artsy-crafty babe

Design Remix

One of my new favorite shows on HGTV is Design Remix. On this show they fix up a room by spending a ridiculously small amount of money combined with things that are found in and around the house. The show has inspired me. I have a table that I can't bear to part with. I love this table. It used to be our dining room table, but since my grandma gave me her old table I have no use for it. It is currently sitting in the corner of my bedroom covered in shit. I'm embarrased to reveal this to the internet, but here it is. Pretty disgusting, eh? Most of that crap is Matt's (hee hee). It has been my goal for months to get that damn thing out of our room, but we really don't have anywhere to put it. My original thought was to put on our non-existing patio to use as a picnic table. Holy moly, today I had a revelation! We're going to deface the table. The top is 5 planks wide (it was made from an old fence). We'll split the table into a 2 plank wide piece and a 3 plank wide piece. The narrower piece we'll turn into a bench by chopping off the legs and adding shorter ones. This will fit nicely on the back porch. Maybe now with a place to plant your butt people will take off their shoes as to not track dirt throughout my house. A girl can dream, right? The wider piece we'll make into a table to go along my blank wall in my living room. I'm quite pleased with myself for coming up with this plan. I think it will be a miracle if we actually execute it. Now that my idea is documented here, it will be interesting to see how long it takes us to do it, if we do it at all. I'm real good for ideas...it's the getting them done that I have a problem with.

Halter Dresses Done

Yay!!! I completed a project in a timely fashion, which is a rarity in my case. Voila, the Halter Dresses. The one on the left is for my niece and the smaller one is for my Lily (yes, hers is back side up). I know that Lily's fits her, but I'm not so sure about my niece's. At first I thought it was too big, then I sewed a generous seam allowance, so now I think it's too small. Oops. Hopefully it'll work out. This is their vacation dresses. We're leaving for the beach this weekend. I'll be sure to get a picture of both girls in their dresses on the beach. So cute it's sickening!

Tangible Pleasures

In Daring to Be Yourself Alexandra Stoddard recommends keeping a style journal to discover those things that make up your own personal style. One of the exercises is to list 10 things that you can do today to bring yourself pleasure. Here is my list:

1. Finish the two paintings that I've started.
2. Organize my bedroom and paint the walls.
3. Spend an afternoon making jewelry.
4. Spend the day at the salon getting a new haircut, facial, manicure, and pedicure while enjoying a few glasses of wine. I never take them up on the offer, though I secretly would like a glass of wine.
5. Go out to dinner with Matt ALONE.
6. Take a nap with the kids on a lazy afternoon.
7. Take a private yoga or pilates class.
8. Set up my sewing room. I long to organize and fondle the yards and yards of fabric I have stashed in bags and boxes.
9. Spend an afternoon strolling through the Garden District of New Orleans.
10. Watch a movie in bed with Matt.

I opted not to do my evening cup of coffee tonight so that I could write in my style journal and hit the sack early. Sleep, a tangible pleasure.

Fitting it all in

I have accepted the fact that I am a creative person. I need to be creative like I need to breathe. If I don’t get to do something creative then I get very grumpy, much to my family’s dismay. Lately I’ve been reading books about self expression. I’m currently reading Daring to Be Yourself by Alexandra Stoddard. I find her writing not only insightful, but calm and soothing. The only problem is that I am realizing more and more how much I want to change my life. Mostly my work situation. If we were independently wealthy (or even slightly debt free) I’d like to not work at all, but that isn’t going to happen. I really need to suck it up, enjoy what I have, and make time to do the things that make me happy. I did that tonight. I worked on those two dresses that I’ve mentioned here. It took drinking a cup of coffee at 7 pm, but I was able to stay up to sew all but the hem on one dress and get mostly done with the other. And that was only with an hour’s worth of work. I plan to do the same tomorrow night. Who needs sleep when you’ve got coffee and ME time?

bye-bye weekend

I am sorry to report that I didn't get to complete any new and exciting projects this weekend. I did cut out two dresses for the girls, but that was as far as I got. What I did accomplish was some de-cluttering and cleaning. It was much needed. I am appalled at how easily we trash the house. We’re freaking animals! By the end of the weekend you would have never known that I had blisters on my hands from all the cleaning. At least my floors were sparkling clean for a few moments.

Since nothing new was accomplished, I decided to share a past project. I made these little felt purses, um totes, for the kids in my family for Easter. They went together fairly easily, though I don't think I'll be making them again. I think I had more fun picking out all the colored felt than I did actually making them. Of course the store bought felt purses that my sister-in-law bought the girls made mine look like crap. If only I had used pinking shears.

Friday night sewing

It was my plan to start a sewing project tonight, but 2 glasses of cabernet got the better of me. I don't think it's wise to start sewing at the moment. Perhaps in the morning.

The project I want to work on is making a halter dress for my daughter and my niece. I know it's corney, but I think it will be cute for them to match. These are supposed to be 1 hour dresses. That should equate to about 3 hours my time. If I get their dresses made then I'll sew up a skirt that I cut out for myself about 3 months ago. I'm a little slow.

As if I don't have enough projects going on at the moment, I found a design that I'd like to paint on my kitchen rug. The rug is a dingy jute rug with a faded green canvas border. It looks like crap. My plan has always been to paint the canvas border because it's so disgusting looking at the moment. I came across a project to paint a faux rug on concrete that sported a rooster in the center of the design. Since I love roosters and have quite a few in my kitchen I decided that I should paint that big cock on the center of my rug. Good idea, right? Perhaps in about 10 years I'll get around to painting my own rooster rug. BTW, I'm pretty sure I'll paint mine sans the swirls and 'Bienvenue'.

My very own blog

Hmmm, what to write? It doesn't really matter because I'm sure that no one other than myself will be reading this. When I read other people's blogs their lives seem so interesting. They probably aren't, but they sure seem that way. I'll just flat out say that my life isn't interesting. Well, my kids do make things interesting, but that's about it. Perhaps if I only include the most colorful events of the day it will make things seem more interesting than they really are. We'll see...