Monday, April 30, 2012

YHL helped decorate my house!

If you're not a regular in the DIY/crafty blog world, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about when I say YHL.  Well, it's only my all-time favorite blog in the world, otherwise known as Young House Love.  John and Sherry Petersik are the brains behind this fabulous blog and I believe I've mentioned them before so I'll spare you all the details on why I love them and all of their DIY goodness. 

There's another website that I adore....Joss and Main.  It's one of those lovely sites that sends you daily emails with discounts on a whole slew of stuff, usually of the decor type.  What does Joss and Main have to do with Young House Love?  Well, John and Sherry are so respected with their personal design choices that Joss and Main contacted them to be a part of their Curator's Collection!  So what the heck does that mean?  Well it means that they got to personally hand-pick items, ranging from furniture to small accessories, that (in the words of Sherry) is their "jam."  When I opened an email from Joss and Main one Sunday night and saw their smiling faces, I was super excited to see their Curator's Collection and even more excited when I saw things in my price range.  John and Sherry are some of the biggest penny pinchers I know (if you call stalking someone's blog daily "knowing them") so it didn't surprise me when I saw some reasonably priced items on their list.  You have no idea how big of a fan I am of this adorable little family so I just had to purchase an item or two because it was kinda like they had a hand in decorating my own pad.  

I ended up purchasing this set of 3 dish towel set in green and white. 
      

After I placed my order, Sherry blogged that she ordered these too!  I died. 


Then I bought one other thing.....this little feller.  Sherry is obsessed with ceramic animals (usually of the white kind....not that she's racist) so it didn't surprise me to see him on the list. 


Yes, I know it's a bit random to have a teal elephant in your house but elephants kinda have a special meaning in my family.  I don't usually like to talk politics but I have a family full of republicans and my uncle was the County Attorney for 20 years.  His law office had a pretty significant elephant theme going on with many many elephant figurines.  So when he passed away, we each picked out a couple of our favorite elephants.    Supposedly, when the trunk is pointing up, it's good luck.  So here's to hoping that Peter brings me all the luck in the world!  Yes, I named him Peter since John and Sherry's last name is Petersik.  :) 


And here are Tippy and Peter meeting each other for the first time. 


If you're wondering how the introduction went....well, Tippy thought Peter had a weird "nose" and Peter didn't understand why Tippy's teeth were on the OUTSIDE of her mouth. 

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Tippy Tuesday

Usually when it's nap time, Tippy lays in the crook of my legs.  This time she laid her little peanut head on my cheek.  *sigh*


Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Remote Control

Remember that show on MTV?  It was the greatest ever!  If you can't remember, this may jog you're memory.....



So what does that have to do with this post? Well a lot actually.  For one, it's about a remote control and two, it's about a remote control (and TV) that CLEARLY came from the 80s just like this infamous game show. Well, I'm referring to my old-school TV that I had up until last year? 


If you don't remember me talking about my TV, you can read about it here.  Long story short, it was the one thing that my Granny made sure I got when she died 7 years ago.  So I held on to that sucker until I could no longer watch my 84572938 shows that I DVR.  As you can imagine, I was emotionally attached to that TV and even though it had the worst picture in the history of color TV, I was still so sad to see it go.

BUT, one day I opened the drawer to the end table (that I rarely open) and realized I still had its remote control! (Yeah, I know.....the pic is sideways.  You're lucky I even got a pic of it.)


So I had some ideas on what I wanted to do with it but the first thing I did was take it apart.  I took off the back and all of its guts leaving only the front part and the buttons.  Then I gave it a good warshin' because I'm pretty sure it had crumbs and gunk inside that had been there since my Granny used it.  


What did I do next?......What I always do when I begin a project.  I had a brain fart and left it sitting on my bar for months.  Then a couple of months later, I finally decided to do something with it.  My original plan was to maybe take a hammer to it and break it up into pieces and create some type of abstract art and spray paint it in a bright funky color.  But I consider this thing "vintage".  I mean, how many remotes/TVs have you seen lately that have "Zenith" on the bottom?  Besides the TV in the video above which totally proves my point. 

I really didn't want it to lose its integrity (yes, this remote has integrity) so I decided to mount it as is. My plan was to hang it in the same room where I watch hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of TV, so it would definitely be appropriate.  The only problem was when I took it apart months ago, I threw away the back of it because I wasn't planning on leaving it in one piece.  So I had to hot glue the sheet with the buttons to the under side of the front of the remote.  I wasn't sure how I was gonna frame it.  First, I started looking for shadow boxes but they were more than I wanted to spend and it seemed like a lot of empty space for a remote that was maybe 1" deep.  (That's what she said?)  It clearly wouldn't fit behind the glass in a regular frame so I had the bright idea to take the glass out of a frame that I already had, paint it metallic gold, add scrapbook paper behind the frame and mount it!     


I thought I was done at this point until I spotted some coordinating ribbon on my TV stand.  I must mention that I was in the middle of about 4 different projects so I had random craft supplies laying er'where in my house. 


So I thought I could hot glue it around the edges just for a little extra detail.


It doesn't make the hugest difference but it definitely adds a little sum'n, sum'n.


So are you wondering why I've been making all this art and haven't shown you yet where I've hung it?  You will see soon!  :)

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Tippy Tuesday

Let's rewind a bit.  Here's Tippy on her leash in early March....



And here she is over the weekend! Warning: You may want to turn your head half way through the video.



This doesn't mean that she loves her leash. On Sunday, she was chillin' on the couch and I pulled her leash out to hang it up in the kitchen. Then I heard her little toenails scatter on the tile floor, going into my bedroom. I followed her in there and she was hiding on my bed with her ears back because she thought I was gonna put that %$@#&*$ thing on her!  Hey, it's progress.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Pixel-y Piece of Paint Swatch Art

Thanks to Pinterest (once again!) I fell in love with all that fabulous art out there made from paint samples.  Here are just a few of my favorites.....

Via


Via

I absolutely looooooove this one. 

Via

Then there's this one that I thought was super cool. 

Via
After seeing this one, I thought perhaps I could do something like this (but not quite to this scale).  I'm not much of a floral girl but I am a chihuahua girl!  Well I'm not REALLY a chihuahua....but you know what I mean.  I thought maybe I could just print out a silhouette of a chihuahua and lay out my paint samples with the blues/teals being the chihuahua and the greens/yellows in the background. 


After a long time of punching out all these 1 inch squares, I couldn't quite lay out the squares in the shape of a recognizable chihuahua.  So what did I do next? I kept them laying out on my kitchen table for weeks until I was forced to bag them up while I was cleaning because I had people coming over.

After months had passed, I figured that I had to do SOMETHING with them so I pulled them back out and just started laying them out.  



And ended up with this.


Not exactly what I had in mind but I had to do something with them (like....now) because....well, I can't tell you just yet.  I know, I'm such a (fill in the blank).  I'm sorry.  I personally think it looks a little better in person because the colors seem to look more blended.  I trickled in a couple of green swatches in with the blues and a couple of blues in with the green so I wouldn't end up with distinct line dividing up the blues from the greens.  So there ya have it!  A 10x13 pixel-y piece of paint swatch art.  I still have a whole bunch of squares left over.  Who knows what I'll end up doing with them!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Tippy Tuesday

Tippy did a little too much celebrating after the CATS' big win last night that she wanted to know when the hangover was supposed to go away.


With that said....Congratulations to the University of Kentucky for bringing home the 8th NCAA National Title.  It couldn't have happened to a more deserving or better team and coach!  
Puuuuure Gr8ness!!!