New Art, Paint and Plates

I have been in the studio quite a bit over the last week or so.  I started on a second attempt at a picture for Elizabeth and Michael several days ago and finally finished it to my liking yesterday.

I have having a really difficult time photographing anything that looks like the thing I see, and this was no different.  The description of the process will be on my design blog soon.

When I finished with it, I was still in a crafty mood, so I got out all my Christmas papers and supplies...

and proceeded to trash the room.  I did make some progress, however.  I printed out a slew of text boxes for card fronts and then cut them out, and printed some additional card backs with a new logo on the back, if one could call it a logo.  I didn't like Zoe Cottage for a company name, and I am tired of Miller Manor Designs as well as the fact that the new logo changes made it virtually disappear on the card, so I went with Cards by tm.  It still has my MMD etsy address, and I will still use that as the actual shop name, but the cards haven't really sold online, so I am just making them for family and myself.

Here is the first batch of Christmas cards.

Meanwhile, Ornery has been painting the house every chance he gets.  We had company last night, and the night before he was busy helping Elizabeth with her homework, but he has made quite a bit of progress.  Here is the front door and the front of the house so far.

 We still need to paint the rim of the storm door the same red as the door, and the rest will be the dark brown like on the rest of the house.  I guess I really should hunt down the name of the color, huh?

Here is the front of the house.  You can see what color it was by looking at the dormer and the eave on the far left, doesn't that dark brown dress it up?

The only other news I have is that I have ordered some new dishes from Crate and Barrel.  I am quite excited!  This is the dinner plate...

I was notified today that they have shipped--can't wait to see them in person!

Weekend in Review: Fall!

Saturday marked the beginning of autumn, and at least the morning temperatures have been agreeable to the seasonal change.  The afternoons have trended a bit warm, but overall, the days have been pleasant with geese flying overhead honking and squawking as though they had somewhere very important to be.

We enjoyed coffee on the patio under blankets, starting well before daylight and finishing a couple hours later.  We discussed family, household chores, and a number of other topics--mostly inconsequential--and laughed a good deal.  I love starting out my day with a smile. :)  We all adjourned to the kitchen to work together preparing breakfast--well, Ornery was mostly just in the way as he got things ready for tomorrow's coffee and such, but we like him in there with us, so we didn't complain.  I fixed hash-blacks which would have been hash-browns except I had the burner on too high and forgot to turn them.  They still went down fine, and we all joked about the health benefits of carbon and so forth.

Ornery had quite a list planned out for his day including putting Round-up down on the front flower bed to ready it for our big landscaping redo, building a new pan rack for my kitchen since I gave Michael mine, a trip to the auto shop to reset the check engine light in Big Red, and more painting on the outside of the house.  The pan rack is a different style than the one that made me cuss every time I got a pan out I got rid of.  Hopefully it will be a little less frustrating to use.

Elizabeth spent the day at Michael's house painting.  She painted the coffee table and helped him get things ready to move on Sunday.

I made a housewarming card for Ryan and Ale, who closed on their first house Thursday. Then I watched YouTube videos on Facebook pages and otherwise lazed the day away--watching Ornery paint and the neighbor power wash his driveway, fence, and anything else that wasn't nailed down.

Sunday Elizabeth left fairly early to go back over to help Michael move.  Each load they completely put away so there is no mess even though not all his stuff made it over there yet.  I prepared food for company thinking we would be hosting a planning meeting for a family reunion with Ornery's sister and a cousin who lives in town, but it turned out just to me Janese and Monty for dinner and no planning.  We had a nice visit and dined high on the hog--so to speak.  Ornery got the entire first coat of paint on the section above the garage door and all the cut work done.  He will roll on another coat then move on to the next section--soffits and gutters.  The pan rack actually ended up taking part of the day since he had bought the wrong size and had to return the first one.  I like the new set up much better than the old, although the bottom rack is a little sticky.

After all the cooking I did earlier in the day, I didn't feel like cleaning up the mess Sunday night, so there was a colossal mess awaiting me in the kitchen this morning.  That is pretty much all I got done all morning, in fact.  I did start on another painting, but stopped to finish this post and do a couple other things on line.  Now I am headed for a nap since the night was way too short!

Weekend in Review: So nice

What a delightful weekend we had!  The weather has turned to my favorite-- cool mornings and comfortable days.  We have had a lot of rain over the last week or so, and everything feels so fresh and clean.

Saturday morning, we met a friend at Ziegler's to look for some home accents for his new home, then Ornery and I went to Zio's and had lunch.  On our way home, we drove all through our neighborhood and looked at house color schemes as we tried to figure out what color to paint the outside of our house.  After naps, he spent several hours on line looking at houses, I worked another puzzle--have worked four in the last week --and read. It was a quiet and restful day.

Sunday morning we left Elizabeth in bed and went to breakfast, then to Lowe's to buy paint for the outside of Zoe Cottage.  We settled on a dark brown, and will use the brick red color  (Valspar Calico) we have left over from the library for the shutters and front door.  I have always liked the combination of red and brown together, and this is a very different color scheme from all the variations of TAUPE our neighbors have on their homes.  The shutters on the houses that have them in the neighborhood are either black, dark brown or burgundy with very few exceptions. We saw one house with sort of a terra cotta paint and bright teal accents.  Whoa! It was bad!

Zoe Cottage is mostly brick with very narrow soffits.  The only large sections to paint are the garage doors, the area above the garage to the peak, and a small dormer above the entry.  The ceiling on the patio and front porch are also larger areas, but can easily be rolled.  A lot of the work will need to be done with a brush but Ornery rolled both garage doors with one coat on Sunday afternoon.  It is beautiful!  We even had a couple neighbors come by and comment on how nice it looked.

Today (Monday) I am painting the front door.  I figure the whole job will take most of this week and the coming weekend and possibly a bit longer since he only has a couple hours each night after work before dark, but it will be nice to have the project done before winter.  We both agree that it is the easiest of all our houses to paint.

Weekend in Review: Just busy

Life seems to be moving pretty fast--it is hard to believe that i the State Fair and all our favorite craft shows are just a couple weeks away.  This week and weekend we have been painting--walls and otherwise.

Friday I got my sketch book out and tried to copy a picture I had found on Pinterest.  It wasn't that the picture was all that splendid as much as I just wanted to see if I could generate a similar look and feel with my twinks.  I don't know how those master artists could stand to work on one piece for so many years.  I simply do not have that kind of patience!  I am continually frustrated by my lack of drawing skill, but I have to say that I did a pretty good job and since it was just a practice exercise, I was pleased with the results.

Saturday I hung out on the couch under a blanket with my Nook as I was not feeling well. The weather turned (temporarily) fairly cool overnight and while Ornery worked out in the garage on the chest he is making for Elizabeth and later on the lawn, I mostly just huddled on the couch trying to stay warm.  The wind was ferocious and sort of "relocated" part of our back fence.  Ornery had to move it almost a foot to align it with the rest of the fence and attach it back to the posts.

While we were at home, Elizabeth and Michael were over at his place painting.  They got the ceiling in the master bedroom painted gray and the last of the walls finished off.  Sunday morning, Ornery and I took Elizabeth over early and we finished off the cut-work in the hall and took care of a closet door problem.  Around noon, Ornery and I came home and they finished the first coat of all the trim work around the ceiling in the bedroom.  It is almost done!  Then they bought a couch, picked up a refrigerator and are meeting us at Ornery's sister's house to pick up a washer and dryer from the stuff brought back from Washington last month.

The house still needs some more work, but there are newly hung numbers on the front of it now, and the bulk of the really necessary painting has been finished.  We moved a bit more of Elizabeth's furniture over there today and our house is looking a bit roomier as a result.

We have plans to look at a few more houses with a new Realtor either Monday or Tuesday evening, and another evening this week Elizabeth and I will go check out a friend's new home to see what sorts of decorating ideas we can come up with.  Ornery is bidding a couple of painting jobs to see if we can generate some extra house-shopping money, and who knows what other mischief we will be up to in the coming days?

Play time

I have some studio work posted over on my design blog if you want to take a look...

What We Have Been Working On

Here are a few photos from the work we did this week at Michael's house.   This first photo is the view from the front door.  This wall was painted sort of a bright amber color.  The fire place tiles are a work in progress.  Look at that beautiful wood floor!  (wall color: Valspar Jalapeno Jelly)

The book cases were painted white inside, but we thought it might make them more contrasting to paint them brown.  It also helps to tie the furniture, the mirror frame and the dining room together.

Below is a close up photo of the mirror frame that Ornery built.  We used liquid nails to glue it onto the face of the mirror.  It is unbelievable how much better the frame made this look!

Here is a before picture of the living room:

And one of the dining room:

This is the dining room after we painted and Ornery added the new chair rail.  The burgundy walls in this room made the room feel like a cave.  The green from the living room is above the chair rail, and the brown is below.  The photo doesn't really show the brown as well as I would have liked.  (Bottom Color: Valspar Brown Velvet)

"Before" picture of the hall

Here is a picture of the bathroom currently.  It is to the right in this hall...

The plan is to paint it gray--the same color as the ceiling in the new master bedroom (pictured below) 

The picture above is from the master bedroom facing out into the hall.  The dining room is to the left.  The color going on is the blue, the color at the bottom left of the photo is the same as was in the living room.  Again, the color in these photos does not do it justice! (Wall color: Valspar Starry Sky)

Here is Ornery working in the master bedroom doing some cut-work.  The ceiling in here is going to be pale gray, which is also the color they will paint the bathroom.  Eventually, the bed will have a gray (will be Valspar Granite Dust) spread and possibly gray curtains.  The nook beneath the window is where the chest Ornery is building will go. 

See how tiny the closets are?  There is another one the same size on the right side of the window.  Two closet bars in each closet doubled the hanging space!  The room is not very big--enough for a queen sized bed, the chest beneath the window and a dresser.

This is what it looked like before there was any color on the walls...

Week in Review: Labor Day

Good grief!  I haven't blogged in a whole week!!  Well, it has been a very busy week!  Rather than try to break it down by day, I'll just say what we have been up to.

In the studio:

• Covered the last address book I had in my stash
• Covered the last four journals from my stash
• Used all the scraps from those projects and made 16 note cards
• Ordered and assimilated into the stash several new colors of Twinkling H2O's, Silks and some Primary Elements mineral powders. 
• Updated my color chart for Twinks, made color charts for Silks and Glimmer/Pearl mists.
• Pinned LOTS of cool ideas on my Pinterest art inspiration board for next week!

For the investment project:

• looked at about six more houses
• made and offer on  one then withdrew once Ornery figured out it would not make any money for us.
• Contacted three potential property managers
• made arrangements to switch agents for house hunting to one who is more in line with what we are wanting to do -- namely make money in real estate not lose it!
• Ornery read a bit more in some of the books he has been collecting on the subject.

For Michael's house:  (As of Monday morning)

• The bookcases in the living room are painted
• The mirror above the fireplace has a new frame on it
• There is white chair-rail around the dining room and paint for both colors on either side of it, but the walls are not fully painted yet
• The closet bars have been relocated making two heights in both Master bedroom closets
• The master bedroom has some paint on the walls
• The "patches" previous owner made have been made less obvious (we hope)
• The kitchen has been set up
• Pot/pan rack installed under oven
• Tiles around fireplace are about 60% painted
• Ornery started on the bench that will go between the two closets in the master bedroom

Today we plan to go back and finish painting in the master bedroom and the dining room, as well as paint over all the patches in the living room.  Ornery will also work on a couple of doors that are not fitting correctly, and possibly make some covers for a few places that need them.  I imagine there will also be some touch up around the trim, and maybe paint in the closets, but I'm not sure if that will happen or not.  The goal is to be done there before it gets too hot--which has been happening around noon or 1:00.  It has really heated back up again this weekend, and the house isn't really well insulated.  Plus, with four bodies in the smallish space heated up from working, it is hard for the air conditioner to keep up.

Elizabeth has started back to school and has been working feverishly to keep up with all the assignments.  She has already had to write three programs, read four chapters and do four quizzes--and school just started a week ago!  Ornery has been almost as busy with it, since she has been asking a lot of questions and having him go over her programs before she turns them in.  She has also been adjusting to her new job which she likes, but is keeping her very busy.  The combination of all the things she has going on have kept her very busy and tired for the last two weeks.  Hopefully things will slow down a bit once the house is finished and Michael gets moved in.  That should at least take some of the work burden off...

We were glad to know our son made it home from Afghanistan last week and have enjoyed seeing pictures of his family all together again.  We even had a short visit on the phone with him one day.

This week I hope to get back in the studio and work on some art. I am pretty sure we will be out house hunting again this week.  There are a few "trouble spots" around the house that need my attention, but I have to be honest, housework has not been high on my priority list lately!  Maybe I'll even get a blog post or two posted this week!