very, very, very basic DIY

i'm not terribly crafty. ok. i'm not crafty. i can't draw, paint, and i have terrible handwriting. but what i can do is smear paint on random objects and call it a craft. here's a collection of my elementary, simple, duuurrrhhhhh "crafts."

these were two vases that i'd held onto from the times matt got me roses. the color scheme i'm going for in the living room is oranges/corals and blues with hints of sage/avocado. so at michael's, i picked up a bottle of acrylic paint in pumpkin and one in turquoise. afterwards, i realized that the orange one really does resemble a pumpkin. but i digress.

all i did was wash and dry the vases and then pour an indeterminable amount of paint in each one. i added a dash of water (i really just wet my hand and let drip a few drops into the vase) to thin out the paint a little and then swirled it until it covered the entire inside of the vase. i put it upside down on a paper plate for about thirty minutes, wiped the top with a wet rag and then let it finish drying right side up overnight. NOT rocket surgery. but i like them.

also while i was at michael's, i grabbed two cans of spray paint (krylon's "blue ocean breeze" and "avocado"). the avocado is my latest obsession. i tried it out on my cupcake stand that was originally silver and i'm liking it.

i liked it enough that decided to paint a whole chair. i even went to the trouble to sand and prime the chair before using two cans of spray paint.

my old desk lamp needed a facelift so i gave it a coat of blue ocean breeze. i'm going to get brown coffee filters to make a "ruffled" shade for it, but i lack coffee filters. and a glue gun.

i didn't bother to take "before" pictures because i'm lazy and scared to try new things. this vase was originally a nice lemon/lime polka dot pattern. so it got ocean breezed too. i just put some painters tape around the opening and stuffed a plastic bag in it to keep the opening neat. it actually worked!

oh my. so i tried to make some abstract art for the master bath. michael's had some canvases on sale 2/$6 AND a 25 pc set of paint brushes for $4.99...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so i got two shades of blue acrylic paint and one white and just mixed in the white with each of the blues to make the medium and light shades. close up, it looks like it was done by a third grader.

and here's how it looks in the bathroom. adds some color at least.

i'm thinking about spray painting some picture frames (loving the warm "tuscan sunset" shade) and maybe the floor lamp in our living room (brass? voms).

lest i forget...

because TLC has decided that another show about a tattoo shop was in order, i now have even more tat ideas swimming through my mind. i need to make a list. so i don't forget.

1) a dandelion with its seeds blowing across my arm/shoulder/back with the verse from Ruth that says, "where you go, i will go." that's for matt. my love.

2) a hot air balloon. for two reasons: the first being that we saw lots of hot air balloons in napa valley on our honeymoon and i loved it. the second being the considerably cheesy fact that the more weight is dropped off the balloon, the higher it flies. see the symbology?

ssssssymbolism. what is the syyyyymbolism.

name that movie.

3) the much admired banksy drawing i posted a while back of the girl with the umbrella.

4) i have a porcelain hand mirror that my grandmother painted for me. it has a single iris on it and i'd love to get that tattooed somewhere in her honor.

5) an orange ribbon for MS awareness!!!

if i get all of those, that'll bring me to a total of 8. this is like a disease.