Fireplace
It was a pleasure to update this fireplace. Painting it white brightened up the room immensely. It made this dated living room modern and clean and became one of my favorite backdrops for art. My next project is to replace the mantle with something chunkier with good texture.
Pentagonal Terrarium
Got it at World Market. After I bought it, it sat on our shelf for months with nothing in it, I thought it was too cool for me. I just couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Intimidating. Soon it became our key holder. After a run-in with a four-year-old, it now has a few cracked panels, but if you turn it the right way it still looks just fine.
Felt Balls
I love felt balls. years ago I saw someone decorate their mantle with a felt-ball garland, and I LOVED it. But at the time I was too cheap buy some. So I bought some yarn at Michaels and made my own yarn balls. Scalded my fingertips with hot-glue, but no biggy. A couple years later, I discovered you could buy them in bulk on ebay directly from the manufacturer! So my sister and I split 1000 felt balls, and now I use them to decorate for everything, including Christmas tree garland. The yarn balls have been sadly retired.
Poppy Photo
We found this at the Portland Saturday’s market, and the photographer was amazing. I had buyer’s remorse almost immediately; the artist had so many other striking photos (and one of a dandelion) that I agonized over not purchasing. But I couldn’t resist the color. The texture is amazing too. It’s beautiful. I still may stop by Saturday’s market and get that stupid dandelion though.
Progression Painting
I painted this the summer before Garrett and I got married in 2010, on the floor of my college apartment. It’s one of the first I ever did.
I always gravitate towards painting feelings of this brightness that is just exploding out of me. I never know exactly how to communicate that on canvas, but this is the closest that I’ve been able to get to it. The feeling is like that scene in Beauty and the Beast where Beast turns into his human form, light shooting out of his body. When his head throws back, and light just shoots upward? That’s the feeling I was going for.
I built the frame for it too. I didn’t realize it was so easy to do! It’s just stained 1x2s that I mitered and then nailed together. I watched an artist do it on Instagram and then proceeded to do it to every unframed canvas we had in our house.
Dia de los Muertos Bride & Groom Figurines
Borrowed these from my sister, they are just unique, funky, they make me think of Coco.
Someone should have warned me about that movie. I sobbed like a baby. Not even like a baby. I ugly cried all the way through the last third. Spoilers ahead, but when I thought of Hector trying to get home to see Coco and all he wanted was to cross that bridge but kept drowning in the marigolds, my heart ached. His desperation and love for his child were beautiful. I have never been more excited about a happy ending than I was when I watched that movie.
Seriously, I cried for an hour after.
Magnolia Vase
I went to Waco, Texas for sister-in law birthday this last summer. We stayed in one of the Fixer Upper homes on Air BnB, I geeked out in the Magnolia store, and ate our weight in cupcakes. I bought only a couple things first day, then I went home, thought about all my purchases, and bought about 12 more things. My carry-on and backpack were completely full of Magnolia merchandise for myself and family birthdays. Aging has never been so exciting.
I thought this vase was so unique, with its wrinkled texture, I knew I wouldn’t find anything like it again. I love it every time I see it. I used fake eucalyptus from Ikea. For some reason it says sophisticated greens to me. Which happens to be what we are having for dinner on Sunday.
