Hairy Caterpillar

Hairy caterpiller Based on photo challenge at about.com
Medium: Acrylic on gesso board
Size: 8 x 10

Free style abstract painting

In order to take a break from the sunflower field painting I have been working on, I asked my friend M from work if she wanted anything painted.

She gave me this painting she found online.

Now I have to say, M's taste in art is way different than mine. She calls it weird. I would call it eclectic. But this one just threw me off! It looked like something I used to paint as a child!

When I checked out the website for more details, I learnt that these apparantly sell for over150 pounds in UK, and the artist Natalie Rymer, is famous enough for publishers to ask her to make prints of her work!!!!!!!!  :-O

I decided to give it a try. Ofcourse, I changed it a bit. I have a problem having the leaves go in weird directions. And I did not care for the leaves on the mug.

I love how putting a little bit of yellow under the leaves ad flowers on the mug, make them pop!

I loved how easy and freeing this process was. So I made a second one with a dark background.

Which I hated. Hated the backgroud. Hated the process of painting on dark background as my acrylics are very translucent and I had to paint each leaf and sprig in either white or gesso first before I could paint it! Aaaggggrrrrhh!!!

But then I went back over on the background with black and purple.. and now I think it is tolerable!

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What do you think?

Painted Backsplash

I recently finished painting my living room and kitchen some cheerful shades of yellow

please ignore the chaos of the henna ceremony and my face where I look like I am trying to catch some Zs sitting up!

This was right before our wedding in October..

and long months of gray weather that have followed it!

 

 

This was the Saturday after the blizzard on Feb 8, 2013. Can you see the waist high mounds of snow that I shoveled. You can only see half of the tree!!

I recently came across this post by 'Sawdust & Embryos' who painted their own back splash and are also doing it professionally!
And now, I can't get it out of my head. I even messaged Jiti yesterday telling him that we are doing this in our house! And he already has his pick!

I would personally like some shades of blue in it to soften the yellow walls and red shades of the cornfield floors, and to tie in the blue counter tops we are stuck with at least for now.

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I think its that time of the year, when I start to get impatient with the weather and looking forward to sunny warm days when I can get my projects and the garden started. 

We are expected to have still MORE SNOW!!!! But lucky for me I will be in CA with J and B for the next 3 weeks!! Yey!!!

Dresser to TV stand

Finally, I finished re-finishing my dresser 2.2. And it came out fabulous.

If you remember, this is where it was. Waiting its turn in the dusty basement while my chairs got sanded.

But now it was his turn. I started with my handy-dandy sander and sanded the whole thing down.

I had my vision! Dark stained top with the rest painted in a color that would look great against either the gray or the yellow walls in my house that I have recently painted.

I did the first coat of the stain on top and it started looking streaky. Given my experience with my sewing machine table, I knew that, those weren't just going away. The stubborn shellack or whatever it was from before, was not completely removed with the sander alone.

So, I went back to my trusty resource, "Google", and landed upon my best discovery of the season.

CitriStrip!

Why?
1. It smells great.
2. It can be used indoors and you won't faint from it.
3. It is environmentally safe.
4. It actually works well. I was able to get the whole top stripped in about 2 hrs tops. It actually starts to work while you are applying it to the other parts of the project.
5. It is available at Home Depot which is at a walkable distance from my home.




Then I used Minwax water based stain (again, environmentally safe, quick work time and easy clean up) in Onyx, and did about 3 coats.

The top had original imperfections. But that's what makes it even better.





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I finished the top with  3 coats of water based Polycrylic.
Environmentally safe, quick work time and easy clean up. I guess you guys are getting my basic strategy, right?

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After the polycrylic was completely dried for about 48 hours, I started working on the rest of the dresser, which was a little easier because I was going to paint it, and finally going to give spray painting a try. On my last visit to Home Depot I had stumbled upon the beautiful Rust-Oleum Pearl Mist spray.

I sanded the drawer fronts and the dresser sides down lightly. I gave a whirl of the Pearl Mist spray to one drawer front. But it was very opaque and started looking almost sad gray.

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So I decided to do a base coat of white using a few coats of Behr semigloss white paint that I had leftover from my kitchen cabinet paint job.

After doing the first coat I gave the Pearl mist another try and realized that there were too many imperfections in the surface for the beautiful pearly color to look good.
So, I filled as many of them as possible with wood putty. Let it dry for a few hours and sanded it down.

Gave another of white to the entire dresser and started with the spray paint, only to realize I was not afraid of spray paint for nothing. Even with the new easy spray handle of the Pearl mist spray, it was going on blotchy, and at $7.5/bottle, I was not going to buy beyond the two I had already purchased. So I decided to keep the back just white. Spray painted the rest of the dresser as evenly as I could.

And, I have to say, I like it. The white base coat gives it the color I want and the unevenness of the pearly shimmer makes it look great!

Ofcourse, some mushroom knobs and a quick cleanup of the existing hardware with vinegar + hot water soaking completed the look.

Then I drilled hole to the back side of the center-middle drawer and a coordinating hole on the back side. That is where all the wired things go with cables coming out neatly on the back.

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I love it against my sunny yellow nook, along side my thrift store finds filled with colorful Christmas ornaments and my beautiful antique mirror!

Mirror mirror on the wall...

Yesterday was a very good furniture hunting day! I picked up 3 mirrors and a small square wood and leather top folding table for $20. I wasn't sure when I decided to go see the mirrors, what condition they were in.. in fact, from the Craig's list picture, one of the mirrors looked like the cheap gloden color aluminum framed mirrors..

But the curvy frame of the leftmost mirror had caught my eye. So I decided to go anyways. Also, it was not very far from my place, and I thought, $20 might not be too bad for the two wooden ones, and I can always donate off the ugly one.

As it turns out, they are not as small as they look in the picture, and the golden one is actually yellowish wood with a small shelf that can be installed underneath.

The table is in pretty good condition as well, and very very interesting in terms of its folding legs.

The smaller wooden colored mirror is also pretty nice.

And of course, the curvy one has to be my favorite. It is in a very very good condition with not even nicks or marks on it. the bottom design is in a pretty good shape as well..

I was trying to find out how much these mirrors are worth, and look what I found on ebay..
"MAHOGANY DREXEL BEDROOM DESIGNER MIRROR CHIPPENDALE" ... $350!!

Fabulous thrift store vases!

For some reason I got super inspired and went to a local Goodwill store 10 minutes before they closed.
The goal, find great looking decorations for the soon to be completed dresser 2.1 which will be the new TV table.

I wasn't very hopeful, but when I saw these vases, I got so excited, I had to run to the next door bank to get cash.

At over a foot tall, these look awesome after cleaning. And the bonus, the little France made crystal vase I found for $3!

"Let there be lawn", she said.

Well, "she", as in I, said that a few weeks ago. The ugliness of my front yard, or should I say a place where wood chipper threw up, was becoming even more apparent now as the neighbor's lawn are all nice and green after the April and May showers! Well, it was a patch that should have had lawn, as all of the other 5 neighbors have it. And this being a condo, I do not know why we were the only people with the whole patch covered in ugly wood chips!

It was looking so ugly, that I guess, I didn't even bother to take any long shots of it.

When J was here 2 weeks ago week, it was decided that we should ask the condo sectretory that I would like to have a lawn too.. And he agreed, however, the outside maintenance guy told me that he will not be able to get to it any time soon.

I asked him again last weekend, and he told me that he won't get to it for atleast next two weeks... and he was planning on putting down grass seed and I was supposed to make it sprout by watering it! So, anyone who knows about my green thumb, or lack thereof, would know how sure I was that at this rate, I will not have any lawn this year!

Finally, this morning, after having to fish out some animal's poop from Bella's mouth, (something keeps on digging in my front yard and leaving me special gifts for busy mornings!), I decided to do it myself!

So I borrowed my neighbor's rake, and raked off the wood chips...

So much improvement already, don't you think?

 Then, a little later in the afternoon, it came to me... rolled grass! I had seen it on a TV show and noticed it a few weeks ago in Homedepot. But it was not in the store that is close to me, but it was at a farther one! Who cares? I was all geared up. I measured my yard.. 20ft x 8.5ft, then called the store for price! As it turn out, it is not called "rolled lawn", its called "sod". And it was under $5 for a 5ft x 2ft section! Not bad, huh?

The only problem was, there was no way it was going to fit in the car!!!

So two trips, two hours, a half broken back and a dirt covered car later, the sod pieces were in my yard!

Then I had to start laying down the pieces and adjusting them. It was harder than I thought, especially because of the steep incline of my yard! I am pretty sure, I was supposed to water the ground and lay down more top soil, before the sod, but I had no energy left, and I knew, if either of those things make the slope slippery, I will not be able to continue.. so hope that the little layer of dirt the sod came with is sufficient.

The thing I did do, was to spread the nematode mix on the ground, before unrolling the pieces. These are supposed to be worms, which will kill harmful grubs and even ticks! Let's hope it works.

And there it is!

I laid down my soaker hose, and got completely soaked trying to adjust it to not soak the side walk.. But it did anyways..

And here is the top view!! Can't wait for tomorrow to take some daytime pictures :)

Time requirements:
Raking and removing small amount of weeds: 1.5 hours
Sod pickup: 2 hours
Laying down and spreading the sod: 1hr 15 mins or so
Cleaning the car: 20 mins

Not bad for a day's work.

------------Day time-------------------

How beautiful do the plants look with the green border!

And the hostas are flowering :)	And my little annual garden looks beautiful!!!

Hallooooo Summer~~~~~