painted summer series - part 2: crates.

I've been madly painting everything in sight so I've dubbed this the Painted Summer.

did you catch series 1?...an old dresser got a lovely new life my favorite dry-brush technique.

as if there weren't enough items and rooms in my house painted in grey-blue [sorry dear], I attacked some old crates with the same color, Benjamin Moore's wonderful Oxford Gray.

[crates are wonderful for storing dishes for a party].

here's what they looked like before:

[the before].

fine, but nothing magical. in fact I dragged these out of the garage every year for Fall decorating on my front porch. I put little hay bales in them and stacked pumpkins on top. but after Fall ended, they wound up back on their sad shelf in the garage.

after many years they heaved a big sigh, rolled their eyes, and told me they needed a face lift.
they claimed they wanted to spend more time with me.

out came the Benjamin Moore Oxford Gray and my inexpensive paintbrush that I use for crafts. no need for my wonderful Purdy brushes on this project...

I slapped those crates silly with paint. they loved it.

[hello Oxford Grey. I adore you].

a few of the letters got a little gloppy with paint. a quick retrace with my trusty Sharpie and they were back in black.

[Sharpie to the rescue!]

I re-adore these crates so much that I found a home for them in my newly repainted/redecorated/reorganized pantry.

personally I think they'll love being front and center all year round...

summer's last hurrah.

summers here in the pacific northwest are blessedly short and cool. we're now nearing the end of august. by this time, there is a marked change in the sun's angle and as the shadows start to deepen, my hydrangeas begin their inexorable creep into shades of green and pinky-brown.

and yet, there's always one or two blooms that are late to the party...blissfully unaware that time is indeed marching on.

(last blue hydrangea standing 23 august).

this year there was just one hanging on to the glory days. and of course it's a more riotous shade of blue than nearly all of the other blooms this summer. doesn't care a whit that all of its mates are winding it down for fall.

(winding up the summer).

nature has a lovely sense of humour.

halloween diy - spooky chandelier on canvas.

who's getting fired up for Halloween besides me?

a little rooting around in my unused Halloween decorations unearthed a vinyl chandelier wall decal. it's been rolled up in a tube for a couple of years so I finally decided to do a little somethin' somethin' with it.

a little more rooting and I discovered an old artist canvas that I bought on clearance and never used.

eureka!

a match made in heaven.

[spooky + lovely halloween canvas].

out came my never-ending wee sample can of Benjamin Moore Oxford Gray.
I swear this is going to be all over my house and yet the can will never be empty!

using my super-lazy super-easy dry-brush technique [does she ever do anything else?!] I quickly brushed the paint on the canvas, leaving some of the original white showing through for contrast.

[canvas paint prep].

after the paint dried, I used a craft spray adhesive on the back side of my chandelier and placed it on the canvas, then laid a piece of parchment paper on top to protect it.

next came a stack of heavy hardback books [Dick Francis to the rescue, hooray!] to help with the adhering process.

[dick francis to the rescue! helping with adhesive].

it was so tempting to keep peeking at the canvas to see if the chandelier adhered, but I was good reasonably good at leaving it alone to do it's thing.

success!

out came some thick craft wire, a fuzzy spider [eek!], and an upholstery tack. I nailed the tack to the top of the canvas, wrapped the wire around it, then did my favorite twist-around-the-pencil trick on the wire  so I ended up with a coil throughout.  wrapped the other end around the spider...

[adding the spider with coiled wire].

and voila!

[the finished product again].

it's possible that I'll be able to wait till at least mid-September to put this lovely scene on the mantel.

no promises!

bidding our Portland summer adieu.

it's mid-August here in Portland Oregon and my thoughts are inexorably turning to my all time favorite season, Fall.

but I can't do that till I bid summer a proper goodbye...

here in the Pacific Northwest, we're so lucky to have a gorgeous forest playground just 1 hour away, high in the Cascades.

[incomparable Mt. Hood, view from Timberline Lodge].

huh. while I'm super pleased with my picture of Mt. Hood, it sure doesn't look very tall! but it's over 11,000 feet. must've been my angle...

but I digress. wasn't I talking about summer and how lucky we are?
and we felt doubly lucky this summer because two of our cool nieces came to visit, one for a week and one for a whole month!

now I should start by saying that these girls don't necessarily love being dragged all over the place...so naturally the first thing we did was pile everyone in the car and drag them out to Skibowl at Mt. Hood for some summer fun. oops, sorry girls.

organizing the kitchen pantry - progress.

have you ever counted how many times you go in and out of your kitchen pantry every day?

no? hmm. maybe that's just me.

[the inspiration, all from HomeGoods]

I must open that door a million times a day. and while there was nothing inherently wrong with it [it's chock full of nice built in shelves and a great wood floor]... the walls were basic builder's cream paint and it wasn't very organized or pretty.  the husband would argue that it doesn't need to be pretty.

c'mon son. you know better than that.

I feel like I say that a lot around this house...

so one day I decided to pretty-ify it.  of course that meant taking everything out and piling it in the dining room, taking special note of how many gross expired items were in there. old gross stuff, meet garbage can.