Once Mural

And here's my lovely once mural on the wall, complete with an Italian biscotti wrapper lamp shade next to it. It's like I have a portal to Tuscany in my living room. So very cool.

Lavender

I love how the new leaves on my lovely lavender plant are the gorgeous coils.

Hibiscus

The first full bloom opened on my hibiscus today. Beautiful!!

Plants

Flowers and green galore on my balcony!! I'm hoping the hibiscus will attract some hummingbirds.

Strawberry

I enjoyed my first strawberry yesterday! Sadly only one juicy ripe flavorful strawberry. Maybe I'll get more next year.

Orange

I'm ready for Halloween! I have a bright orange chair and a black cat! I dyed the cover for my Ikea chair orange. I was hoping for a bit darker orange, but ah well. Eva really likes it!

Ottoman

I bought a beige microfiber storage ottoman at Target, and found some cute fabric to recover it. It cost me about $30 in the end, plus the cost of a staple gun. I'm pretty pleased with it, and really easy to jazz up.

Lampshade

A couple of months ago I finally found a squarish lampshade for my Eiffel Tower lamp, and I finally got around to decoupaging biscotti wrappers on it. I mixed a little honey brown paint in the second coat to tone down the blue, red and green colors. I'm still looking for some ribbon to add along the bottom.

Door Mitten

I figured since it's the middle of January, I should probably think about taking down my Christmas wreath! I finally sewed the snowflake onto the door mitten I made last year. Initially I was going to use a stick and more ribbon to hang this, but I kept it simple. I still think it might need something else, but it's cute.

Mural

After six months of daydreaming, planning, reading about murals, I finally finished it! I'm so pleased with how it turned out. I based my design heavily on Cathy J. Mayer's Tuscany pattern, which was an oil painting, and then also used instruction and acrylic color choices from Debby Forshey-Choma's Tuscany vineyard bowl, and Kathy Swigon's Tuscan clipboard patterns. This was a major thing for me to scale up a pattern, modify to fit my approximately 20" x 55" surface, and to figure out colors and instructions. I'm very much a follow the pattern and instruction kind of girl.

I'm pretty pleased with the results, and I think it really spruced up the entryway. It's nice to finally enhance that niche and really make it a focal point when you walk in. Tony did a great job cutting the plywood for both the shutters and the mural. No easy task to get that curve! And he had a lot of fun using his nail gun to get everything in place.

Entryway

We got the shutters hung on the entryway niche today. The mural should be done later this week. I can't get over what a transformation just the shutters make. I can hardly wait to see the change with the mural!

Christmas

We got the outside of the house pretty well decorated. The snowmen I painted turned out quite well, and the lights look lovely. The cats are very happy to have the Christmas tree up. They love sitting under and looking at the lights. Eva likes to dive under the tree skirt. Not sure if she's looking for presents or a mouse!

Media Center

Last weekend, we got all the pieces to make a media center cut out. This weekend, we got them primed and one side painted. We needed a cutout design for the doors so the remotes will work, and as we talked about it, we thought a palm tree or some tropical design would be fun. I wanted to paint a design on the side, and so that led to hibiscus. I practiced painting more realistic hibiscus, but they are hard! So in the end we went with a very folk art style. Now just one more coat of paint, and a couple coats of varnish and we'll have a finished piece of furniture!

Entryway Mural

We have a niche in our entryway (pre move in pic), and the moment I saw it I knew I wanted to paint a trompe l'oeil Tuscan landscape for it. It's a bit daunting to paint something 20" x 54", and I knew I'd have to heavily modify whatever design I wanted, but I think I've finally got it sorted out.

Tony worked really hard to cut a piece of wood to fit in it, and then also made some shutters for the side. With any luck I should have this done by the end of the year, but hopefully sooner!

Recliners

We ordered two recliners from La-Z-Boy back in August and they arrived today. They are a nice chocolate brown leather, and oh so comfy. Good thing Tony ordered the full set of James Bond flicks, so we can curl up in the recliners and be slugs. :-) Mo gave his nap of approval too!

Dining Table

We found a nice dining table and chairs at World Market this weekend. And it was on sale. On the downside we had to go to 3 stores before we found it in stock! I'm really happy with it though, and it's nice to finally have a real table and chairs.

Some pictures finally up in the house

I painted these flowers years ago. I tried selling them a few times, but no takers. I do like them, so I decided to hang them in my craft room. Took awhile to find some frames. Then the pansy picture was too think to put the backing on, so Tony had to add a hanger to it. Anyway--they are up over my painting desk and I really like them. It's so fun getting to use my own stuff!

I also finally hung this dragonfly/seashell print I bought last year. It's an odd size 12x18, and I had a hard time finding a frame. I finally just bought a white one and then sponged metallic brown on it. It has a neat mottled texture, and I'm pleased to have it hanging in the bedroom.

I'd prefer to forget the glass debacle with the seashell print. After painting the frame, I stubbed my toe on the glass. The glass broke and turns out I didn't just stubb my toe. I sliced a bit off. Icky business. I buy glass replacement...doesn't fit. Husband tries to trim down, but doesn't work. I take to store for glass to be cut to fit and takes the person 2 tries to get it to fit! Sheesh...should have just gone to the frame shop!

Seashell Topiary

I've collected a bunch of seashells over the years, although most are from my childhood. I've been keeping the piled in a pot, but of course you can't see them all. I decided to turn them into a topiary. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I need to stabilize it a bit more, but I think it looks cool. I only burned 3 fingers touching the hot glue!

Flower bed

Wow...this was a lot of work for Tony! :-) We finally dug around the flower bed to add an edge and place rocks around it. It was backbreaking work to dig through clay and rock to get down 4"! Anyway--I think it looks nice, and Tony figures he burned about 800 calories.

Flower update

Well the flowers in the bed aren't doing well. Most have been burned to a crisp. I know why though--the flower bed doesn't get complete coverage from the sprinklers! D'oh! Hopefully that will get fixed and I'll have better luck.

The pansies and snapdragons weren't doing well with the heat, so I pulled them out of the pot by the front door and planted Mealy Blue Sage (Salvia farinacea). It's a Texas native, and seems to be doing well with our 80-90 degree weather. It should bloom until the fall.

I also bought Texas Lantana (Lantana urticoides), and put that on the back porch. It's doing pretty well too. Although I think I'm going to need to find either a bigger pot or a permanent home for it. It was an impulse purchase, and it's really a shrub and not a flower. Hopefully this summer I'll work out a landscape plan using Texas natives.