Sneak Peek

I thought I'd give you just a few inspiration pieces that I'm using for my luxury space.  Let's just say it's got a heated pool! Woohoo!  Here are some of the pictures I'm using for ideas and materials:

Back to school, Back to school, To prove to Dad that I'm not a fool!

So I'm back to the grind.  I was really looking forward to having a regular schedule again and something to focus all my energy on.  I didn't realize that I was NOT ready to use my brain again.  I think it hurts....

Anyway, I wanted to share with you our first studio project.  We are supposed to design a space of luxury.  Whatever luxury means to us.  What does luxury mean to you? 

If I think beyond the obvious (you know, things I can't have, expensive fabrics, plush, etc.), the ability to travel is something I truly enjoy and I feel is a luxury.  So, my space will be an effort to transport you to another place.  The site for the 20'x20' space could be next to a dumpster, but inside you would still be transported to a place far far away.  That's the plan anyway....any suggestions?

So- What's luxurious to you?  If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?

Somewhere like this?


Or somewhere like this?

Reupholstery Madness

What have I has Meg gotten myself me into?

So when my friend Meg suggested a little DIY "crafting" project, I thought "Fun!  It'll keep me busy over break."  Well, needless to say, that little "crafting" project turned out to be the single hardest DIY job on the market: REUPHOLSTERY.

So after considering my options (eating bon-bons on the sofa, Harry Potter marathon, going to the gym, etc.)  I decided we should tackle the project head on. 

Here are a few pictures of the demolition portion of the project (as far as I have gotten).  It was tedious work and my hands are all sorts of cut up, but it helped to have a killer playlist.  I'd like to share the playlist with you just in case you ever have the chance at some good demo work- this list will not disappoint.  (Although it may have slowed me down just a bit when I felt the need to use my phillips head as a microphone and go on a singing tangent or two....yes that's right....I AM the champion..)

There's a little new a little old.  Here it is:
I Ran (So Far Away)            A Flock of Seagulls
Eye of the Tiger                    Survivor
Gonna Make you Sweat       C+C Music Factory
We are the Champions         Queen
Love is a Battlefield               Pat Benatar
Little Lion Man                     Mumford and Sons
Shark in the Water                V.V. Brown
Dog Days are Over               Florence + the Machine
We R Who We R                 Ke$ha (guilty pleasure....I know)
Tron: Legacy Soundtrack      Daft Punk (yes, the whole thing.....)
Coming Home                      Diddy
Stereo Love                         Edward Maya and Vika Jigulina
Dragostea Din Tei                O-Zone

Here are some of the pictures of the chair.  I'll be sure to follow up with a post when its finished....as soon as I figure out HOW that is going to happen....

OUCH!

Painting

 Hello all!  I thought I'd share with you one of the projects I completed over my break from school (I'm still on break and I'm dying of boredom!)  A close freind of mine has always been really supportive of my work and she really liked a watercolor that I did earlier in the summer.  (You can find it here )  Her boyfriend contacted me and asked to have the watercolor (was was about 6" x 4") blown up (I'm talking 3 feet by 2 1/2 feet!) for her for Christmas.  It was my FIRST purchased work of original art!  Talk about E-X-C-I-T-I-N-G!

Instead of enlarging the watercolor, I chose to try and get a similar effect with acrylic paint.  Because of the large size, acrylic just made more sense.  The variation that you can achieve with watercolors is hard to replicate with an opaque paint, so instead of getting that watery "see-through" look, I tried to use alor of blending of colors to create some variation within the layers. 

Okay, enough jibber jabber, you want to see the final piece?  Here is the process and the result!  I'll try to snap a picture of it once it is up on the wall in her place so you can get an idea of size!

Holiday Projects

 Somewhere in all of my Christmas shopping I got the idea to make a coatrack.  Well, really it started when I was at a thrift store looking for a dresser and stumbled upon some really cool wooden, paneled shutters.  So I bought them all (3, that is).  I wanted to attach old doorknobs and use it to hang coats or jewelry or framed pictures.  The problem was- where to get the vintage doorknobs?

I snagged those beauties off ebay.  Yep, that's right ebay.  They were pretty dirty, but nothing a some good elbow grease couldn't cure.  Aren't they gorgeous?!  They are really heavy, white porcelain.

And below is one of the panels I bought at the thrift store (only $8 each!).

So, I decided I would try painting two of them and leaving the third in all its wood glory.  I painted two of them blue and distressed each with a little sanding after the paint:

Of course, I couldn't forget to attach some hooks to the back first so I would have a way to hang these bad boys! 

And then, I attached the cleaned-up doorknobs:

On the second one, I decided to update the look a little bit and use hooks I found at my local hardware store.  I like how the black contrasts with the blue.

And that's just ONE of my holiday break endeavors.  Stay tuned to see a painting I did for a friend.