Choosing Colors and Dreaming of Vacations Yet To Come

I wrote part of this last fall, and my palette fascination has only gotten worse....  Are you addicted to palettes?  I can't get enough of them, it's completely ridiculous!  I have managed to group my favorite color combinations color palettes with favorite furniture refabs, etc. on my "Furniture, Painting & Colors" Pinterest board.  I have yet to do anything with them, but they're grouped together, lol!

But I haven't always been so spoiled by Design Seeds!  I actually have a secret and unproven but cool way to see some (only some) design trends and color schemes before they hit their peak.  Find a luxury condo rental company for where you'd like to feel your home is when you're in your house--the beach, the mountains, the ocean floor, whatever, lol.  You'll see some VERY expensive, very RENTED, heavily designed rooms.  And a lot of the time, these trickle down to the rest of us.  The furniture is usually easily damaged cosmetically but photographs beautifully so that people will want to rent their specific condo, even from far away.  The furniture is easily fixed but not worth the effort, so it's sold to someone, who re-sells it, and suddenly a Miami condo sofa is in New Mexico!

Turquoise and lime, which I can't get enough of right now, was the 2nd major trend at luxury condos after the initial re-model from Hurricane Ivan.  Ivan was 2004, condos rebuilt and re-decorated by 2007, furniture lasts at most 2 years, thus we're in Wal-Mart in 2011 dreaming of bright blue seas :)

I'm no decorator, it could be a Southern thing, it could be that I just love turquoise blue, but I think it's worth an evening surfing the web with your loved ones, dreaming of new places to go and seeing what they look like when you get there!

3s and Wishing Part 2

I left the house to run errands, and came home to find my 2nd wish in my email Inbox.  I'd rather not go into detail, as this is a very personal one--but it has to do with this flower, which greeted me at the mailbox less than 10 minutes before I read my email.  The two were connected, and only the one or the other would not have reminded me of what I'd lost.

3s and Wishing

I'm a believer in 3s.  If I hear the same/extremely similar advice from 3 sources, or 3 unique ways, I take it as gospel--God's Words to my ears.  Within the last 2 or 3 days, I've heard that it's time for me to make some wishes.  Ironically, wishes in folk tales come in 3s too... 

I admit--I feel rather abandoned and lost, and it's been a LONG time since I've wished for anything.  If I happen to have something good pop up, I'm cautiously thankful--I don't think I'm worth it, so someone else might too, and take the good thing away.  But then....   Just when I lose faith, God reminds me I am in His hands and if I let Him lead, we'll go the right way.

So I'm going to make some wishes.  My first has been revealed to me already, lol.  I first faced it using a guided meditation from Jamie Ridler Studios.  I was led to her website just this morning, from Linda at Everyday Endeavours.  (She mentioned a Moon Board, and that sounded intriguing!  Plus she's participating in Daisy Yellow's Creativity Queue Challenge, which I've noticed but did not join in.)  Linda's link took me to an information page on Jamie Ridler's site, and if you sign-up for her newsletter, you receive a wonderful audio-guided mediation and Journaling pages.  They're worth it!

As I was working last night, I managed to ruin the first 5 or 6 pages of printed art journal stuff, so I've been trying to gather those same pages back together to reprint.  (Don't ask--my files are so out-of-control it's ridiculous!)  I found the first free "Journaling Deep" worksheet from Journal Girl, and so I read it over and a particular question jumped out at me, since it fit exactly with what I'd been led to wish for!  And I've had that lesson since July 28, 2011.

I yield!!  My first wish is to learn this lesson:

It’s not about the supplies—it’s how you use them!

I spend way too much time online shopping for art supplies.  I mean hours, HOURS, spent putting stuff into the shopping cart, taking it out, comparing prices, weighing spending an extra amount here or less over there.  And all for nothing--we're rather "living on the edge" as it is, so the entire exercise is Complete Self-Torture.  Complete. Self. Torture.  The last thing my soul needs reminding of, day after day after day, is that even if I happen upon the Magic Combination in the shopping cart, I'm still not going to be buying anything.

There's a wish prompt each week, and this one is:

What do you wish to experience? 

Being aware that my needs have been met, that I have the supplies I need to continue Art Journal therapy.  I'm going to wish for this lesson to change me, to help my soul be...soulful.

And two more wishes to go....  Wonder what they'll be?  I'm linking up to Wishcasting Wednesday here; join me in a blog hop to help others' wishes come true!

While Our Son's Away...We Work!

It's Spring Break around here, and our son is spending the entire week on my mother's farm.  This is the longest "alone" time my husband and I have had since...before Parenthood, hmm, maybe since early 2005!  My how time flies.......

And since we're boring grown-ups, we've spent the week cleaning.  Spring Break and Spring Cleaning are two very different experiences.  But we have to take this opportunity to clean--it's the only way we can honestly says "This room is done!" and expect it to stay that way until the next day.

Jewelry Box and Necklace Organizer
I did get some crafting done over this past weekend--a lot, really.  I've had an unfinished-wood jewelry box for a long time now--bought from Hobby Lobby on a whim with a 40% off coupon back in 2010 I think.  I haven't been able to decide what to do with it.  It has this strange recessed lid, which I now realize is perfect to throw your jewelry on at the end of the day and it doesn't go rolling off.  But I've been thinking it needed a picture or a frame attached to it, and couldn't figure it out.  The strange thing is that this wasn't even in my Top 10 Projects To Complete--but I'm extremely glad it's done now.  My jewelry has been stuffed into a tiny silver box for 2 years now, and necklaces are my favorite jewelry to make.

I have no clue where this inspiration came from, but my favorite colors right now are gray and turquoise, and I have some beautiful fabric in those colors.  I also had some gray-ish mixed paint that was begging to be used or thrown away.  So I painted and painted and painted, then Mod Podged the fabric down into the lid.  I painted the inside of the box turquoise, with more fabric in the bottom of the 2 pull-out trays that sit on the inside.

Then I remembered this sad little project from Christmas, a necklace organizer to hang on the wall, that had not turned out well.  I have no pictures of it all, which surprises me since I take pictures as I work along.  It was originally a long thin mirror in a plastic frame with great details.  I'd painted it silver-ish per the glitter paint instructions, then with silver glitter paint, and clothespins for hooks, but, well, it was hiding actually, cowering in fear of a 15th coat of glitter, lol.  It was Christmas, so the very season itself brings to mind all that glitters and sparkles.  That's my excuse, anyway :p

Some advice: if you know you don't like glitter, don't force it on yourself--you won't like it, and the very sight of the project will make you cringe every time you see it.  (Which might be how it ended up hidden....)  And this goes for metallic finishes, pastels, whatever--stick to what you like!  There's a difference from "being in a rut" and just knowing you don't like a certain paint treatment.

Anyway, I tore the clothespins out of the frame and set about painting it to match my jewelry box.  For hangers, I used small nails pushed into the fabric-wrapped foamcore; they're in the center of each flower, so 7 nails total.  And it is beautiful, if I do say so myself, and they're beautiful together.  Now I just have to figure out where in the world to hang it....

Family Motto Sign
I've had this sign for a loooong time now.  It was one of those generic "H-O-M-E" signs and did not match our personalities at all.  (It was free, so awesome!)  I painted it "Love one another."  Then a different quote.  Then "Be nice or leave," which is rather the opposite of "Love one another," lol.  But it never lasted more than one day up on the wall--I was never happy.  I'm a quote-collector, and I've been going over and over my huge list, thinking that I have the perfect quote, somewhere.  And, I did, sort of....

"Love is being stupid together." – Paul Valery 

This quote I've had for a long time, and while it's appropriate, "stupid" is not a word I want our son to start using, much less to describe his family.  Although, we are rather insane at times, lol.  Goofy a LOT of the time ;P  Inspiration struck again, and I decided to use "silly" instead of "stupid."  Perfect!

The font posed the 2nd major hurtle for this project--then I remembered the handy-dandy glue lid craft paint secret, and my handwriting worked well in the end.  There were a few bad hours there though...but in the end I've got the perfect sign for our entry:

{Inspiration hit a lot this past weekend...wonder why?}

Twilight Book Covers and the Fabric Poster
And finished on Wednesday, between cleaning sessions:

So let's talk Twilight....  Hopefully for the last time for a while...even I'm tired of it!

I got the Breaking Dawn part 1 DVD from Wal-Mart that came with a "fabric poster."  I hung it up when it arrived, but it's been sort waiting around for a more permanent spot.  I have several of those art posters still with their cardboard backing, one was the perfect size!  And so I moved Bella and Edward to the Library.  But then they looked a little lonely, and I've been wanting to try crafting with dust jackets, and I remembered that all 4 dust jackets have been laying in the same spot for years now--yay!  Fabric-covered foamcore, red paper and careful positioning resulted in this awesome Twi-Hard display ;P  Woot!

Although it does feel strange to have wedding pictures on display larger than our own.....

I've also printed a ton of quotes, signs, phrases, plans and coloring pages, so that's my next project: getting my printables organized, framed or sorted out.

I hope your week has been as productive!  The good thing about knocking old craft projects is being able to photograph them and share them.  I can't bring myself to take a picture of the sparkling clean bathroom, lol, so this round-up is done!