Wow, I have some catching up to do ...

Last week was all about making this costume for my son, who wanted to be a dragon. Thanks to a visit from Yaya, we were able to get it done, which made for one happy little boy.

I'm happy to have that dragon "slain" so that I can move on to other projects. Hmmm, I think it might still fit him next year... I wonder if he'd go for that?

Quick Change

Lately, my projects are piling up on me. So, I decided to tackle an easy job. I recovered my dining room chairs. It's sad that my red fabric and pompoms didn't last a little longer. I thought this vinyl type fabric would be perfect for the little guy,3,  but instead food spills got embedded in the design. Not cool. More pompoms started looking less than cheerful pretty early on...

So I changed things up a little and went with this green fabric. I doused them with Scotch Guard and I hope it will help. I think I will make a little cover too, for Jack's chair because his table manners are AWFUL. Honestly, I am at a loss with how to improve his skills. I should be much thinner than I am because I spend most of my time at the table chastising and losing my appetite watching him eat.

At least this is an easy job is I have to tackle it again soon. I'd really like to get a new dining room set, but I have yet to find anything that speaks to me. (:

Art Prize 2010

My husband and I recently had a date day in Grand Rapids, Mi for the second annual Art Prize. Basically, Art Prize is a very unique art competition where the public is asked to vote for their favorite art exhibits and there are more than $449,000 in prizes up for grabs with $250,000 going to the first place winner.

Last year, I wasn't sure how I felt about the competition it seemed a little like applying "American Idol" logic to the arts and that left me feeling a little unsettled. But if you listen to NPR here in Michigan then you're bound to hear about Art Prize and well, I was intrigued.

I'm so glad that we went. It is an awesome event and it really takes more than a day to appreciate fully. Artwork is on display everywhere... restaurant windows, public fountains, flower gardens...everywhere. Many pieces are very large in scale, some are in your face and some have great big messages, like the exhibit above drawing attention to the lack of drinking water in third world countries.

As someone who  has refinished a chair or two, I couldn't help but snap a picture of this artwork.

This beautiful sculpture was made from paper mache.

This unique piece was a dream collection, featuring descriptions of some of the most interesting dreams... the only thing that would have made it more amusing is if there had been a dream expert there interpreting some of them.

Art Prize has completely won me over. After being there, I no longer have qualms about it. It was great to see masses of people looking at artwork on public streets. People of all ages interacting with artwork and looks of wonderment on peoples faces. Yeah, it's that good.

Quite simply, the pros outweigh the cons.

It goes on through Oct. 10 and it's worth a drive. I'd like to go back and take my son to see some of the exhibits too, but I'm not sure if there's time for that, but I plan on marking my calendar for next year's event.

A tour of my new kitchen

I know, I know I should have some before shots, and they exist some place, but I was eager to share my afters, now that I've got my camera back. The cabinets use to be wood, with an orangey type of finish. I repainted them cream and black with a glaze over the top.

Yikes, does your fridge look like this?

 

It's not a farmhouse sink (my dream), but removing the old cupboard door, replacing the apron, adding some legs and making a skirt gives the kitchen the retro feeling I was going for... I also added an old panel from an organ that I got from a consignment store, over the window to add more history.

I wanted to add molding to the top of the cabinets, but I struggled with that, so instead I did a faux baten board treatment, which makes a nice backdrop for my pottery collection. I had greenish glass knobs from a redo project I did a while back, so the cream cabinets got those and the black cabinets got new chrome knobs.

I still have a few tweaks in my head, but all in all I love the kitchen. It is much more my style now and I think it belongs more in this house. Making the changes also didn't cost me much because I found the cream paint color I liked at Habitat for Humanity Restore (Nice Benjamin Moore, it was like butta) and picked up the black Ralph Lauren Paint (also very nice) at Home Depot when they stopped carrying that line. My paint cost me under $20.

I'm back!!!!!!

I finally found my camera equipment. Here are two pictures I took at the beginning of the summer. My personal ode to summer. And now summer is over.

Hopefully, I can get the swing of my new camera, now that we've been totally reunited. One difficulty is my computer is not letting me save my edited pictures from this camera? Frustrating. Anyone else encounter this? I'm using Microsoft Picture It! and a Nikon Coolpix 3000.

Well, it's good to be back. I can't wait to post more pictures. I repainted the kitchen cabinets over the summer, so I'll have to take pictures of that soon (it requires a good cleaning first.)

I also finally figured out how to wind my bobbin and thread the needle on my sewing machine, two requirements if you want to use the said sewing machine for sewing and not an over sized paperweight. Actually, my mom helped me with it (Thanks Mom.) and once she showed me I sewed for two days straight so I wouldn't forget.

Well, I must run. (Oh, no I didn't take up running over the summer. Although I did go for a long morning walk this morning, maybe I can work my way up to running. I could use some calorie burning, that's for sure. I don't think sewing provides much exercise.)

Wow, it's still missing.

I can't believe I'm still dealing with MIA camera equipment. I may have to resort to fuzzy camera phone pictures.

Anyway, I'm loving my sewing machine and all the new (to me) sewing related blogs I've found. I've been cutting apart T-shirts and resewing them like a mad woman. If you have a sewing machine, well, it turns out you never have to wear a boxy T-shirt again... who knew?

Here's a fun blog I just found this morning:
http://www.dana-made-it.com/

Hope to see you soon... I mean really, this is getting ridiculous.

In case you were wondering...

I've been busy with a lot of projects that I'd love to show you...if I could find the handy dandy usb cord to my camera. Yikes.

Lots of projects = some disorganization= missing usb cord. Oh well.