#267...david adickes loves houston

I've been following this Houstonian, and her charming family in their vintage attire on her Bleubird blog. A week or so ago, they posed infront of one of David Adickes newest giant sculptures. I just wrote about David Adickes last week here, so it was a pleasant surprise to see the sculpture on Bleubird. 

This weekend, after all of our holiday guests left, Tyler and I drove over to Adicke's SculpturWorx Studio parking lot and took our photo in front of the 30 foot typography sculpture. According to this article, the sculpture is going to find a home somewhere along the I-10 corridor.

#266...love the selby

I really love the quirky style of Andy and Kate Spade,

captured so beautifully by The Selby.

#265...pottery cabana progress

Tyler's rendition of the kithaus is underway in our backyard. He and both of our Dads have been working non-stop on it for the past several days. Here's a look at their progress....

#264...ode to david adickes

If you live in Houston, you may be familiar with the sculptural works of David Adickes. He creates large scale sculptures in cement of everything from Abraham Lincoln to Paul McCartney, from his Sculpturworx studio located in an industrial district near downtown.

In the 1950's, Adickes studied art in France, and in the years after did many paintings including these treescapes.

I recently completed a large scale impression of Adickes tree paintings for one of my clients. The dual canvas painting is done in acrylics across two 3 ft. by 4 ft. canvases.

#263...pinecone wreath

I saw this pretty wreath on design*sponge this week, and it reminded me of the bag of small pinecones that I collected in New Hampshire last fall. I got out my hot glue gun, some twigs from the yard, and a scrap of yellow burlap, and made a wreath of my own.

#262...lemon harvest

Last Christmas, my parent's gave me a Meyer Lemon tree

(this is not my tree...just an example)

My tree is about to have it's first harvest of 3 lemons that have been slowly growing over the past 8 months.

Here are the tiny lemons back in April

...and here they are today, almost fully yellow and ripe.

Once they are ready, I am going to make some of these lemon squares

#261...kim's kids room

I recently helped my client Kim with some decorating in her sons' room. The two brothers moved in together to make room for their new little sister. We chose Rice Paddy by Sherwin Williams for the walls. It is a nice soft green/yellow color, without being too babyish.

I painted some silhouettes of the boys to hang over their bookcase. You can see my instructions on how to make such silhouettes here.

We arranged some of each boy's artwork, and sentimental collectible pieces over their beds gallery style. We added a monogram to each hanging ensemble that I cut from a scrap of denim, and mounted on a piece of scrapbook paper and framed.

To coordinate the crib bedding with the twin bedding, we added a white bed skirt to the bed that I sewed a brown satin ribbon trim to.

We added some draperies to the windows to help block light for nap time. Using the Lenda curtains from Ikea, I embellished them by sewing a wide blue striped fabric accent onto the drapes to help bring the eye up, and tie in with the blue and white stripe rug that moved from her former nursery into the boy's room.

#260...kithaus

Tyler really wants a kithaus for our backyard.

He wants this outbuilding so that we can move my big Skutt kiln and clay slab roller out of the garage, and actually fit vehicles in the garage.

He also plans to set up a desk for himself in there, away from dogs and me,

on days that he works from home. 

Purchasing a kithaus from kithaus is completely out of our budget, so for the last few months, Tyler and his Dad have been designing their own version, which they plan to build over the upcoming Thanksgiving week. The math alone involved in planning out the building is way beyond my brain, so I am really not involved in this project at all, but am super excited to see the final result. This is the spot in the yard where the building will sit....between the pool and  back fence.

...and here are their blueprints

Yesterday, the big glass doors arrived. They are large and we have no place to store them, so they got tied to our garage staircase until the project commences.

#259...framed metal letter

My friend Laura needed a small piece of artwork in a squarish frame to help complete a vignette of wall hangings that we planned to group on a small wall in her bedroom. I found this pink beauty in my pile of thrift store frames.

We decided to create a monogram art piece using a metal house letter. I ordered this little metal "T"

I took apart the pink framed print, spray painted the wood frame in a metallic bronze, and cut a piece of foam board to fit inside the frame. I wrapped the foam board in a scrap of printed linen and fitted it into the frame. (I discarded the glass) Next, I glued the metal letter to the linen covered board using Contact Cement.

#258...My Do It Yourself Ancestry

I've been visiting family in New Hampshire this weekend, and thought I'd share a pic of this 1960's elf head ceramic cookie jar painted by my great-grandmother. I never met her, but clearly she played a part in my crafty nature.

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#257...burberry behind bars

Two big dog crates are a large focal point of our living room decor. To help myself feel better about the crate chic look, I occasionally sew new matching slipcovers for the beds. I found this Burberry look-a-like quilted fabric at Jo-Anns, and thought it would make charming winter covers for the beds.

While I was in my studio sewing up the envelope style covers, I left the bed inserts out on the deck to get some fresh air...and alas......

Do you see why they have to stay in their crates when I leave the house?

Mazie is the ring leader and real culprit.

(Please note, I could not match the plaids due to lack of fabric)

#256...cookie jars & wheelie cabinets

My client Lauren, needed some type of buffet server storage piece to fit into an odd sized spot between her refrigerator and a wall. I found this antique wood server at a resale shop for about $100, to fit in the odd spot.

It was in pretty nice shape, so with a little elbow grease and this orange oil I cleaned it up.

Lauren wanted the cabinet to be counter height, so I added casters to the bottom of the feet to raise it a few inches, and now it has the ability to roll out of its spot if she would like to extend the leaves and use it as a larger server. 

I also changed out the small knobs for something with a little more personality.

Here is the refreshed piece, just before I loaded it up for delivery.

I also made Lauren some fabric covered glass canisters to give her counter top some pop, inspired by this design*sponge tutorial.

I started with plain glass canisters from HomeGoods.

I used a metal drill bit and drilled holes in the center of each lid, so that I could add knobs to the canister lid.

Next, I cut fabric circles per the design*sponge instructions, and used rubber cement to adhere the fabric circles to the lid tops and over the sides. I had to deviate from the instructions some, as my lids were screw on, so I could not wrap the fabric all the way to the underside of the lid. To hide the edge of the fabric glued to the edge of the lid, I used ribbon, which I hot glued on to give a finished edge.

I carefully poked a hole in the fabric where my center hole was drilled with an Exacto knife, and screwed on the new knobs. These were really easy to make, fairly inexpensive and would make a great gift.