Have you seen the EAT sign in Courteney Cox's kitchen on Cougar Town?
I've seen many great versions and wanted to try my own. At first my plan was a mod podge treatment, with either fabric or pretty paper. Here's a great tutorial I found using mod-podge and paper.
After I saw this, I knew I wanted a metal look instead.
That's the name of the blog and what I said when I saw her kitchen!
Subway tile to the ceiling folks! Love. It. I think her letters are the real thing. Mine are paper mache, so I had to go about making them look like zinc.
Artfully arranged dishes. Simple stacks of plates and bowls arranged in a way that pleases the eye and complements the surrounding decor. Nothing about it contrived or complicated. Like it just happened.
Well, for me it didn't just happen.
I spent two hours Friday night, (yea, I need to get a life) arranging these two shelves.
I climbed up and down from a stool so much my legs were sore the next day. (I need to get a life that involves more exercise apparently)
I'd move a piece, get down, step back and look.
It was too busy, too stark, too blue, too, too, too...
It finally came around, or else I just got tired of fooling with it, once I took all the blue dishes out. Either they looked to arranged or too haphazard. If I tried balancing equal amounts of blue on top and bottom, left and right it looked like I was trying to hard, if I didn't balance them it looked, well, unbalanced.
I really wish I had photographed each step along the way so I can share how exciting my Friday nights are. Kid you not, two hours arranging dishes, so that they wouldn't look arranged.
I didn't want the shelf to be full of stuff that isn't used to just collect dust and in the end, there are lots of things there as fillers. Now that I really look, it's mostly fillers. I do use those coffee cups and the white dish on the bottom shelf is new but I will use it.
I need to quit looking at these pictures, it only makes me want to go change things.
The stuff in the cabinet, we do use that. No fillers here.
For a little Valentine love, the pretty felted heart from my sweet {former blogger} friend LLA. Former blogger, not former friend.
And a bird. Oh my! Have you seen this?
I got a new sink, but that's a story all its own.
Oh what the heck, as long as I brought it up.
When we built the house, we had a white cast iron sink. I don't remember why, but at some point I decided I wanted to change it. I think it was losing some of it's shine and was hard to clean. Anyway, I got a composite sink that closely matched the lovely dark gray formica counter tops. Blackish gray composite sink with darkish gray formica, not bad. Darkish gray with butcher block, not so good.
I told my loving husband that I wanted the white sink back. It was still here, behind his barn. Yea, it looks like hoarders back there. Not really. Maybe a little. We live in the country.
I'm rambling. It used to look sort of like hoarders. Before Mitch, the loving husband took a huge truck load of junk to the metal salvage yard (he collects cars and car parts like I collect furniture and lamps) and since the sink was cast iron, it went too. That was after I told him I wanted it back in the house. After he told me there was no way he was putting that thing back in. It nearly broke his back taking it out. He said I'll buy you a new one, an acrylic one. He said that to put me off, hoping I'd just get over it. I didn't.
Long story short I have a new sink and it's big enough to bathe in. I don't know how, it is in the same hole, but this baby is HUGE. I love it.
So there you go, I walk on the wild side arranging shelves and putting birds on them and my husband buys me gifts in the plumbing section of the hardware store. Don't you wish you lived such a glamorous life?
Of course, I'd love to be a more financially secure, who wouldn't? But I think even if I had plenty of extra cash in my bank account, I'd still choose to do it myself when possible. For me, I get more satisfaction from having something pretty, and knowing I had a hand in making it or making it beautiful than if I had just purchased it.
I love looking at the Pottery Barn catalog, even though I know I will likely never make a purchase. The fun in it for me, is the challenge of furnishing and decorating my home to look like it could have come from a catalog, by shopping at Goodwill.
That's why I couldn't be more pleased to be featured today at Knock Off Decor. A website entirely dedicated to getting the look for less. Definitely my kinda place.
I'm contributing a tutorial for Pillow Month at Sew Mama Sew. Two tutorials, actually. The first will be published tomorrow and shows how to finish a pillow back with a zipper hidden behind a flap.
{Sneakity Peakity}
I made three pillows in the process of trying to photograph each step. The method is very easy, getting good photos of the process was not as easy. On the positive side, I did get three new pillows for my couch and not a moment too soon. My pillows were looking so tired.
In the planning process of Pillow Month, I looked at a lot of pillows on the internet. I started a pillow board on pinterest to save some of my favorites. Some I felt like I could recreate, like this one from Dwell Studio available at Target.
It's very pretty, but it's currently unavailable. No problem. Here's what I came up with.
And since I was already writing a tutorial, I happen to have some photos of the process.
If you've looked at more than a blog or two in the past few months, it's very likely you've seen a fabric rosette tutorial, or ten. I'm not going to add another to that long list, but I will show you a few steps along the way to go from rosette to rosette pillow.
If you've never made a pillow, it's perhaps the easiest beginner sewing project. It takes no time to master and perfect for those with little patience. Those who want instant gratification, me included. Go check out Sew Mama Sew for a tutorial on the basics. While you are there, check out the contest they have going on. There are some great prizes to be won!
OK, for the rosette pillow. I started with a 16" square of dark gray fabric. To get the spacing even, I folded the pillows into thirds, pressed, then repeated for the other way. Not rocket science, I just eyeballed it.
Based on the spacing, I decided I wanted my rosettes to measure about 4". I cut some lightweight interfacing into 4" squares. If you don't have interfacing, you could use a very light weight fabric. I didn't want to add much weight or bulk to my flowers, but wanted something strong enough to hold up to hot glue.
Most of the tutorials I've seen are for a smallish flower and recommend using strips of fabric that are around 1" x 22". Since I needed larger flowers I cut my strips 2" x the whole width of fabric or 44"
Fold in half, the long way and press. For the beginning of the rosette, fold one end in half again and begin rolling tightly- several rolls then twist and roll a couple of times.
Put a small glob of hot glue in the center of your interfacing square and place the rolled end of the fabric in the glue
Then just keep twisting, wrapping and gluing until you are down to about 1/2 " of fabric.
Cut the excess interfacing away from the flower and glue the fabric tail around to the back.
Repeat 8 more times. Yes, it's a little time consuming, but it's mindless work you can do while watching TV.
Arrange your rosettes on your pillow front.
Be sure to allow room for your pillow seams. Initially I wanted to use fabric glue, hot glue can be so heavy. Once the fabric glue dried, there were a few places not adhered completely so I just went around each one with a dab of hot glue here and there to make sure they were all secure.
Check out Sew Mama Sew tomorrow (Feb 4th) for that tutorial on how to finish the back with a hidden zipper.
and any other nice words you care to throw in there. I'm delighted the nice ladies at Sew Mama Sew asked me to participate in Pillow Month. You can read my interview here if you like. I love pillows and I love Sew Mama Sew and February is the month of love, right? I'll be doing a couple of tutorials one involves zippers the other piping.
If you sew and haven't visited SMS, you should. They have TONS of tutorials and tips. If you don't sew but think you would like to try, this is the perfect time. Pillows are the perfect beginner project.
About the interview, that photo is a couple of years old and obviously not January. I had no problems answering questions, but submitting a photo.... eek! I am the most unphotogenic person you could hope to meet. I am allergic to getting my picture taken and no matter how hard I try to look normal, my face contorts and I just look crazy. I'm typically behind the camera so there aren't that many photos of me to choose from and then to find one of the few that I actually don't cringe at the thought of people seeing... well, that photo is the best I could do.
I'm still wreaking havoc in the kitchen. I got all the walls and trim painted white. I took the doors off one of the upper cabinets and started putting vinyl in the back. Then I ran out of vinyl. Drats. Here's what I've got so far.
I also managed to sweet talk Mitch into painting the doors in the kitchen black.
Why did I photograph the door from this angle?
I was trying to photograph this guy.
Meet Willie, my new grand-pup. Alyssa got a new baby, the four legged variety. Isn't he a sweetie?
OK, did you enjoy that bit of sweetness? Back to the kitchen insanity. Why not do some closet demo while were at it?
I have a pantry that I really hadn't been using as a pantry for some time. It had really become the closet equivalent of a junk drawer.
So, I pulled everything out, and piled it on every flat surface in my kitchen. Nice.
That blue box up there has the topper from my wedding cake. I've been married 23 years. Do I really need to keep the topper from my cake?
Pretty, huh? Just wait till you see the inside of the closet.
Those big holes are from removing the wire shelving. It's outta here. The dirt, well I have no explanation for that, other than the fact with all that junk, who could see the dirty wall?
I'm happy to say it has been cleaned and painted and will be getting newly painted wood shelving.
Soon, I hope.
I'll be back later this week with a few more projects I've been working on.
I'm very excited to be contributing to pillow month at Sew Mama Sew.
And other philosophical thoughts had while painting my kitchen. White. I painted it white.
I went in thinking it would be a quick paint job. I only had to paint the upper portion of the wall, the lower part already had white bead board wallpaper.
I gathered my stuff, took off some switch plates and got to work. Painted a small section and stepped back to take it in. That was the oh crap moment. White. That white is a tricky little color. I only thought the beadboard was white. In reality, next to the newly painted swiss coffee white wall, my beadboard was gray. And not trendy, cool gray. It was dirty, dingy grey. Yuk.
Not a great picture, but trust me, it looked very dreary and very sad.
I had to remind myself, never make a decision about paint with that first swipe of paint. It almost never looks good until you get the second coat on the wall. I kept reminding myself of that as I trudged on singingoh no, what have I done, what have I done...
So I made my way around the room. One coat, two coats. It was a learning process. I learned I really need and ipod, more on that later. I also learned that your trim may be white, you may be sure your trim is white. If it has been a few years since it was painted white, it probably isn't really white anymore. Want to find out how white your trim really is, or isn't in my case, paint the wall next to it white. That brings me to my final lesson learned. Never assume a paint job is going to be quick and easy.
Know where this is going? Yep, Almost every inch of my kitchen is getting painted. Including the upper cabinets.
The house was quiet as I painted, no one home but me and Toby. In the quiet, various songs played in my head. The first had been playing for a while before I consciously realized I was singing onward christian soldiers, marching as to war...
Why? Why is this song playing continuously in my head as I paint. No idea. Seamlessly the soundtrack changed and then Bad, ba-a-ad, blood, blo-o-od, is takin' you for a ride. The only good thing about bad blood... again, WHY??? Have I heard these songs recently? I have no idea. I don't even like Neil Sedaka and though I love old hymns, Onward Christian Soldiers is not a favorite.
If this painting continues much longer, I have got to get an ipod!
think I change things a lot. Things like paint and curtains and furniture, and I guess they would be right. I am constantly tweaking and because of the tweaking of small things, folks get a bit of a distorted image of how often I change big things, like paint or furniture.
For instance, I was discussing over Sunday dinner, the fact that I'm thinking of painting the kitchen. And of course, it gets met with the usual smile and shaking of the head. Didn't you just paint the kitchen? To which I replied no, it's been several years, like maybe five. Hmmm, is the reply. You know, the hmmm that means whatever. The hmm that means they hear you but aren't sure they believe you.
So, having a blog has made it quiet easy for me to determine exactly when I last painted. It was December 2006. Over four years ago! Gosh, my photos were small back then.
Yes, since then I have painted the cabinets, twice. Changed out the counter tops and put up bead board wallpaper. (Here's a little walk down my kitchen's memory lane if you care to peek.) But the wall color, the Martha Stewart Vintage Kitchen, which I still love, by the way, that has not changed in four years.
How long do you live with a wall color before you tire of it? Just curious. For me, I guess four or five years is an absolute lifetime in paint years. It's time. Vintage Kitchen is lovely, and I will likely look back at pictures and miss it, but I'm ready for a change and today is the day.
Any guesses to the new wall color? Nope, it isn't black. That's going some place else.
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