Thursday, July 30, 2015

Birthdays & Friendships

 Nora, Gail & I sharing birthday friendships earlier this Summer while enjoying cupcakes at the historic Kansas City West Bottom shopping district.

Here is Gail's lovely & whimsical bird beauty she created for me


 My necklace creation for Gail






My life is so blessed with their friendships!



Monday, July 20, 2015

Two Lovely, Beautiful Women

My friend has wonderful vintage photos of her Grandmother.
They are treasures to use in vintage artwork as her Grandmother is so beautiful!

I used one of my favorite images of her Grandmother to create my recent birthday gift to Kim, mixed media wall art







Another image of her Grandmother is patch-worked on the backside

Kim receiving her birthday gift

Kim resembles her Grandmother...
two lovely, BEAUTIFUL women!

Happy Birthday my dear Friend!

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Family Room Redo

Do you ever start those small projects that snowball
into something bigger?  That was us earlier this year.  

I've always disliked our Family Room - it is a long rectangular room with the far end housing a fireplace & built-in shelves, faux-wood painted ceiling beams, paneled walls, pegged wood floor and only a sliding glass door for minimal natural light...so dark and drab!  

This Spring one son needed a sofa.  That's all it took!  The sofa we had although still in sturdy, good condition, was the sofa we bought when our sons were teenagers.  It was a huge, over-stuffed sofa, perfect in its day for teenage boys to hang out on, but its size consumed the room.  The sofa became his.

My husband was happy as it meant we'd no longer fell over it when trying to get around it.  There were also other pieces of over-sized furniture -
time for a room redo!

You know where I'm going with this story...Yep, replacing the sofa lead to painting the ceiling beams all white, a new side chair and table, a new rug, a new cabinet, new lamps, new pillows...and my favorite, finally painting the back wall of those built-in shelves around the fireplace!

For years the shelves and paneled walls have been crying to be painted, but my husband likes ALL the wood.  Finally with this room redo, I talked him to letting me paint the back walls of the shelves.  He now agrees how much better and brighter it makes this room.  He even painted the ceiling beams white along with freshly repainting the ceiling.
He draws the line though on painting the paneled walls.
One step at a time...smile.

Here are some before photos
   
Before


Before ceiling beams are painted.
Back walls of shelves finally painted! 

Bright shelf walls and painted ceiling beams!


Too bad the new rug doesn't show better with its pretty grey, cream and teal colors.  Since this photo, we've added a footstool for the chair and a bench stool for the settee.

This cabinet was a good find and perfect for this space.  It holds my collection of 'smalls' for altering our home decor.  The photo is of my paternal Grandmother.  She happens to be wearing the same shade of teal that is on the lamp next to it and sprinkled throughout the room.  Wished my photo wasn't so blurry as it does not show off the gorgeous antique wall mirror.  



The sun porch is directly out the family room sliding glass door, so it was spruced up with new chair pillows and rugs

 From this photo what are your thoughts, should I paint the fireplace bricks white?

Friday, July 10, 2015

My Birdsong 5 Pocket Full of Posies Wall Art

The beautiful Lori Oles taught our Pocket Full of Posies 
nature-inspired wall art class 
  IMG_7568
 at Karla Nathan's Birdsong 5 event.

  As you know, I rarely finish my projects during class time as I enjoy the ambiance of the classes and like to finish my projects at home where I pull personal items from my stashes
to complete them.

Thanks Lori for your inspired teachings and your lovely kit supplies for the base of my creation!

Here's my finished Pocket Full of Posies nature-inspired wall art










I'm joining my friend Gail next week to finish our adorable
Miss Juniper June chicks from Lesa Dailey's amazing class.  I hope to be posting those photos next week.

Enjoy a wonderful day!

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Belle Turns Three

July 5, 2015 our sweet Belle turned three.
Here's the start of her day
Yes, I put her through wearing a birthday hat...she's not very pleased with me.
She was a good girl and kept it on, lowered her head to the floor and sighed.


A much happy girl here as she awaits her sweet potato treat!

Although she looks most like a Chocolate Lab, Belle is a
 Weimaraner & Coonhound mix.

We took her to a local off-leashed dog park for some fun in the sun
 
 
 Can you tell she took a dip in the pond?


The watering hole

Good friends Amy and Sparky joined us!

Sparky and Belle are tuckered out...so are we!
Trey, Sparky, Amy, Belle & Larry


Ready for bed
Happy Birthday Belle!