cool background--I finally took the plunge today and glued some birds and flowers onto my canvas. I think it turned out pretty well, but I also think that I must have flunked cutting and pasting in kindergarten.
Having said all that, making your own artwork is a great way to save money when staging or decorating your home. Often times, sellers need impersonal and large artwork to brighten a dark room. Canvases of all shapes and sizes can be purchases for next to nothing at Goodwill and other second hand stores. A coat of paint hides whatever is underneath. Sometimes stopping there with a light, pretty color does the trick. Other times, gluing on an image or making a collage creates the right vibe or story for a room. It's cheap, it's easy, and my clients often wind up creating something they love and use in their new homes.

Staging: Floral Decor On the Cheap

One thing that I like to use when staging empty houses is plants. Now of course you can't use real plants because no one is around to water them, but a really good fake plant can do a lot to cozy up a space. Of course home owners don't want to spend a lot of money on things they are going to leave behind and really real looking fake plants can cost a small fortune.
My solution to this conundrum is to make your own fake plants from things you find at the Dollar store. For example, I found a sprig of lovely fake orchids at my local Dollar Tree. The only problem with them was that the person who had designed this fake flower had obviously never looked closely at a real orchid. The flowers looked pretty real, but they were arranged in the standard six stem fake flower grouping, and they had way too many leaves and leaves half way up the stems. My solution was to bring the sprig home, cut off half of the stems and half of the leaves, to bend over one stem and hot glue the extra flowers onto it so that it looked like that bent over, heavily flowering stem that real orchids produce, and then to shove all of the remaining leaves to the bottom of the plant where they belonged. I then "planted" my new orchid in a pot of Spanish moss and tied it to a stick I found in my backyard because real orchids always seem to need to be tied up, and this is the sort of detail that makes a fake plant a really good fake vs. a cheap fake looking fake. The key here is simply to look at some real plants and then mimic them as closely as possible.

Plant, pot, and moss: $3 from the Dollar Tree



At Target: $20 on sale! (and my pot is way prettier)

Project: A "Fan" of Annie Sloan

If you need a quick fix for an old light fixture, cabinets, or just about anything, there is a great new-ish product on the market called Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. You can paint just about anything with it with little to no prep work. You will end up with a vintage look that might not appeal to everyone, but vintage trumps outdated ever time!
I also swapped out the original cut glass shades for white ones--a simple update for a fan that was inexpensive, fast, and didn't require an electrician!

Before: the brass and white combo looking out of date.

After: a clean looking fan with vintage appeal.

Project: One Man's Trash

One of the annoying things about living in south Louisiana is that there is no curb-side recycling for things like paper and plastic. On the flip side, you can get rid of basically any usable object that you no longer want without ever having to make a trip to Goodwill. You just wait until after the trash has come and then put out whatever it is you want to get rid of for the "pickers." I put things out on Saturday morning, and they are always gone by Sunday afternoon.

Last week, my neighbors put this little plastic patio table out for the pickers. Last week, the pickers were me! When I found it, the table was white, loose, and covered in mold, mildew, and Spanish moss. I brought it home, bleached it, pressured washed it, scrubbed a little with some steel wool, and then I painted it.

I went to Home Depot to buy a can of Rustoleum because of its magical properties that allow it to bond to anything--even plastic, only to discover that the color I wanted had been discontinued. I chose another color, came home, painted the table, hated it. Then I went to Michaels, where I found the exact color I wanted locked behind a glass door and not a single person willing to let me in. By the time I reached Hobby Lobby, I was in a foul but determined mood. I found the color I wanted, although it was in Krylon, and purchased it. I figured the first coat of Rustoleum would work as a magic primer. I gave the table a second coat of paint, and now I am loving it.

I love brown and aqua together for decorating. I need to remember to try it out in an outfit one of these days.

Color: White, It's A Challenge

This year I decided to take a decorator's challenge and paint a room a color that I swore I would never paint one. For me that color was white. When I first moved to this house, I painted my guest room green and loved it--except that it didn't look right with the carpet that I planned to replace. A year later and the carpet was still there and the green had lost its appeal for me. I know that decorators love white because it is versatile and photographers say that it photographs beautifully, but I found decorating a white room to be a challenge. The contrast between the white wall and other colors I tried to put in the room was too much for me, so I wound up adding lots of neutrals, other shades of white, and just a few bright bits to liven things up. In the end, I have to admit, I love the white room. So does Sarah. She was thrilled with the addition of a furry cream colored body pillow which has become her favorite napping spot.

In the white room, no black curtains, just a tired kitty.

Decorating: Use Cheap Frames!

Years ago, a decorator friend told me that people should move their art around at least once a year. Otherwise, they sort of forget what they have and start to take the pieces for granted. This is never a problem in my house. Right now, several of my own pieces, along with a few pieces of my furniture are on display at Southdown Plantation Museum. This gives me a great opportunity to try out different pieces in different places and to finally get to some projects that I have been putting off since we moved. I just finished reframing a piece by Laurie Ceesay titled Blue Bob and added it and another called Pele to Sarah's room. I should be ashamed to admit that these are $5 Walmart frames that I painted and sanded to add a vintage feel to the contemporary pieces, but I am not. I change the frames on my art as often as I change the pieces themselves, so paying frame shop prices is not an option for me. (Not to mention, it makes the art harder to swap out if it is professionally framed.)

Color: It's Time for Lime

Event Horizon

In one of life's odd little twists of fate that wind up making things interesting, over the years I have developed a taste for contemporary art but vintage decor--and then I went and married a man whose tastes are traditional, traditional, and beige. Decorating a house is a difficult task, but decorating it to suit two people with such opposing tastes can be downright snarly.

There was one thing I was certain of about our house in Houma before I ever set foot on the property. I wanted a green guest room. Ok, really I wanted a green bedroom, but I knew there was no way I would ever get John to go for it, so I had decided to live vicariously through the guest room. I painted the walls a color called Lemon Grass and hung up lace curtains first thing because these two things remind me of my grandmother's bedroom, and what could be more vintage than Grandma's house? I then proceeded to fill the room with my mom's collection of turquoise glass and my own collection of turquoise and white garden statues. In the end, the room looked great, but the walls were bare. Thus came to be Event Horizon. One thing about making your own art, you can always dream up a piece to suit any room. I think this one even feels a little "vintage" but still contemporary enough to comply with my one decorating rule: For a room to work, it must contain one thing that is totally incongruent to the rest of the room.

Of course, in the end, all of my careful planning and effort are upstaged by the most perfect accessory any room could ask for: a sleeping cat. I love how she centers herself exactly with the throw pillow.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, John hates the room. He says the green is too bright and looks like a color you would see in a hospital or mental institution. Good thing I chose that soft yellow for the master bedroom....

Project: What I Did Over Summer Vacation

The three weeks between Geography and Ethics were busy ones for me. The first week was spent shopping and touring some of Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes' beautiful historic sites with my best friend who came from Denver to sneak in a week of vacation before the heat and humidity got to be too much for her. I planted my garden, tweaked my class, and managed to complete this drawing which has been floating around in my head for some time now.

As usual, the background took months to develop and the drawing took minutes to complete. I love the aged and abused look this canvas ended up with. I never do well when rushed and have learned that it is just fine for a work to take months to evolve into its final state.

Just like this beautiful old schoolhouse at Laurel Valley Plantation--time often adds a patina to things that adds both richness and beauty

Project: Don't throw that away!

Before: Roadside rescue!

After a new leg and a coat of paint, it's just what I needed to set my iced tea on during a hot Southern summer porch sitting.

Project: Old Chair, New Tricks

After a little paint and fabric: A bright addition to my patio.

Before: Found at the side of the street.