art schmart

I'm crafty, I am NOT artistic. There's a big difference. I can come up with crafty ideas but when it comes to artistic talent that's required to make said craft/art nice that's where I can't follow through to the end. 

Some times I forget that and try my hand at something and when it fails then I remember, 'oh yeah I don't have any artistic abilities.' Last weekend I went to a local art event, every year I love going and build it up so much that I always get let down. The arts and crafts tend to fall into two categories, either "They want how much for this!?!" or "Who'd ever buy this!?!" I seem to forget about that until I go and then remember. I'm always looking for the elusive item that I like and that seems to be not incredibly expensive. I think I've only ever bought three things from this festival over the years: bacon salt, a wooden birdhouse bird feeder, and homemade soy candles. The bacon salt was good but highly processed I don't know what it really was and the bird feeder got eaten (yes the wood too, not just the bird seeds) by the squirrels in just a few weeks. The candles I bought this year and so far so great. 

Anyway, typically I'll find something that's really pretty (and handmade) but of course crazy expensive. This year I saw a really pretty painting of a coneflower, one of my favorites, it was so my style but so out of my price range  I took a picture on the sly and thought about it. I said "what the hell" and decided I'd eventually try to recreate it myself. I had a blank canvas lying around the house and went to HobbyLobby and bought myself some paint and some brushes. I took my cell phone, zoomed into the photo of the painting and tried my best Neil Caffery forgery to make art. Here's the comparison, which isn't very good because even my incognito photo came out way better than my multiple attempts of my own painting. 

where do your keys go when they come home?

For the past three years we've just thrown our keys on the dinning room table. Dirty little secret (okay big secret): my dinning room table is really just my junk pile. Our house is too small for a real dinning room area, there's just enough room for a small table to go, but not enough room to actually use it. 

My husband has access to tons of pallets at work and decided to go on a building/tool kick with them. A half dozen came home with him one day and he's been thinking of the many uses for them ever since. I decided we'd have to use some of that wood to make a key holder. A few trips to Hobby Lobby (how I love thee!) and a few "consults" with my husband and a design for our key holder was created.

As a warning, I took these pictures with my iPhone (it's a 3g so it's barely hanging on 2+ years later and has a horrible camera). I also tried playing around with layers and filters and big girl photoshop techniques for the first time to make these seem artistic (aka blog worthy).

Please don't judge me. Yes, the frames seem crooked. Yes, the key holder is not level with the light switch. BUT my entire house is not level. The light switch isn't level to the wall. So it's hard to balance anything with that craziness.

Here's a close up of the beauty. I fell in love with that center hook, so pretty! But I knew it'd look bad with three of them. So then came in the other hooks. I don't love them but they're okay. What's hard to make out in the picture are old rusty nails in the wood. Some were already in that piece of wood but I had hubby put some more in for effect! (The nails are also a really pretty color that's similar to the two bronze hooks.)

Most days I will put my keys on this beauty but other days I forget and go to the trusty table. Hubby reminds me where they're really supposed to go. What do you think of it? 

diy fail: jewelry holder

You know the phrase having eyes larger then your stomach? Well there's got to be something like that about taking on new project ideas. You look at everyone's blogs and things seem so easy! The few times I've tried any out myself they're 500 times harder than the blog made it seem and my end result (if it ever gets finished) is ... lackluster. Oh and did I mention that even the projects that are supposed to cheap/free tend to cost $50+!?

There are all of these beautiful jewelry holders on pinterst and the blogs. I had to make one for myself!

pinterest inspiration

Off to Goodwill I went. Amazingly I found the exact same frame as in one of the inspiration photos. (Pure chance, check one for me, I got a frame and a good one at that. This must turn out great, right!?) Off to Lowe's I went to get cork and hooks. Cork is only sold back to school time and this was April. So I bought hooks and hoped that's work since the frame had a thick backing on it's own. Off to Joann Fabrics I went to get some pretty fabric to back it all. By this point it'd been a good two or three weeks since I started this project and I was in for at least $20+. I should have realized this wasn't going to work out and yet I didn't, not yet. 

I spray painted the frame after half heartedly cleaning it from it's Goodwill unknown dirt. I take off the 300 screws in the back of the frame to pull it apart. I put on some gloves (I suck at spray painting and get pain all over my hands so it's better all over disposable gloves than my actual skin) and slather on a few coats of white pain. The paint dries, I prop the frame against the couch and leave it there. I try to cut some cardboard the size of the frame, maybe I can use that instead of cork to hang the hooks from? Cardboard is hard to cut with scissors. My hands hurt so I stop. A few attempts later and my cardboard is cut, just this much too large to fit the fabric in the frame as well. Oops! The frame sits against my couch waiting ... and waiting, it's a very patient frame. Because there it sat for months. It's now back in our spare room/office/man space, leaning against a wall. And below you can see it in it's glory (glory: haha, just kidding!).

This looks like a picture taken in 1972, sadly it was taken just now with my iPhone. When I say this is a DIY fail, I mean it!
 
I've got a space picked out in my bedroom for this go to, some day. It's also entirely possible that this will stay just as it is, in some random corner of my home, with that space on the wall in my bedroom empty. I'm pretty sure we both know what's the more likely outcome.