"New" Dresser

This project started over two weeks ago, and would have been pretty quick, except I decided to get fancy with the top, and then our mini stay-cation happened. This flimsy old dresser with a poor stain job came from my grandparents house. It really is not high quality so I no qualms painting it:

This is during the sanding stage. 

I actually first painted it a brighter, and (I decided) more obnoxious blue. This light blue is just a little test pot of paint I’ve had for a while. I only did one coat and like it rustic for now. Plus I ran out of paint.

I wanted to be more creative with it other than that random green drawer. I’ve had a placemat that I thought would be a great stencil for a while and this might be the project to use it on. I didn’t really think through all of the ways I could accomplish this, I just knew I wasn’t ready to paint over the placemat yet. So I traced it in pencil and decided to use the green color I had used on the drawer. I’ve never been good at coloring inside the lines. This is very good practice. That’s what I keep telling myself. And good practice with a paintbrush, since I don’t really know any techniques. 

The green is an interior wall paint, and went on very thinly. It definitely needed a second coat, which I’m still working on (see mini stay-cation). That is why it seems darker in the upper left corner, it actually is, not just more weird lighting. For the second coat I mixed it with green acrylics and it seems a lot better. I’m not sure if I’ll get to a third coat or just call it good when I’m finally done with the second. It will just be in our bedroom, and if we end up annoyed with it I can always paint over it. I’m not sure what I will do with the knobs. I might look for some different ones, or just paint the ones that came with this, but I ran out of blue paint. So, we’ll see, but it definitely needs handles.

I’ve enjoyed working on this, and it’s nice to get paints out again, even if it’s just for a dresser. Although I am ready to be done with it. So, now, onward!

"Your House Did Not Asplode"

Yay! We didn’t explode! Our house did not explode! And we’re having a mini stay-cation! Wahoo!

I should probably start with the exploding business. Tuesday night when I had my routine bathroom visit i thought the hallway smelled like gas. In the morning it still smelled when you first walked out of the bedroom, but you didn’t notice it after a little while. So we forgot about it. Then I got home from work and after smelling the fresh rainy air, it definitely smelled like gas inside. I was in a bit of denial and made tea, which was a stupid idea, but at least our stove is electric so there was no open flame. Brian called the gas company and then called me and told me to leave the house. Ugh. So I took my cup of tea and bowl of cereal (yes, afternoon breakfast. I do that sometimes) and sat in the car. because it was raining. The gas company came and it was not a false alarm, but it was also not a major emergency yet (or I might still be in denial). A valve that did not get replaced when the new furnace was installed was leaking. So it was easy to find and easy to fix. And we did not blow up.

I have been working extra hours on Mondays which means I have other random days off during the week. This time I got a lovely four day weekend, having today and tomorrow off. Brian surprised me on Tuesday by announcing he got the days off too! We had thrown some ideas around about a little trip for our anniversary, but since we didn’t plan anything in advance we decided to stay home and enjoy our own town.
After the gas excitement we kicked off the stay-cation by going to the East side of town. Which I guess is a West-sider’s vacation spot. But really, we thought we would get some half-priced Bang Bang Shrimp at Bonefish Grill because it was Wednesday. But there was a 50 minute wait. Too long. So we headed to Bradley Fair where we immediately got seated at Bella Luna and enjoyed some lovely pasta (although I think I’ll go back to my regular next time). Then we walked a bit as it was no longer raining, and I wanted to check out Francesca’s because I’ve seen cute things there, but never been in. I got a dress. It has tiny whales on it. I have weddings to go to this spring. And Brian bought it as an anniversary gift.
Then we had to go to Cocoa Dolce. They have the best hot chocolate ever. Well, they have the best everything chocolate ever, and beverage form seemed appropriate with the weather. After way too much chocolate to drink we came home happy.

Today has been pretty lazy. More like a Saturday, without feeling like we need to accomplish things around the house. I’ve been wanting to finish up painting a dresser, but I ended up experimenting in the kitchen instead. I guess that was my creative outlet today. I made peanut sauce with rice for lunch. My former roommate used to make it, so I kind of just made it up as I went, using coconut milk and peanut butter as the base and adding sriracha and lime juice and other things that struck my fancy. Then this afternoon I made some chicken salad. I’ve been craving it for a little while, so I pretty much made it up too. I cooked the chicken in lots of curry seasoning and added grapes and celery and pecans. It might need some more miracle whip, but you have to be careful with it, you know? You don’t want to over do a thing like that.

So, now there’s a fresh cup of tea and a new episode of Psych (watched on amazon) calling my name. I think I’ll go indulge in some more vacation.

Creative Every Day 2012 Challenge: Accepted

A little over a year ago I talked about writing and expressing myself creatively more often. Honestly I haven’t done a great job of it. I have done creative things, and written for myself a bit, but not as much as I would like to. So. It’s time to get down to business. Make yet another goal. (Hopefully I’ll be back soon with an update on how the New Year’s goals are doing.)

I’m going to accept the Creative Every Day Challenge.

And I’m actually signing up, not just being my usual lurker self, so I have some accountability. I’ll be back later this week with some project-y things and ways I’m finding creativity.

Reasons to do CED:
I want to blog more. I sit around often thinking about this space and what it is to me and what I want to do with it. I’ve had this blog quite a long time in blog years, but it really hasn’t gone anywhere. I don’t necessarily want this to just be a space to record CED, but I want to use it more, and this will be one way to do it.

I want to get better at creative things I’ve already tried. A lot of times I happen on a project that I want to try and think, “Hey this would be a great Christmas present” or, “I really like doing this, if I get good at it, maybe someone would buy it.” But then once I’ve tried it, that’s it. No perfecting it, no going back and learning from the mistakes to make it better. I’m clearly not a very disciplined person but I want to get better at the artistic things I try. Not necessarily for monetary gain, but to make something lovely that will last. That won’t fall apart, or be a canvas someone will decide to paint over.

Also I want to broaden my horizons. Every month there is an optional theme for Creative Every Day. So at least once during the month I’m going to do something with that theme in mind. Hopefully this will push me to try new things. And the March theme is Mixed Media. I’ve been interested in Mixed Media, so hopefully I can get going and have something to show for this month’s theme.

So, Challenge accepted. Now to go Be Creative!