Craft Fair - Part 2

Ok, I lied.  I said I wouldn't be posting this week.  But a couple people asked to see what I was going to be selling on Saturday and, well, I guess it does make sense to give you a peak. LOL

So, here is a peak at what I will have at my booth on Saturday.

Oh, excuse my total craptastic pictures, I was kinda in a hurry.  You understand, right? ;) 

I have become slightly obsessed with tassles lately! 

I know....I know!  I never told you that until now. 

Seriously, if you have never made a tassle....you MUST try it!  They are so easy and so much fun to make! :)  So, I'll have quite a few tassles to choose from.

And as always, I will have frames!

And a couple clipboards.

Some other random stuff, like a few decorated paperclips, notepads, and sticky note holders.

 And the vintage pin frames I mentioned awhile back.

And while this is my only large wreath, I do have a few smaller ones as well.

So, there you have it.  A sampling of my random craft show items. 

Doodle says I will be the only person there with all kinds of stuff and not just one type of stuff.  But if you've been following me for any length of time, then you know I have a slight amount of crafting ADD! :)

And just in case you missed it yesterday, here's the info one more time. 

Saturday, April 30, 2011

10:00-4:00

The Life Center @ Southport

4002 E. Southport Road

Indianapolis, Indiana

Free Admission/Free Parking

Don't forget I would DOUBLE puffy-heart LOVE to meet anyone who lives close by! And you don't even have to buy anything...I'd just love meet you! :)




  

Craft Fair

Hello my darlings! :) 

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!!  While we miss spending most holidays with my family (it truly is SAD!), we had a nice Easter. 

I hope you will forgive me, but I will not be posting this week.  I had really hoped to because I made some pretty AWESOME changes to the living room last weekend!  You'll just have to wait and be surprised. ;)

I have a craft fair this Saturday, so as I'm sure you know, it's crunch time to finish up as many projects as I can before then!

For anyone who is local, I would DOUBLE puffy-heart LOVE to meet you!!!!!!  That's BIG people!  I mean, double puffy-heart!  That's huge! ;)

Oh, if your not local....I would LOVE to meet you too!  But I won't hold it against you for not wanting to fly in for a really small craft fair. :P

So, here's the deets (that's "details" for those you not in the know):

Saturday, April 30th

10:00 - 4:00

The Life Center @ Southport

4002 E. Southport Road

Indianapolis, Indiana

Free Admisstion/Free Parking

If you have any questions feel free to drop me a line or just leave a message here and I'll get back to you.

Wish me luck!! 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!! :)  

Evolution of Design

As I take my living room from a fairly modern look to a cottage look, I've run into a dilemma.

I thought this would be the perfect time to walk you through how I make my decorating decisions. 

Not all that long ago I purchased this beautiful picture for my living room. 

It was kind of a kick off and inspiration for turning my living room into the garden cottage I envision in my dreams.

It is GORGEOUS!!!  And I adore it!!

Then I made my no-sew curtains!  Which I also ADORE!

Here is where the dilemma comes in.  If you have a keen eye, you might have even noticed it as you looked at both of these pictures.

What is it you ask?

The new picture looks to NEW compared to the darker, more vintage looking curtains!!!!!

Not sure?

Let's back out and take a look.  This is my living room as it currently sits.

Do you see it now that I've pointed it out?

If not, let's get even more detailed as to how I know these two don't work together.

Don't look at the picture above the couch.  Lets just look at the bright red throw pillows and the curtains for now.

Would you say these pillows complement the curtains?  Or clash?

I'd say they clash.  They are way too red.  The red in the curtains is a much darker, deeper red.

Now let's take a look at the picture and pillows without the curtains.

Now do you think the red pillows compliment the picture?  Or clash?

I'd say the red pillows are a complimentary color to the picture.

SO......if the pillows compliment the picture, but clash with the curtains....then the picture and curtains must not have complimenting reds.

Let's take a look again at the whole picture.

Now do you see the dilemma?

One of them has to go.  But which one?

Let's look at other aspects of the room that have been updated lately, to the cottage style I'm going for.

This vignette I showed you earlier this week.

When you see this vignette, do you see the curtains or the picture?

I clearly, without a doubt, see the curtains here.

This is how the pie safe in the room currently looks.  It's not done, but it's definitely going in the direction I like.

Do you see the curtains or the picture?

Again, I clearly see the curtains.  The picture just seems to "new" for the pie safe or bookshelf vignette.

So, when I take everything in to account, the picture is the delimma.  It's the thing that is not going to make the cut (along with the bright red pillows).

But I love it so much I'm going to find it a new place in my home.  I'm not ready to part with it, that's for sure.

So, my living room is heading exactly where I want and what I have envisioned in my mind.  But not every decision is right the first time unfortunately.

Decisions like these can be costly.  But I know me and I know that clash of the reds and the clash of too new vs. vintage feeling will drive me batty.   Well, battier than I already am. ;)

Thank goodness for Craigslist.  Or in this case, another room, :)

Inexpensive Vignette and a Redo

I'm so behind all showing some of my living room transformations.

For those that have missed it, I am taking my home back to the cottage style I adore!  Plus I'm bucking the current trends and bringing back my favorite colors....reds, greens, browns and golds! :)

My no-sew curtains have been the perfect inspiration for my living room! 

They encompass everything I adore!! 

Flowers!! 

Frills!!

Red, green, brown AND gold!  Does it get any better! :)

So, of course, I've had to make other changes to get the warm, cozy  and inviting look I'm going for.  Those changes must come on a very tight budget!

I found a new antique store not long ago that had some really great prices and alot of stuff right up my alley.  Like these vintage bird prints.

They were only $3 each....which I thought was pretty fantastic!

The larger one had some stains on the bottom left, but I knew immediately how I would hide those.  Plus the frames I was not loving.  They are plastic.  But worse yet...they LOOK like plastic.

As any blogger knows, the quickest and cheapest way to transform just about anything is with spray paint! :)

I took them apart and gave both frames a quick spray with Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint and then lightly misted them with a goldish color spray paint.  The gold color was VERY light and just added dimension to the frames.

Excuse my horrendous carpet.  It's BAD!  I may have mentioned a few hundred couple times I REALLY want Bamboo floors.

It's amazing how spray paint took these pictures from cheesy to quite pretty if I don't say so myself!  I am totally loving these bird prints now. :)

I decided to keep the matte on the larger picture.  And my solution to cover the stains was to lean the smaller print in front of the larger one.

If you've been following me for a bit, you might remember my Pottery Barn steals back in February where I got this tray for $6.97 on clearance. 

I knew when I bought it that I wanted to lean it on a shelf as a back drop.  But at that time, even I couldn't have imagined how perfect it would be with my future bird prints! :)

I got the adorable little bird cage at Michael's recently for 50% off, which made it around $5.

I am a firm believer in plants in decor!!!!  Real or fake.  I can't say that enough!

Plants just add a warmth that you can't get any other way.  They fill dead space.  When in doubt....add a plant! :)

I got my little pot at the Christmas Tree Shop for $2 and believe it or not, I got the fake plant at the Dollar Tree.  I just took it out of the cheap pot it was in and stuck it in this one.  It's not that bad for a fakey.

So, my whole vignette came in at around $21.  I had all these items here already except the bird prints, but I went ahead and included the prices of everything since they weren't terribly old.

I think it looks like a million bucks. ;)

So....would have bought these cheesy plastic framed prints?  Or would have walked right past them?

There was a day not long ago, pre-blogging, I wouldn't have been able to see the potential.

Fencing Drama

Hi Ladies (and any possible Gents)!! :)

So, the math placement test is done and I'm relieved!  I have no idea how I did...but I have my suspicions.  And they are not good.  College-Kindergarten Entry Level Math is in my near future.  LOL

So, back to telling you about my weekend (last weekend...yeah, I'm a little behind).  I will caution you....this is a L O N G post. :)

Because of our family addition this year, Lucy my brothers Pug, (aka - Smoosh-aroni, Bugsy, Lucy Lou, Lucy Luber, Snots, Snots-alot, etc)...

Isn't she precious?  Notice the tongue sticking out! :)

I have moved "Privacy Fence" to the top of the list for this years large project.

It's always been on the dream list...but since Ms. Lucy likes to chase the UPS truck, the mail truck, school buses (and the kids that get on/off said school buses), and the fact that she could spend hours a day just sniffing in which I'm not really fond of just following her sniffing nose around that long....fencing got moved to the top of the list.

I had planned ahead financially for this project before losing my job, so I am taking the risk and moving forward with this project.

Recently Lowe's had vinyl panels on sale, so I jumped!  They went from $44 to $29 a panel!  That's pretty substantial savings when you need 18 panels.

I have mentioned before that I drive a Nissan Sentra.  Not exactly a 'hauling' vehicle.

So, to save money on delivery, I rented a truck from Menards (Lowe's doesn't rent by the hour trucks anymore).  And my ex-husband and I picked up all the panels and post covers the next day....in a terrantial downpour!!!  And just as an added bonus...lightning. ;)  But it was the only day/time my ex could help.

The panels have sat in my shed since then...until last weekend.

The weather was nice here in Indy last weekend, so I figured why not start the fencing project.  My friend and her husband had offered to help.

To get a start on the project, I started measuring and screwing the brackets into the fence posts. 

Problem #1, first post in and I realized that the post covers were not going to be long enough!!!  This was the post Lowe's told me to get!!!

Remember....I rented a truck to get these posts and now they all had to be returned and I had to buy new posts!!

I returned them in my SENTRA...2 loads!  I talked to the store manager and the manager who told me to buy these posts and explained how I rented a truck and now didn't have a truck and the inconvenience that was caused.  So, they gave a nice discount to cover another truck rental.

Clearly NOT my fence!

Source

Problem #2....it was a beautiful Spring weekend in Indianapolis.  No one had trucks available for rent! 

Several hours later, two more loads in the Sentra later and I had my new, long enough, posts.  Most of the day Saturday was now wasted...but not a total loss.

Not even close to being my home or fence!

Source

Problem #3....the new posts, although they said they were 4x4 vinyl fence post covers....were not QUITE a full 4x4 inside!!!!  So, the treated wood fence post that goes inside....did NOT fit inside the second set of covers!!!!!!!

But, keeping my can-do spirit alive, I realized I must need a different size fence post for these. 

So, back to Lowe's I went. 

Apparently, nope....they don't sell smaller fence posts to fit inside!!  WHAT?!?!?  Why do they even make/sell it then?  The guy at Lowe's had no idea of course...although he was extremely helpful and sympathetic.

Now, let me tell you.  I am a very strong woman.  Challenges to me are just that...a challenge.  A blip God put in my path for a reason I don't yet know....but I'm sure it's a perfect reason because it's HIS reason.  So, typically, I just go with the challenge and move forward.  I don't let it get me down.

So for that reason, I rarely cry.

But I found myself sitting in my car with tears welled up in my eyes. 

If I had bit off more than I could chew, I would wave the white flag, and yell surrender.  No big deal...I tried.  But I hadn't gotten that far!  I couldn't wrap my head around why these post covers were manufactured in this way...and no one could explain it to me either!

A girl can dream fence.....which isn't mine.

Source

Enter Problem #4.  My next option was to move up to a 5x5 sleeve....for a 4x4 post.   Again....WHY???  This wasn't going to be sturdy if you have a 1 inch gap all the way around the post inside.

So, this time I felt I needed to know what other options were out there.  So, I went to Home Depot.  The girl and guy in the contractor's section were very helpful.  Basically, they had the same options.  The man at Home Depot said I would have to place shims in the top and bottom of each post sleeve where the brackets will screw in.

Again....WHY???  Why not just make a 4x4 sleeve that would fit over the STANDARD 4x4 wood fence post?

This is where I swear my name was used!!!!  The girl said, "Erin, I'm sorry I couldn't help you."

I didn't really think about it until I left!!  I just said it was ok and then got in my car and was like..."did she just say my name?!?"

Has this ever happened to you?  I didn't give her my name...no credit card info was given or anything like that.  Anyway...I just blew it off and assumed I must have heard her wrong in all my frenzy.  But I must admit...I'm still curious if she actually said my name or not.  :)

Anywho, after that I went back to Lowe's and bought (only a few this time) 5x5 posts and finally called it a night at 9:30.  I was feeling totally defeated!!

I called my friend and told her I was nowhere near ready for their help on Sunday. 

So, Sunday morning, after a good nights rest, I felt re-energized.  I put my post inside my too large cover and headed to Lowes to find a 7/8" shim. 

Maybe someday mine will look this good.

Source

Problem # 5.  All the treated wood was either too big or too small to use as a shim!!! 

So, I talked to the guy in the wood section and asked his opinion on what I should do.  We walked around looking and discussing options when he said we should check the Patio and Porch Section (near the wood....not the outdoors stuff).  And don't you know, there was the perfect length, 4x4 vinyl post cover that actually fit a 4x4 post inside of it!!  AND it was sturdier than the stuff in Lawn and Garden too!!!!!  It was a little extra cost, but with the discount the manager was giving me, it was still a manageable change.

Trellis Love!  Also NOT mine.

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Problem #6 - They didn't have enough in stock!  So, I've been having to just stop in and pick them up as they have them.  Why they can't order them I'm not sure, but I was told they could check another store, but they couldn't order them.  Whatever...I can only fit FIVE in my Sentra at a time anyway.

So....you can imagine my excitement when my ex came over yesterday to help me with my fence!!  We (mostly him) got two poles concreted into the ground yesterday and ONE panel up!!!!!!!  It was very exciting!!

Oh please!  Only in my dreams would this be mine.

Source

Problem #7 - The gate was smashed when he took it out of the wrapping.  We took it back to Lowe's....only to find out the other ones on the rack were in even worse shape!! 

So...now I have to wait until they get more in stock or have my ex or his girlfriend drive with their SUV (because it just ain't fittin' in a Sentra) all over Indianapolis to find another one in stock. 

Inconvenient for sure.  But I'm not letting, yet another, set back on the "Fencing Drama" hold me back! 

It might take months at this rate, but I WILL have a fence at some point! :)  

And it will be as beautiful as the ones in this post...............I hope. ;)