SCRABBLE LOVE

I'm one for a good game of SCRABBLE. You would never think that it could be a heated game of word creation, but for years now the main goal has been: "beat my mother-in-law in a game of SCRABBLE". Sixteen years later and I still haven't, BUT ALAS! She hasn't been playing WORDS WITH FRIENDS! I have and for the last few months now I've been polishing up on my words and ready to kick some Mom-in-Law butt! Love you mom! ;)

Anyways, I created this cool magnetic glass tile SCRABBLE set for my bestie's birthday. She and I have been playing WORDS together since day one so I figured it would be an appropriate gift for her. Not only that, but she needed some cool stuff for her fridge. She lost her house to a fire in March of '10 and the kitchen was the worst, so all the cool things that were on her fridge melted. So sad.

Good news though, this set is currently available in my Etsy store! I have a light blue set like this one and a dark blue set ready to go as well! Plus I'm on the hunt for more colors or clear glass that I can customize with specific colors per order. This would be a perfect Christmas gift for that SCRABBLE lover you know. Keep in mind, this set is GLASS, not resin or plastic like you will see all over Etsy or eBay. This is a durable and heavy set and the magnets are strong! Shoot on over to my store for more information!

Since this week has been a furniture free week, next week I'm gearing up for some new creations. I'm itching to get my hands all dirty with paint so keep an eye out for "Say hello" posts!

Thanks for stopping by today and have a wonderful weekend!

Anne is Sporting Robert Allen!

Hello Everyone! I had a few requests on what fabric I used for Anne so I figured I would throw out a quick blog post about it so everyone was informed!

This fabric was designed by Dwell Studio for Robert Allen Home and the design is called Vintage Blossom. I'm not too privy on fabric designers so I'm sure if you are in the know about this then you're probably like, "PFFFFFT, we knew that". But when I stumbled upon this beautiful golden fabric I could have cared less who it was made by, it was eye candy to me and I just had to have it.

The gold is called "Dwell Studio Vintage Blossom Citrine".

I almost fell over myself and snagged the blue too, but I was in a blue rut and wanted something out of the ordinary for Anne. 

The blue is called "Dwell Studio Vintage Blossom Jade".

Here is a link to this specific Robert Allen fabric pattern from fabric.com.

With all of the interest in the pattern, I hope that I can see more items made from this beautiful fabric. I'm pretty sure I'll be going back and buying the blue too some time in the future. I still have some gold left, so we'll see what I can make out of it!

Is this fabric something you would use? And if so, what would you do with it? I'm super curious. ;)

Thanks for stopping by today, hope the info helps!

xo

**** Robert Allen found Ms. Anne and featured her on his FB page!
Yay! It totally gave me pudding face!****

It's a Dancy Dance Time Stool!

"Hello friends! Today we're going to dance! So everyone get up, common everyone stand up!
Because.... It's time to dance!

I loooove Yo Gabba Gabba and have been an avid follower since the first season in 2007. My 5 year old son has pretty much outgrown the show, but for some reason I still watch it. I guess it reminds me of my raver days back in the mid '90's. Anyways, I had a hand painted stool commission for a birthday gift over the weekend, and I was very happy to do a YGG theme for the little birthday girl. The DVD cover above was the inspiration for the stool.

These are my "template" drawings for all the sides of the stools. What I did was push a piece of paper onto the stool around the section that I was working in, so I could have a size perspective, then I drew the face on the paper. If you click the image you'll see the outlines that I'm talking about.

Here's the painted stool before the faces. There was enough sides to feature all of the characters, except for DJ Lance. Sorry Lance, even though you're from St. Louis, I couldn't give you any STL love on this stool! I did paint the bottom and top of the middle section orange though. ;)

It's time to DANCE!

Muno!

Brobee!

Toodee!

Foofa!

DJ Lance Orange!

I love these little stools! They are great keepsakes for kids and make a great birthday present! When I took the stool to M she was in love with it, which made me really happy. I have a few more to do for her over the next few weeks so I'll be featuring those on the blog too!

If you are interested in a hand painted stool, please contact me, or you can purchase one outright from my Etsy store. The alphabet stools that are currently in my store will stay $20, even past the July sale. The character themed stools will be $30, and I have a plan for another bare wood 4-legged stool. Those will be added to the store very soon. These are great prices for these stools, you can't find them cheaper than this!

Thanks for stopping by today and have a great Monday! I'll have more to post this week so keep an eye out!

xo

Say hello

...to Anne!

(click any picture for a better view!) 

A little brown, a little gray, a little gold and one cute bird. When I first saw this chair I just knew I had to have her. I love telephone chairs, and the shape of this one plus the X in the middle made me smile. I searched high and low for a great fabric that would look awesome on her and finally when I thought, ugh... I can't find anything... I saw this and did a happy dance! It was a small one, I didn't want the girls at the fabric store thinking I was nuts. Anyways, I love birds and the little wren was adorable. Thank goodness I have extra fabric left over because there is another little wren perched on a different branch that could be made into a pillow!

I thought Anne would look peachy with my beloved 1940's alarm clock and some vintage books I found at a resale shop a long time ago. The blue one is a book on how to solve life problems, 1940's style. It's amazing how "life's problems" were viewed back in the day. Plus that vintage milk crate is now available in my Etsy store, along with this bottle and of course Ms. Anne.

As always, thanks for stopping by today! Anne is available as we speak so run on over and take her home with you before she flies away!

xo

***** Found out that little Ms Anne is sporting Robert Allen! Yay! ****

Whoosh!

Ok... where the H. E. double hockey sticks did that week go?

I did get some work done in the studio this week, but I wasn't very blog active. For some reason I prefer to be busting my butt working on furniture than being on my computer. Don't worry though, I will share with you all the goodies I completed over the week and weekend since my last post in the upcoming week. Here's a teaser of that stubborn telephone chair I was previously teasing last week. Ha!

Side note: I love my Instagram app on my iPhone. I'm a sucker for retro looking pictures. It makes me wanna dig through all my family's old pics from the 1930's through 1970's.

Anyways, have a great weekend everyone! If it wasn't for the love of painting furniture and love from my family, friends and fans I wouldn't be doing this.... so much thanks for all the continued support!

xo

Woo Hooo Weekend!

This weekend has been just great, which is something that was really needed around here lately. Things have been pretty tough and having smiles and happiness in the house has been uplifting. I got some work accomplished in my studio, I completed some applications for a new job and I had fun teaching my 12 year old the significance of how to strategize while playing UNO. Yeah, he never won. You can't win against an UNO master.

But anyways.... these next few pictures will show you just how well my weekend has positively unfolded since Friday! On Thursday evening I linked up Elizabeth on Miss Mustard Seed's "Furniture Feature Friday" (#98 & 99 - oops! operator error!) and on Friday evening I linked up Alice on Fingerprints on the Fridge's "Feature Yourself Friday" (#339). These two blogs have thousands of followers and I thought maybe a little linky action might help out with people noticing I'm out here in the big blog world. Well it did. It's not thousands of people but over 200 unique visitors isn't too shabby!

So I went to bed happy Friday night, woke up Saturday morning and while still crusty eyed I checked my email from my phone and saw this! It's Alice in her new Brooklyn abode! I couldn't believe it, she was in one piece and looking fantabulous! Check out that view, what a lucky gal! I was doing a happy dance, which was kinda difficult because I was laying down in bed.

On Saturday night after filling out some applications for a few jobs (yes, unless this girl sells everything she's got she needs a paycheck too!), I went to bed. Again I woke up to sheer happiness! The American Legion Annual Car Show was today and the coolest thing was waking up to shiny chromed beautifulness right in my back yard (of course after you walk through a field first). Every year they have it right there in July, within walking distance of my house. So cool. :)

This is my dream car..... *drools*

I'm in Bel Air heaven!

And of course the classic DeLorean! Is there a flux capacitor in there? If it were mine there would be!

No too bad of a weekend, eh? Lets just hope and cross our fingers pretty tightly that this positivity keeps on trucking through the week.....that I get a lot accomplished in the studio, I sell some items in the Etsy store (especially after I add new items!) and I get a call for an interview.

*crosses fingers*

:)

xo

Teasers

One stubborn telephone chair....

Some pretty gold fabric and equally as pretty wall paper...

Some Knack inspired candle holders.....

And which one of these is it? The paper? The canisters? The chest of drawers?

No one will never know!... at least until next week. ;)

I tried to get another "Say hello" in for this week but as you can see above, I described that telephone chair as stubborn. I promise she will make her debut, along with all these other great projects next week!

The Etsy store will definitely be filling up with great treasures to adopt into your home!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and thanks again for stopping by!

xo

Open Shutter

If you've known me for awhile you would know that I have always had a love of photography, so much so that since I can remember I have almost never gone anywhere without a camera. Because life happens at the speed of light you have to be ready when it's time to snap that one in a million shot before it's lost forever. They are little glimpses of time, but even as insignificant as they can be to the grand scheme of things we have to capture them on film to remember how awe inspiring they were.

In my days of toting a camera I've caught dramatic lightening displays from my back porch, the heart wrenching aftermath of a car crash from my days of volunteer fire fighting, an elephant playing in a water fall, black and white crescent-shaped shadows from a total solar eclipse and of course the cute "this is too easy to caption" pictures of my kids. Again... tiny moments in a glimpse of time, but because I caught them I will never forget.

In high school my dad gifted to me his Nikon 35 mm camera (totally not the days of digital) which I grew very attached to and loved using so much that I took a photography class my senior year. I learned the process of how to take some amazing pictures, including open shutter. After a few came out really cool I was smitten with it. This first picture was me experimenting out of the classroom for the first time ever. I was standing on a pedestrian bridge over highway 70 here in St. Louis with no tripod, just a steady hand hoping to catch a cool effect. Check out the blinker exiting on the right... awesome.

(fyi: you can click on the pics to get a better view)

The next picture was actually an accidental picture I snapped with my cell phone. Not necessarily open shutter, but still... it was pretty cool.

The rest of the pictures were from this past Monday on the 4th of July. I shared some pictures I took of the fireworks in downtown St. Louis last year in my Happy 4th post, but I was determined this year to have my little tripod with me to capture some less shaky pics.

Here's some kids playing with sparklers in the small field before the fireworks started that evening...

Check out the roman candle going off in the background of this one. So cool...

Someone lit a fountain right when it got pretty dark outside....

And here's some shots of the big stuff going off.... this one looks like a dandelion!

Chaotic colors...

These two remind me of sea urchins but they were actually the fireworks that go off in the shape of a single circle.

And this one by far is my favorite from that night... Lots of squiggles!

One day I hope to be able to invest in a very nice camera, not only for the business but because I've wanted one for oooooh so long.

Thanks for stopping by today to check out my completely non-furniture related post! haha! I promise a furniture transformation will be coming your way before the weekend begins!

xo

Say hello

...to B's Vanity!

My friend B scored this cute vanity from my friend A and all this girl needed was a quick clean, oil and beeswax, just like AM's Vanity! It's a miracle what a little elbow grease and oil can do for a piece of furniture. I love the glass inserts, especially the one that was etched with flowers. It had the date stamping on the back which I thought was pretty cool. I swear one day I will have one of these, I've always wanted one, just never had the room yet. 

Anyways, I couldn't believe how well she cleaned up, though I did have a few stubborn spots that didn't want to give... like the cute pink finger nail polish on the middle section and some green colored something (I'm thinking marker of some sort) on the right side. I figured hey, I know my friend B well enough that she'll think it adds character to it rather than ruining it. It was loved and that's all that mattered.

I hope your 4th of July weekend was wonderful! I love long weekends.... 

I have more to share with you this week, including some open shutter shots I took of the fireworks on the 4th and another furniture transformation. As always, thanks for stopping by today and remember to mention Retro Restyling to your friends. It's always great to get the word out there!

xo