#185...abstract aspirations

Inspired by the abstract paintings of artist Liz Jardine, whose work has been reproduced as canvas prints and is sold here, here, here, here, here and a million other places, my client Kresta commissioned me to paint her a 36x36 abstract for her living room. Here is Kresta's original acrylic painting that I finished this week.

#184...my bathroom on design*sponge

Lookie Here......my bathroom renovation from a few months ago is on design*sponge's before and after column today!

#183...claw foot refurbish

My bungalow came with a rusty, purple, cracked clawfoot tub that is long gone,

but I saved the feet......

and since I am not using them for another tub, with some cleaning and paint, I turned them into book ends.

I think I saw this idea in Cottage Living a few years ago...or maybe it was This Old House

#182...quick rental reno

On Friday, I shared the mirror we redid for my friend Heather's new place, and today I thought I would share the rest of the quick decorating we did in her new kitchen and living room.

This is the living room pre-decorating, after we arranged the furniture on move-in day....and here is the newly decorated living room.

We turned an old metal frame into a chalk board, and hung it on a furniture piece that used to be in Heather's entry, and now is serving as a side table for the couch.

For an easy window treatment, I sewed a simple flat panel of fabric that coordinated with the pillows we made for the room, and then simply used upholstery tacks to nail the valence to the wall. We chose to hang it near the ceiling to raise the look of the window.

Here is another shot of her mirror makeover. Now on to the kitchen....

Above is the kitchen on move-in day. Heather wanted to lighten and break-up all of the wood, so I looked online for ideas, and found that many renters cover their cabinets with contact paper that is easily removable when they go.

We decided to try cutting a silhouette of a fleur de lis in the contact paper since Heather is a New Orleans girl, and to give the kitchen some personality.

To make the contact paper cabinet fronts, we took down the doors and removed the hinges and cabinet pulls. Then we cut out a printed stencil of a fleur de lis, figured out our placement, and traced it onto the back of the contact paper. Next, we cut out the silhouette with an exacto-knife on a self-healing mat, and then carefully adhered the contact paper to the door front. Each door was a different measurement, so there was a bit of math to do figuring out the size of each contact paper front and the exact placement of the fleur de lis.

After completing the doors flanking the sink, we decided that we had lightened up the kitchen enough, and decided to simply finish the rest of the upper cabinets with cut out fleur de lis shapes, instead of continuing the silhouette concept.

To finish off the kitchen, we added a valence in a yellow stripe above the window, again held up by upholstery tacks, and we spray painted her clock hands orange to give the room some pop.

#181...mirror, mirror on the wall

My friend Heather moved into a cute bungalow for rent on my street. I have been helping her arrange her furniture, and do some decorating to personalize her new pad. She's had this wallpaper framed mirror for several years unused.

At some point, (maybe during the move,) the front mirror panel fell off the back wallpaper panel.

So, we took the frame off the wallpaper panel, and used hot glue to recover the panel with fabric.

Next, we re-glued the mirror and frame onto the newly recovered backer board, and

here is our finished result.

#181...my psychic creative connection to Jonathan Adler

Back in 2001, I owned a paint-your-own-pottery studio, where you could come to paint mugs, plates, piggy banks and many other types of ceramics that I then glazed and fired in a kiln, turning them into finished pottery pieces. My employees and I used to paint sample pieces of the various pieces of bisque (unpainted ceramic pieces) that we had in stock to give people an idea of how to paint each piece. We had many types of candle holders, sort of like these..............

One such shape that we had looked like a little person to me, so I painted the set as  a little king and queen.

Yesterday, while browsing on Jonathan Adler's website, I came across these King of Hearts candle holder/vases.......

....they are uncanny, right?

I guess we creatively think alike!

Mine were only candle holders, and not hollow in the center as his vases are. A few years ago, I had the idea to epoxy glue some tall shot glasses to the tops of the candle holders, turning them into bud vases, which I can use more often.

(by the way...I love Jonathan Adler's whimsical pottery. I own this, this, this, this and this)

#180...denim cuff accessories

Tyler got some new Joe's jeans that needed hemming.

After I hemmed them for him, I was left with two small cuffs of very soft, premium denim that I hated to throw away.

I decided to cut them open and make a long strip of denim and sew them into a headband.

To make this headband, all I did was cut the two cuffs open and stitch them together to form a long strip of denim. I left the original hem and turned under the raw edge and top-stitched it down to keep it turned under, creating an inch wide strip of hemmed denim. I wrapped it around my head, cut it to length and sewed a 2 inch piece of black elastic to the ends turning it into a circular headband. I think I will try wearing it with some of my vintage pins this summer.

After making my headband, I had enough of the denim strip leftover to make a wristlet, that I sewed chunky colored beads to, added a snap closure and decided to put up for sale in my etsy shop here.