#372...princeton catalyst blades

It was my birthday last week, and I bought myself a bouquet of these Princeton Catalyst Blades. They can be used for paint, clay and even food. I'm excited to try them out on a painting I'm about to start for a client.

#371...in portland

We went to Portland, Oregon to visit Mike and Kelly for a long weekend. 
While there we....

....drank lots of Stumptown coffee

...lusted after this air plant centerpiece in the lobby of the Ace Hotel

...happened upon a taping of Portlandia outside Mike & Kelly's apartment building

...geeked out at the Pendleton fabric store

...saw some art cars, (but none that rivaled the art cars we have here in Houston)

...strolled the Portland Saturday Market, and played with the wares by Spoonman.com

...attended a Timbers Soccer match...

...where amazingly the most sold souvenir is a Timbers scarf. (You could tell by my awe and amazement over the scarves I'm over hot summer weather this year)

...and lastly took a really blurry, rainy, photo of the Portland sign from the car. This is the photo I would have liked to get of the sign, but I would have gotten very wet...and probably run over.

#370...local press

Our home is going to be part of our annual neighborhood holiday home tour. To build interest for the tour, Tyler and I were featured in the local neighborhood magazine Heights Pages that publishes quarterly. (Our new front door even made the magazine cover). Here's a peek at the article.

#369...sol's superheroes

My friend Sol had a baby boy last week, and I painted her two little wood peg dolls from Goose Grease. (I painted some for my nieces at Xmas here). Sol's 2-year old daughter Violet is fond of superheroes in capes, so I painted up Super Violet and her new baby brother Super Jack.

Here are the wood dolls beforehand...

#368...mirror grouping

I've been helping my clients Steven and Tara update their house. This week, we hung a mirror grouping over a console table that sits behind their sofa. Here is a pic of the area before. 

It looked nice, but they wanted the area to feel a little less traditional in style, and I thought we could make the wall feel bigger with a grouping of mirrors. 

I sourced the mirrors and lamp from HomeGoods, over a few weeks of shopping.

In addition to the mirror wall, I spent some time styling their bookcases. They just had them re-done and needed some new accessories to fill them. I brought some thrifted books, and some new and vintage finds.

Earlier this year, I encouraged them to take the plunge and update their fireplace with paint. Steven painted it himself.

Before

After...pretty dramatic change right?

#367...thornet bentwood kilim seat cover

I picked up this Bentwood chair at a local resale shop. You can see it was $5 as they kindly wrote on the seat in Sharpie marker???

My first instinct was to paint it, but when I flipped it over and saw a Thornet tag, I figured I'd leave the wood alone since it may be valuable vintage.

First, I cleaned it up with some Howard's orange oil and then looked around for something to recover the seat with.

In my studio, I stumbled upon a pile of these Turkish kilim pillow covers that I bought and blogged about here in 2011. The covers were actually very short-lived as decorative cushions on our sofas. While beautiful, they are super scratchy. Function of our sofa pillows wins out over form, as both of us like to lay on the couch pillows while absorbing a bunch of reality TV, and soft fabric is essential. So, I picked the largest to cover the seat of the Bentwood chair.

First, I cut the circle shape about 2 inches larger than the seat. (I serged the edge, but this is not necessary)

Next, I started stapling, pulling each edge and putting in four staples with my staple gun.

I bisected each of those staples with four more staples, making sure the front side was pulled taut as I went.

I continued bisecting the staples with another staple until I was left with a rippled edge as shown.

The Kilim is a thick, stiff fabric, so to get it to lay flat on the backside of the seat I had to clip the ripples and cut away any excess fabric. Then, I folded the clipped portions over each other to account for the curve and get it stapled flat.

The fabric was a bit of a challenge to work with for upholstery, but I'm happy with the finished chair. I'm going to put the chair in my loft bedroom for guests to set their bags on.

#366...fifteen

15 years ago today, Tyler and I tied the knot, drove off in a golf cart, and have been pretty much living happily ever after since!

#365...componibili

I have a mild obsession with Kartell's Componibili storage containers. I bought these new, but the original design debuted in 1969. I like to top them with thrifted woven round baskets.