Sneak Peek

I only had time to snap a couple of pictures before it got dark. It was pretty funk-a-lish-ous straight out of the back of my Tahoe. Somehow it looked cleaner in my excitement and the harsh florescent lighting of the ARC. Never fear, I can look past funk to coolness. After a oil soap and bleach bath. Not me the trunk. It felt better. Me not the trunk. And moved it into the family room. The room that I posted yesterday that I am refreshing for Spring.

I'm head over heels for the patina on it. It's looks to have been painted quite a few times, there is chippy black, white and aqua green paint, it also has great texture and tears on top . The inside is neat too. I'll get pictures tomorrow when I get it all cute-ed up.

Oh My GOODNESS!!!!

I received three of these Arte y pico Awards today from some of my most favorite blog friends! I feel so special!!! Thank You Mrs. B, Jo, and Darla! You guys inspire me so much with your beautiful homes and abundant creativity. I am honored.





Here are the rules for the award: (Let's see how bad I can mess this up. I am a terrible rule follower)
1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that presented her/him with the award. (I know it says this is a rule, but I know not everyone likes to do this, so I won't be upset if you don't.)
4. The award winner and one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y Pico" blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5. To show these rules.

So I will start with my most favorite Mixed Media Artist.

1. Kelli Nina Perkins She is seriously amazing and I wish I had an ounce of her raw, fearless creativity. She teaches mixed media classes and has been featured in my Favorite magazine Cloth Paper Scissors.The girl can rock some paper beads! I just adore her. Oh and she has the hair-do I wish I was brave enough to have. LOVE her!!

2. Vicki Chrisman another of my artist crushes. She has the sweetest vintage style and her blog is filled to the brim with eye candy, tutorials and wonderful scrapbooking ideas. Everyday! She also is an awesome vintage shopper and finds great things on her shopping trips. ADORE her!

3. Heidi in all her crafty glory. Funny, creative and a fellow Coloradan. Another amazing vintage shopper. I love all of her sweet vintage decorating, collections and vignettes. Be sure to check out her glass glitter eggs. So cute! ADORE her!

4. Suzanne creative yummy family friendly foodie! I love her step by step recipes with lots of pictures. She owned her very own bakery and makes the most adorable flower sugar cookies you have ever seen. LOVE her!!

5. Nester Complete and utter amazingness. She is just plain RAD. Her blog is just plain RAD. What more can I say? LOVE her!!

Shoooeee!! That was hard! I love so many blogs and there are so many amazing bloggers.


Totally off topic but I went thrifting today and found some major coolness, a huge red vintage trunk. I will update with pictures a little later on.

Springtime Restyle

This room is in desperate need of some fresh springtime restyling. It's the most used room in the house. Usually there are kids and dogs flopped all over the furniture. Food wrappers, soda cans, dog toys, pillows all askew. (Have I mentioned I have teenage boys that don't eat at school because apparently it's not cool, so they come home after school and eat everything in the house? Seriously, I buy a rotisserie chicken for after school snacks. It's like living with cavemen.) If you look closely you can see where our puppy chewed the leg of our ugly comfy chair when our backs were turned. Ugh.

I learned long ago to embrace the chaos, to love the little imperfections and to laugh about it. The day will come when my furniture will be pristine and dog hair free, and the house will be silent. I think I may be a little sad when that day comes. For now I will continue to buy my furniture on sale or from garage sales and vacuum my pillows 3 times a day.

So for my spring restyle I have planned some lighter curtains and pillows. I found some great french stripe fabric and a complimentary floral that will make simple panels to clip onto my existing hardware. With a touch of the "fabulous fringe find" from last month I will definitely be mistreating these windows. What is on them now is tablecloths. Nester would be proud.

I would like to try to slipcover the ugly comfy chair from some matelasse coverlets I have stashed from a super clearance sale. If there is one thing I wish I was good at it would be slipcovers. Tight, couture looking slipcovers with fringe. Yes, that would be rad.

I'll be redoing the little display behind my sofa with some lighter accessories. Oh and the mantle, I didn't take a picture, but it needs redone too. I've also been on a hunt for a piece of furniture that will fit perfectly into the "TV hole". Hard thing to find I have found.

For a little Spring decoration inspiration visit HERE for a fabulous Spring mantle display, HERE for and super sweet family picture display wall and HERE for a darling Springy display bin that I bet you could put together with things from around your house.

So I'm off to go get my hair done and do a little shopping. I'll update my Spring redo later on this week.



Wishing you a happy Spring day!

Fly

If I were a bird I would only pick the most beautiful scraps from a quilters cast offs. Spend my days rummaging through a knitters trash. I would fly miles and miles for just the right color of straw and steal buttons off a pretty lace shirt hanging out to dry. Only the softest cotton fuzz would make it into my nest and tiny strips of my favorite vintage page.

I decided to play bird and whip up a special nest for some Spring decorating. What special things would your nest be made of?

Making Your Own Fleece Doggie Toys



We go through tons of toys around here. Our 10 month old English Bulldog loves to tear his toys to smithereens. His favorite is soft toys, cute little bunnies and such. After spending hundreds of dollars over the last 8 months I was getting a little sick of picking up obliterated stuffed lambs from all over the house. So I looked at the toys that seemed to last and decided to make my own with some bargain fabric. You can too! It's super easy and your furry friends will love you, and you may even get a slobbery kiss or two.



I got this idea from a toy I bought at PetSmart a few months back for $11.99. It outlasted every other soft toy I purchased so I figured it was a good one.



Get yourself some fleece. I bought this stuff out of the remnant bin for less than a dollar. I matched the fleece to the dog so they color coordinate. -It's a sickness really, the color coordination thing.

Cut it in 2 inch wide strips length wise. My strips were about 2 inches by 3 feet long.


Tie a knot in the center of 3 fleece strips. I did a triple knot. Knots are the chewy fun part.


Braid both sides. Can you tell I only have boys and never have figured out the art of braiding? It doesn't matter. Dogs don't care if you can braid good or not. They just want treats, toys and cuddles.


Now add some more chewiness with a few more knots. Trim the ends neatly


and give it to your fur buddy. This is Gunner. His mom and dad are named Axle and
Rose.


Hopefully yours will be more excited than mine. This is his pensive look.


and this is his "so ugly it's cute" face.

A Little JUnKiN

I did a little Spring decor shopping today at my favorite HUGE junk shop. I could spend days in there and never come out. They have vending machines. A girl can survive on Snickers Diet Coke and shopping for at least 3 days right?

Anyways, I found 2 cute little bird cages a sweet lopsided urn with moss and a darling nest. I'll be restyling the shelves in the family room this week with Springish stuff.




On a sad note we have 2 wild fires burning to the east of us today, the winds are making the situation very dangerous. People are being evacuated, homes threatened, people can't get home to get their pets because highway 96 is closed. Please keep my friends and neighbors in your prayers tonight.

Family Photo Wall

Emma asked "I Am wondering about all your "B"s...that is our family name initial also - will you show what you do with them??? "

So I thought I would share with you my Photo Wall. It was very fun to put together, a little brain drain did happen trying to get all the photos hung and straight. But it was worth it. I started by collecting black frames. I would buy 3 or 6 of thesame kind, when I found them on sale and just tucked them away until I felt like I had enough to complete this large staircase wall. I did the layout on the floor in the living room and took a photo to reference back to while hanging them.



I visited the Pottery Barn How to Create a Wall Display page multiple times while doing this project. A great tip is to add a bit of poster putty to the bottoms of the frames to keep them straight on the wall. With out the putty the whole thing would have been a hot mess in about an hour with the way my boys run down the stairs. Elephants are gentler.



The B's (our last name initial) were added about a month ago. I had always felt like the space needed a little something to balance it out. I purchased the initials at Hobby Lobby, JoAnns and Michaels over about a 2 month period. They were all different finishes so I sprayed them all black to match. They are all made of something different wood, metal, paper mache, and poly resin. All less than $5.00 shopping sales and using coupons.



I like to restyle this wall every season, never moving the photos just adding different elements around them for a different look.

I hope you all are having a lovely Spring weekend!

Hugs~

Deal of the Week

I know not everyone is gaga over fringe. But in my book this is like the deal of the century. 30+ yards of yummy fringe.


Look at the little aqua colored vintage looking cotton lace isn't it sweet? And the black and tan bouillon fringe isn't it pretty!


Ooooooo. Yummy...Creamy wonderfulness...Is it weird I get this excited about fringe?

Now for the best part...*Drum roll please*


$1.99 a YARD!!! Yes, more than 90% percent off. I did hold myself back from buying all of it. I kindly left some of the purple and orange stuff for others.

Ugly Art ReDo Part 2
I got everything hung, recovered the canvases that hide my ugly doorbell and thermostat. The canvas recover idea came from the wonderful Nester Queen of "Mistreatments" She is cool, wicked funny AND creative. You simply must visit her blog.

The chalkboard paint worked better on the ugly art than the ugly plaques. I figure with using everything I already had around the house this project only cost about $5.oo for the paint and the little bit of fabric. How cool is that! I really fills up the entry wall and has big impact.


We will be filling the boards up with sayings and stuff in coming few days. I need to find some cute sayings and keep the boys from drawing butts or worse on them. Sadly at 15, and 13 they do stuff like that. *Sigh*

Ugly Art ReDO Part 1

When we moved into our new home I kinda went willy nilly with my art choices trying to get stuff on the walls and make it feel homey. Now as I look around I am like "what was I thinking?"

Lately I have been brainstorming about how to reuse some of this "ugly art."



I love the look of the big ole' chalk boards I see in the Pottery Barn and Ballard catalogs. And I really like the idea of having a message center where my crazy funny boys can write silly fun stuff to each other, and where I can scrawl ( with my less than stellar handwriting) random quotes, shopping lists, weekly menu, to do stuff. You get the idea.






So I thought maybe just maybe I could redo my ugly art with a can of chalkboard paint and a couple of cans of spray paint. I did two coats of chalk board paint, it dried really fast and didn't smell up the house at all. This stuff is really neat!




The project went well last night. I actually made a killer pan of Lasagna in between coats of chalkboard paint and spray painting the frames. I love multitasking.


I will post pictures of the finished message center later on today. It's snowy and blustery here today. A perfect day for some decorating projects!


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Thrifting
I wish I knew more about pottery, both these pieces are marked. After a little research I think the green one may be Brush McCoy. The pink one I could not find anything about on the internet. It's marked USA has a number and the initials TP. It's shaped like an egg and has three feet. I think it may have had a lid originally, maybe? Pink and green together is just to perfect together to pass up. Both had a coating of grime that easily cleaned off with a magic eraser. Magic Erasers rock! I paid $4.99 for the green one and $2.99 for the pink. The candle stick is wood and matched the pink and green theme so in the basket it went, it was $1.50.


Aren't the little cherry cocktail napkins the cutest?!? My heart skipped a beat when I saw these. Red and turquoise by far my favorite color combo and the black stitching is adorable. Is it sick I get more excited about a set of vintage cocktail napkins then I do about diamond jewelry?



I see these crochet pieces of lace all the time at thrift stores. I'm not usually to drawn to them but I thought these rectangle ones were cute and would look good framed over a piece of scrapbook paper. I bought 2 at .99 each. I had the frame and scrapbook paper at home, it took me all of 2 minutes to put together. Easy, cheap and cute. That's me!

This is my dining room. Have we ever eaten in here? No. Unless you consider walking through the dining room with a mouth full of Cheerios on your way to put in another load of laundry, "eating in the dining room." I use the space mostly for playing with decorating ideas. I call it the "Lab".


I almost painted it red last month. Thank goodness I was to chicken to actually do it. The paint cans and brushes sat on the table mocking me and calling out to me "do it already will ya!!" for at least 3 weeks. I finally had enough and put them away and decided a nice tone of Latte would be better.

Yesterday, I did a display for the buffet that has been painted umpteen times. It didn't turn out as Springish (is that a word?) as I wanted. But I tend to collect things that are a little on the rustic dark side. My favorite color is red, I can't wear it so use it a lot in my house. I probably need a red intervention. Maybe.