Printed

I posted a while back about hosting a craft night with my girl friends, and, I am happy to say, "Craft Time" is still going strong! We don't always get a lot of work done, but I am not complaining at all! We have tons of fun just munching on snacks and drinking wine and chatting. Last time we even had a mini dance party :) I love hanging out with my girlie friends!

I actually did get something done one night, though. I made a little lino print! Here's my block:

 And my print!

 My ink was kind of old so it ended up being really globby, but it was a lot of fun!
Looking forward to the next craft night!

& Our Roof Color Is....

Picking our roof was really anti-climactic. There were like 5 choices. We went with a darker one that is equal parts brown and grey. It's nice.

My Birthday

My birthday isn't until May 15th, and every year I manage to milk it for all it's worth. I might as well have 10 birthdays between January 1st and May 16th because every time I purchase something (or want to purchase something), I rationalize it by calling it my "birthday present." I end up with a lot of birthday presents. I have a problem.

I've already gotten my real birthday present (the treadmill), but here are a few other things that could also become "birthday presents:"

Last year, we had a TON of weeds growing in the space between the fence and our alleyway. I'm hoping that this year we'll be able to put some weed barrier down and transport the lava/river rock from the side of our house to the back edge of the yard. Killing two birds (weeds and hideous side yard rock) with one stone (pun intended). I think this may become my "birthday present" this weekend. If our weekend goes the way I have planned.

In case the weekend doesn't go as I have planned.

I like the illustrations in this book.

Woot! Woot! The in-laws came last weekend and gave Eric a REALLY hard time about our threadbare curtains (which are likely 60 years old and have kitty claw snags up and down them from when the cat was learning that was NOT alright behavior), and yesterday Eric said (unprompted by me, mind you), "You should probably order some curtains." WHAT?! Woot! Good job in-laws! So probably these in the natural. I have to look around a little more first, though.

I gots some sanding to do. I don't know what kind of sander is the best. But I need one for some paint removal. I gots some wood to strip.

And this, of course. Because a girl can dream, can't she?

House Colors 2

Meh. Still have no idea what we're going to do.....

Ack!

We have to pick a roof color by tomorrow! What?!

Lucy Engelman

I recently stumbled across Lucy Engelman's tumblr feed, and I gotta say, I'm a huge fan of her drawings. I love her illustration style!

 I drew a LOT of paper dolls when I was younger. I think most of the time it was so I could bring my dream wardrobe to life. I love this doodle of Lucy's outfit for the day.

I'd really love to know her illustration process. Does she draw these in pencil first and the trace with pen? Or is she just good enough to use pen from the get-go? What kind of paper does she use? And how does she color them?

Next Bedrooms

Now that I know what the back bedroom will look like, I can start thinking of the other two. I think I want the front bedroom to be a little like this....(especially the first image, less so the next two).....

And the middle bedroom to be like thissss.....

 But who knows what they'll turn out like! It will most likely be eons before they're put together! :)

Back Bedroom

Eric's gotta quit leaving me alone; I just spend money like crazy. I bought this purse (which was considerably more than my usual $15 Target hobo bag finds), and then I decided to paint the back bedroom. Which led to me needing to buy paint and curtains and curtain rods and picture frames. Painting really adds up.
To balance the scale a bit, I ended up returning the purse. I've come to realize that Eric will NEVER buy the bike he wants if I keep buying ridiculous, selfish, lovely, wonderful purses. Eric NEEDS to get a bike. I do not need a purse.....(can you tell I'm trying to convince myself?)...

Sigh. Farewell, purse.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun painting the back bedroom. I had been wanting to do the ceiling for a while since it had a black ring around the fan from when we replaced the light fixture. But, after I painted the ceiling, the walls looked really terrible in comparison so I decided to paint them too! I went for a light grey. Now, I know everything in our house seems to be going grey, but here are some "inspiration" pictures so you can get an idea of what I was shooting for....

....I'd never have black walls - yikes! - but our bedding is very similar to this, and I really wanted our Lebowski rug to finally find its forever home in this room.
The only thing is...the grey I picked wasn't quite as light as I thought. I literally stopped half way through to freak out a little bit. It was DARK.

 Ok, so it doesn't look as dark in the second picture. I'm going to blame the sunshine pouring in, but these are my "freaking-out-what-have-I-done?!" pictures.

After I finished painting, I went and ate dinner and sat on the couch for a bit, hoping that the paint would somehow dry a different color and that I wouldn't have to redo the work I had just done.

When I finally worked up the courage to go back in, I was still a little concerned. However, after moving furniture around (and a quick trip to the store for curtains, curtain rods, and picture frames), I finally started to like it. A lot. And then not so much. And then pretty well. I keep changing my mind. It looks ok.

It's still a bit stark, there is a lot left to do, but I'm hoping the details will pull it together. The whole room could probably use another coat of paint - I used exactly one gallon on the walls - the trim needs painted, I need to iron the curtains and put up curtain rods, get rid of the carpet, trade these bedside tables with the ones in the front room,  hang pictures, move dressers in, and haul the Lebowski rug back upstairs. I really hope that rug looks good in here. I hope it's not as overwhelming as it was in our living room.

Yard Guards

I love me some backyard squirrels. These came with the house. I painted them pink.

Thanks for the photo, Kayla!

Exterior Paint Color

We've been getting estimates on our roof and I think we may have found who we're going to have do it!!! I think!!!! We're also going to have to side it before long so we need to decide on roof and paint colors that go together. Soon.

Eric got me a graphics tablet for Christmas (which is super awesome) so I've been using it to doodle our house in all its future awesomeness. 

Well, actually I got to this point and then decided I should research what colors typically look good on ranch homes. Back in the 50's, our house was painted a bright turquoise which, according to the interwebs, was pretty common for that time. Especially in Florida and Southern California. But, since there is no way we're painting our home turquoise again, I kept reading. Apparently there are three color categories that, historically, have been common for ranch homes; the "Eichler colors" are drawn from nature - greys, greens, and browns and occasionally avacado (yech), harvest gold, and copper. There are also (what I'm calling) the "vacation home colors" which are typically brighter versions of the "Eichler colors" with turquoise, hot pink, and yellow accents, and finally, there are more traditional colors - white, brick-red, etc. So basically, we can paint our house any color, even hot pink and yellow. Useless, this research.

My search culminated with the discovery of a (now defunct) site that tells you what color to paint your house based on a picture you send them. I spent a lot of time searching through archives looking for homes similar to ours, but discovered that all of them were either grey, green, or tan with burgundy or orange doors and some shade of cream trim. Like this:  
This was actually the best color combo I found on that site. Which is fine. Just not awesome. I am really not ok with an orange door. And we won't be able to paint our window casings. Trim, but not casings.

I then visited the Home Depot and Lowe's sites. Did you know you can upload a photo of your house to the Lowe's site and paint it different colors right there? Well you can! But by that time I was already having too much fun photoshopping and using my Christmas present to utilize their handy little tool. Home Depot sent me to Behr's site and Behr told me that ranch houses look like this:

Uh, what? Is our house even a rancher? What is going on? But I persevered and used these very similar colors on a few of my little drawings.

I could deal with this.
And then Eric came home and said he wanted a white house with green & red accents....

...and then I remembered that we had driven around at one point taking pictures of house colors we liked.....

 I'm kind of in love with this house. It's adorable. But here's what it looks like on our house....

I'm not going to lie, any color would be an improvement right now so it's tough to tell. We have a lot of other decisions to make too. Like, should get rid of the shutters and/or give the windows bigger trim and/or put some shakes on the end of the house and/or...something else that we're not aware of? I'd definitely like something to happen to the porch area....I do not find it attractive at all...I just wish I knew what...

Shower Grout

We grouted the shower on Saturday! It was really stressful! We used epoxy grout and Eric was freaking out the whole time that it was setting up!! It's the first time I'd ever heard him swear! It was kind of terrifying! But I just put on my "nice wife" voice (yes, I do have one of those) and said, "You can do it honey! You're doing so well!" And he smeared the grout on! And I wiped it off! And it turned out looking like hundred bucks!

We actually bought the "bright white" grout, but it turned out to be a bit grey. I'm not complaining. I do worry, however, for those who really truly need white grout. They'll be up a creek.

How to Hang Towels

Are hooks or bars better in a bathroom? Hooks would let us hang more towels, but bars dry them faster. Also, is it weird to put hand towels over a toilet?

Wonderful Weekend!!!

I don't know about Eric, but I had a really fun weekend. Probably because this happened:

Uh huh! Our shower got tiled! If you're thinking, "of course you had a fun weekend, you sat around watching tv while Eric worked his butt off," then you would be wrong. Because I helped! I'm actually pretty stinking proud of myself. I learned how to use a tile saw and hacked those suckers to bits. I even chopped down a couple trees in my down time. Uh huh. I rock.

We still have to grout, but it looks SOOO COOOOL! The shower might even be finished by the end of the week! Say what?!!

Our weekend was also fun because the weather has been AMAZING and we were able to get out of the house for a while. We played a little tennis, went to a friend's house for dinner, walked around the neighborhood, took a bike ride - we were busy. And it was glorious. I am loving the sunshine, and am really excited that the end of winter is in sight! Though I'm pretty excited about this new shower situation too....

Bookhou at Home

If I could trade lives with one person in the world, I think it would be with Arounna, one half of the husband/wife duo that is Bookhou. Ok, not lives, but definitely jobs. Arounna is a printmaker and sculptor that creates gorgeous textiles and ceramics which she sells online on etsy and through her own site. She even has a blog to show some of her workings behind-the-scenes, as well as snippets of how she juggles family life (a husband and two small children) with being a small business owner. I have yet to discover something on her site that I do not adore, and I so wish I had pursued textile design as my senior thesis. Check out some of her work below:

 I love these textiles she's printed....and the totes she turns them into.

Who doesn't love a good porcupine?!?

She even makes darling children's clothing & toys. If ever I have a child, I hope they are as stylish as this. That kitten bib is DARLING, and this mobile - to DIE for.