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I'm done...maybe. I gave the shade several more layers of paint to make it thicker, and then the beaded part looked okay once it was on and stretched out.
Now I can't decide whether to put a beaded fringe around the bottom...
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Look what happens when I turn off the lights...he he he.
It's too big and I don't like the increase....but it's not stretched out all the way, so once I do that hopefully it will fit better.
I think I can save it...more layers of paint on the wooden part to make that thicker, and maybe some beads in the middle of the diamonds on the larger rows...
If not, I can always start over.
I'm hoping to get a lot done at work today so that I can take the day off tomorrow (since I worked so much last weekend)...wish me luck.
I went to my parent's house yesterday...not for the curtains, though I took them with me, but because the more I thought about going the more I realized I missed them and it's been too long since I visited. I had a nice time.
I'm glad I decided not to sew the curtains by hand...not only is the sewing machine tons faster, but Mom has a much better fabric and trim stash than I do. She came upstairs from her sewing room with this trim in hand that was almost perfect. It was too short to use on it's own, so we used one and a half pieces of it to get it the right length. It's lighter and more sheer than the fabric I was going to use, and the stripes go great with the wallpaper.
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I ran a piece of wire through the bottom of the curtain so that I can control how it hangs, and used a bit of double-stick tape on the bottom corners of the window frame to keep it from sticking out too much.
Something I didn't do, which I may not really need to do, is to cut it down the middle so that I have two panels...real curtains wouldn't go all the way across the whole window in one piece. I'll have to think about it...it's probably one of those things nobody but me would notice.
Oh! And as a bonus...the fabric I was going to use, which is leftover from making my bathroom curtains, is now a new curtain for my kitchen window. Thanks, Mom!
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I also stacked some fabric in the Coke crate that sits on the bottom of the hutch, and added some sewing stuff...notions?...to the bottom of the sewing case (haven't done the top bin? box? drawer? case? chest? box? part yet).
I started my lampshade yesterday...it's on hold until I get more beads.
I want to make it white with three zig-zag stripes in an accent color. I have all kinds of white beads in my stash, but nothing smaller than an 11, when I need a 13 or 15. I went downtown to the bead store, but they didn't have any in white that size either...I wasn't expecting that...I'd expect not to find cornflower blue, or fuchsia, but white?
After I left downtown I went to Ben Franklin to get my white beads there. They only sell the little ones in teeny packages, and only ever have two or three of each on the shelf at a time. It sucks to buy them that way, because if I get them at the bead store I get a 10 gram tube for $2.45, but I have to pay $1.25 each for the teeny 1.6 gram packs at Ben Franklin. I suppose I could have ordered them online, but then I'd have to pay shipping, so it'd probably work out to be the same anyway...actually it would be much more, because I'd buy all kinds of beads I don't need since I'm 'paying shipping already'.
Anyway...I bought the two packages they had. The lady who does the ordering wasn't there yesterday, so I'll probably pop in on my lunch hour Monday with one of the empty packages to make sure that she gets me more.
I can't decide on a accent color. I have gold, lime and black in the right size, but none one of those sound appealing. Maybe pink or light blue...I don't know. What do you guys think?
The bead store is right across the street from my favorite toy store, so I went in to browse...came home with a plant stand.
I'm trying to decide if I want to go to my parent's house today to make curtains or not...
Craft foam as book guts was a fabulous idea! I even got two more pieces, white and tan, so I could vary the color of the faux pages (since you can see the tops of some of the books). I'm going to give myself a big pat on the back for thinking of it! That was sooo much quicker and easier than it would have been to cut, fold, adhere, then trim strips of paper for pages...plus it saved on double-stick tape. The foam gave the books a more consistent thickness...they're squarer and easier to shelve.
I like the ones I cut out of paper that I didn't have to alter, but the ones I colored with pencil I'm not as happy with. I'm wondering if it would improve their appearance if I gave them a coat of gloss varnish...maybe that would give them more of a finished look...or maybe they'd look just the same but shiny...or maybe I'm being too nit-picky and they're already fine as they are.. What do you (all) think? I know I should at least seal the one that came from the crumbly vintage dictionary page, just to keep it from falling apart (which I meant to do before I taped it in place, but forgot).
The stacks of magazines were easy but time consuming...you know me, all my cuts have to be exactly square. The ones in the holder on the shelf of the red buffet are out of scale (too short), but I don't think it matters. On the other hand, not all magazines are 8 1/2 x 11", so maybe they are in scale.
I used one of the magazines that came in the art supply minis I bought as the top magazine in each stack, the rest are just cut from scraps of paper. I don't know if even I can tell, now that they're piled up, but I varied the thickness of the magazines so the stacks would look more realistic.
I was going to make curtains today, but the thought of sewing always makes my tummy ooky. I'm going to my niece's house next weekend for a birthday visit, so I'll stop at my parent's house on the way back and convince my mom to sew them for me. We got her a new sewing machine for Christmas, so she'll probably be glad for a chance to play with it.
I'm making books for my shelves instead. I went through some of my thrift store-altering material books and cut out book covers with arty titles in as many fonts as I could, then colored some of them with pencils and markers. So far I've only made guts for two of the books...I used folded up scraps of paper, cut to size...if I finish them all that way it's going to take forever, so I think that for the ones you can only see the spine of I'm going to fill with something thicker, like that piece of black craft foam stuff I've had lying around forever.
On the floor in front of the hutch are the cut down to size Coke crate and the flower pot lampshade (for the floor lamp) with the rim of the pot taken off. I assigned those projects to my honey...he did a great job.
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I need to find more titles too...once the book covers moved from a pile on my table to the shelves I realized I don't have as many as I thought I did. I'm okay with the number that are in the hutch, I think...but I definitely need more for the shelves over the desk...those are the harder ones to find, because they have to be shorter than the books on the hutch...I think I'm going to end up with a lot of books with one word titles.
My butterflies came. They are sooooo amazingly perfect. There are not enough positive adjectives in the dictionary to describe them...I'd have to start making up new words. The artist is just brilliant.
Here's a pic of them on my mini studio table...the two in the foreground aren't in focus...because they're so tiny it's hard to take a group picture.
Maybe I should have thrown in something of real proportions so you can get a better sense of how incredible they are for their size...hmm...the colored pencils in the yellow cup are actually the ends of toothpicks...that should give a good comparison.
The lamp is painted and reassembled...it wasn't as easy as I expected, but it wasn't too bad.
You can't see the top, but I added a black brad to cover the hole in the bottom of the flower pot...it looks good.
I wish I had painted it a darker brown...but it's too late to change it now. Although...after I hang the curtains up and the lamp has a white background I expect I'll be okay with its color.
After I finished that, I made a canvas, frame, and work in progress (balsa, gesso and paper) to lean against the easel.
That's what my daddy called them when I was a little girl...flutterbys. Every time I think about singing to flutterbys and jumping in pudmuddles I smile...my dad is the best.
Anyway....look at these, I bought them from artist Julia Michelle of surrealgardenminis. They look so absolutely dainty and perfect. I added links so you can see each of the Etsy listings.
After pulling out a lot of different materials, staring at them and thinking, then playing around some, this is what I came up with.
It's made from a little wooden flower pot, strips of balsa, beads, and sewing pins.
Now I've got to take it apart, paint it, then put it back together (with glue).
