... The World Would Be a Dark Place.

I'm so thankful for that quote. It's perfect! Thank you, guitar lesson teacher! My hobbies are experiencing a cross-over event hahahahaha ...

I seemed to be on overload with thinking of little projects over the past few weeks. It really started toward the end of February when my brain was frying through the social isolation of the pandemic, and I had to figure out new things to do! All of these projects are silver linings for me because they have been super fun! 

Some of my endeavors transform one of our ottomans into a painting spot:

Sometimes I'm on the couch with the ottoman, and sometimes I'm on the floor. Either way, the picnic tablecloth is often a life saver. 😉

Much like the stash of baker's twine I had that was just waiting to fulfill its destiny, I've had some mini canvasses on hand blankly staring at me. Then, one day, I was scrolling through a miniatures feed on Facebook and came across someone who made lovely, mini Van Goghs. I specifically recall her version of Starry Night as painted in non-traditional colors, like reds and oranges, and it inspired me to give it a try myself. Here's my first one:

I just love pushing acrylic paint around, so this was fun. I was reasonably happy with the outcome, but I kept discovering ways on the fly to work with the paint to make it look even better, and I decided I must try again focusing on my favorite parts:

I loooooooooved how this one turned out! With all due respect, I'm no fan of Van Gogh, so I didn't feel compelled to maintain the tree or the housing situation at the bottom. I continued to incorporate different colors because they appealed to me, and I love the turnout. I did go back through the feed to review the original picture I saw of Starry Night in non-traditional colors, and, wouldn't you know, my mind totally made that up because what I saw was a replica of the original in tiny form. I dunno.

Moving along, an artist I absolutely do love is Franz Marc. I was introduced to his work in an Art History class I took in college to fulfill a humanities requirement (I'll say it: ugh.). His is the only work that salvaged my interest in that class as well as the only reason I held on to the textbook. Years ago, I recreated his Blue Horses painting for our own home, so I thought The House needed a nod to his work:

This one is called Purple Fox. (Damn-betcha our Art History professor never tested us on the titles of his work because those would have been easy points. But, I digress ...) This, too, is in acrylics. And, this, too, will eventually be in real-people size in our house because we love it! 

Here these three are in the craft room of The House:

I also finally hung this one that I made a couple of years ago:

That's my own creation. No title as of yet. 😊

With the acrylics still out, I had to keep going! This time, I found inspiration from a sticker sheet I have:

With 2" x 2" canvasses in my stash, you know what's coming!

I really enjoyed creating these as it just takes me back to the days my own Boy fell in love with Toy Story and just knew he, himself, was Buzz Lightyear! Anyway, it was interesting to do these after having done that larger-than-life mural on his actual wall (see February's "Paintings Big and Small"). I didn't realize at the time of creating that mural the gift of space I had to work with color and shading. These little canvasses presented new challenges, so I spent some time deciding the extent to which I would work with them while keeping the project fun. I love how they turned out, and they look quite fab hanging in the room!

There's one more piece to show! So, there I was, back in early February, scrolling on Facebook, and I came across a stunning painting with the most vibrant colors! It is of a tree-lined pathway, and it looks like it was made by a rainbow violently sneezing on a canvass. It's SO beautiful! And, my mind made the leap that it is another Franz Marc piece given the colors. I screen shot it to one day paint.

Fast-forward about a month, and Easter rolled around. My Girl put a set of water colors from Target's new craft line in my basket, and it, too, possesses really rich colors. Yes, rich water colors. I said it. No, I did not think it possible. To me, this was the perfect time to attempt this painting!

I got back in my stash of small canvasses and went to work. I guessed canvass wasn't the best for water colors, but I wanted to see what happened. THIS is what happened:

TA-DA!! It's just ... yum ...

So, remember when I just knew I saw a Van Gogh replica where my recollection was completely wrong? That seems to be a theme! I recently researched and researched and researched Franz Marc's works to find the name of the original of this painting, and I just could not find it anywhere. Huh. That happens when researching the wrong artist! Sheesh. It turns out I simply made an assumption about the artist based on the colors and impressionist style. It's not Franz Marc, though. It's Leonid Afremov.

And, now, I have two, favorite artists. And, I know Afremov wasn't presented in Art History class because I would have remembered. Not that my recent recollections support that hahahaha.

This is another I want to work with for my own house. It's called Farewell To Anger. I took a little peek at info about Afremov, and he created most, it seems, of his paintings with oils, acrylics, a wide brush and a palette knife. I'll stick with acrylics as I know nothing about using oils and will leave that to the masters! I wouldn't mind trying this again in miniature in acrylics and with a canvass that is prepped with a few coats of gesso to lessen the canvass weave. But, until then, I think it looks just great displayed in the family room!

It just gets homier and homier!! That concludes this installment of the gallery around The House! But, I can't sign off without sharing a peek of a new resident:

That's Stretch. You see why. And, I had to have him. My Girl already calls this the animal hoarder house, so why not live right up to that! And, why not throw in a cat pic for good measure to wrap this up?

Let your space be light and bright wrapped in the aesthetics you love!

If Aesthetic Didn't Matter ...

I recently told my guitar lesson teacher over text that I chose one tuning app over another because it was prettier. I figured he'd let that comment slide and chalk it up to me just being me. To my wonderful surprise, he texted back: "If aesthetic didn't matter, the world would be a dark place."

To that kind of end, this post is all about the decor endeavors, from floor to walls, in The House!!

A few weeks ago, I decided it was important to work with some of the baker's twine I have, so I decided on a couple of projects. First, I made this: 

One of the art projects we made in our 6th grade art class was a macrame plant hanger. My parents went pretty nutty over it and decided I needed to make many, many more. They literally came home from the store one Saturday and plopped a bag full of macrame cords, beads and hanging rings on a table like it was totally normal. I remember eagerly rummaging through the bag and getting to work because I loved to do it, so that worked out well. I made so many over the years that I basically made this miniature one from memory. I did pull up an instruction page on the internet to get an idea of how long to cut the strings, but I just winged the rest. From here, I just need a wall hook, as the length is a little short for the ceilings in The House, and a plant! I will definitely make at least one more of these because it was super fun! I'd put beads in it like I used to, but beads small enough to look good have the teeny-tiniest holes through which the baker's twine won't fit, so I choose to not drive myself insane.

With the stash of baker's twine I have, I had to make more things. After a little internet investigation, I got some ideas for making looms with cardboard and pulled together two area rugs:

After cutting the slits at the top and the bottom of my cereal box loom template, I simply took the twine and wrapped it around and around and around all the way across the back. These get cut in half on the back and are used to tie and create the fringe. Then, I used the extra, because there's quite a bit of it, to add to the line of fringe to thicken it by tying pieces to the top and bottom rows of the rug. A curved needle comes in very handy to make all parts of this project! Here's this rug in action:

And, I made a smaller one with a smaller cardboard template:

This rug has appeared in a previous post, but I'm just now getting around to focusing on showcasing decorations. Life, amiright?

After I satisfied my urge to use the baker's twine, I decided it was time to get things on the walls! Here are some family pictures in progress:

The five pieces to the right  on the white paper are actually cookbooks in the making, so we can ignore those right now. I used balsa pieces for both the books and the frames, though, so I decided to do it all at once. I'd already printed, microglazed and cut the pictures, so they are here just waiting for their frames to dry. I made these easy on myself and decided to just glue the pictures onto the painted piece before applying polycrylic to make it stick for real. Here's the outcome!

I love the varied color finish on the frame. I just used one coat of acrylic paint which soaked right into the balsa. And, I didn't touch it because I liked the outcome. Directly across from these pictures is ...

... the whole gang! I did make this frame. It seems I missed filling one of the corners. Whoopsie. I love it, though! I made this frame, too:

I really took my time with this one, so it looks most awesome to me! I can fix the other if I want. But, I have yet to trim the outside of the house and to even give it shingles, so let's not be holding breath betting on when I'm going to fix a frame hahahaha.

Of course, not all frames are on the walls in real life, so I made some acrylic ones for some of the surfaces. There are three on these shelves:

And, I have one on the nightstand:

These were ri-dic-u-lous-ly easy! I used a piece of plastic from some product or other -- the kind of packaging where the plastic creates a "window" to the product. This plastic wasn't too thick nor too flimsy. That's the best I can say about what I used. I cut it to size with an X-acto, and I simply bent the end along a metal straight edge to create the picture stand. This plastic was perfect to easily bend and stay put. (A little trial and error on plastics that come in and out of a house daily will reveal what to use!) To put "in" the picture, I smeared clear Tacky glue on the back of the frame and stuck the picture facing out onto it. And, that was that! 

The family pictures really give it the family feel I love!! But, that's not all that's been going on! The journey through the aesthetics continues in the next post!