March Madness

 March definitely seemed to me like it came  "in like a lion and go out like a lamb." this year.  It seemed to me to be taking its and Mother Nature's good ole time getting here...then turning cold and blowing those brisk Northern winds over the Ohio Valley. To add further to our already sunshine-deprived spirits, we were supposedly blessed with warmer Southern breezes that blew up from the Gulf, containing a lot of moisture which resulted in even more snow, sleet, rain, and any mixture of all of the above.

Many areas of our state were under flood watches and warnings as the Scioto River spilled from its banks. Even the Spring date on the calendar seems to be a bit off with all the below average temperatures we've experienced this year.

Thankfully, over the years, Don and I have become about as accepting of this as we can be under the circumstances and have use our time to make plans and prepare for the upcoming summer months, as we intend to enjoy them fully and most thoroughly.

Don has been working diligently on building his dunebuggy and I'm happy to say that it is now street legal! Now if it would just warm up so we can truly enjoy it... ;)

I've been staying busy with our normal daily routine, getting a slow start on the Spring housecleaning, and dreaming of days at the beach. What began as a dream, has slowly evolved into become a reality as I browsed and searched online, so many different areas to choose from, and I finally setttled for visiting one place I've always desired to go... the Outer Banks of North Carolina! So, I began researching the area and just so happened to stumble upon a great deal for a beach house for a week! Upon contacting the realitor, making a reservation, and finally on to signing the lease... so we will be making a road trip to Corolla, N. Carolina in May! I'm so excited!!! I can hardly contain myself...  just wait til you see what I created with all the information that I've already gathered. I can't promise it will make the weather any better wherever you are located, but I can say it sure helped to pick up my sagging-Spring spirit! :)

Bathroom's coming along!

It took me a moment to get adjusted to this beauty with her sleek clean lines and additional height. However, it was her soft-close door and drawers that really sold me on her functionality, not to mention that she's holding my beautiful, new white onyx sink! She may look a little plain jane right now but with a nice new chrome door handle and couple of  cute knobs, I'll have her looking beautiful in no time.



You can see I've already added a few decorating touches here and there. :) It's those extra "little" touches that help make a house a home. The simple things like adding a couple extra rolls of toilet paper out in a seagrass basket.

A bottle of bottle spray, a couple of washcloths, and a few touches from the beach...

 A starfish dish becomes a soap dish...

a bar of lavender thyme soap carries you away,

if only for a moment...

even a small seashell glued to the top of a fingertip towel bar

makes a grand statement...



{sigh}

How I survived another Ohio winter!

Have I mentioned that as I get older, I really detest winter? The only thing that seemed to get me through this one was thoughts of this.

I cannot even begin to count the number of days I spent daydreaming, envisioning, and researching for a what was simply supposed to be only a new facelift, consisting of a fresh couple coats of paint. {Hey, if you gotta be held hostage by the weather, you may as well dream of sunny, summer days, right?}

 For several years now, I've struggled with the how and what way to decorating our home. There were way too many themed styles and choices that I like for me to simply choose just one, and then, try to stick with it. It took me a long while for me to finally figure out what it was that I desired for our older ranch style home, yet I knew I wanted something that remained a bit true to our home's history and that of the area. So, I finally deciding to go a bit "lake house-ish" casual and I'm so surprised that I'm loving the more simplified version of paring down to only a few necessities and upgrading the quality of the simple little things that make life, well, a bit nicer and a more luxurious.

The biggest difference made to the room was created simply with paint. I choose Valspar's Cincinnati Hotel Aby  {and obtained another gallon in a beautiful turquoise for quart price! I'm waiting patiently to use it somewhere in the room as an accent color.}I'm loving all the light colors! I mixed the wall color above with some of my white ceiling paint to help it blend in better, then, painted the upper walls with two coats, before priming and painting over the existing wood paneling!

{Yes! You read that right? I said "paneling". Brown, dark, man cave... bleeeeck!!! My redneck hubby's version of "wainscotting" LOL! Here are some before photos taken a few years ago when I tried my darnest to decorate around it! http://partlypaper.blogspot.com/2008/08/ced-2008-its-all-in-details.html  Lots of new changes!}

I, also, purchased a few new bath/hand towels, washcloths, chrome shower curtain hooks/bar/towel holder. New tub/shower faucets, vanity faucet, new onyx vanity top, and the materials to build a new vanity for our bath. I so enjoyed those days when we could actually get out and do a bit of shopping! Well, until it came time to get to work, LOL! Have you ever tried to re-docorate a bath in the a one bath home? A couple days later, and several times of taking the door off and putting it back on, I'm happy to say, now it can stay!

Hopefully, I'll have a new vanity and sink to show you soon! ;)

Altering an old binder to hold collaged pages...

This is an old binder, like the ones our mother's used to receive monthly in the mail to hold binder pages on a variety of topics. Mine was a Creative Living binder, filled with indexed tabbed pages and pages on a variety of home decor style topics for the creative person.... well, back in it's day!

So, I decided to breathe some new life into it, decoupaging on scrapbook papers and creating collaged pages to punch and begin filling it with my art, thoughts, and ideas.

It's been a fun project and has provided me a much needed artistic outlet during the winter months, esp. when my heart yearns for summer's warmth and tending to my roses.

Working in my art journal, using an older issue of a Somerset Studio's Art Journal Calendar for adding some of my own art.

What I've been up to...

Hello! Remember me? Well, after recovering from the world's worst cold, I began easing my way back into a somewhat-normal-for-me routine with my fingers in a whole lot of pies! Besides catching up on the obvious housework, I continued restoring this old desk. The drawer front and a few knobs have been added and I've decided to paint the desktop black, thinking that perhaps, one day I'll have a glass top cut to fit it and add some fun collages underneath it.

I finally finished our hallway! {Yeah!!!} Removed all the drywall patching, gave it a final washing and the , and a last coat of paint. It turned out so good, I felt inspired to paint the basement entryway, LOL! So now, that's another new on-going process, but I've also taken some time to have a little fun and play! 

When an online friend put out a call for creativity for Artist Trading Cards, I just knew I had play! So, I spent a day creating these for her. One of my favorite ATC's themes is "Techniques" so I sort of tried to combine the two using a lot of different art supplies and mediums. Some are simply cut decorated printed papers, while others are creating using rubber stamps and a variety of stamping and collage techniques. I had so much fun! that I decided to continue working right onto the back side! Who says ATC labels have to be boring?

Well, after shipping these off to Maria, I just learned that MY Artist Trading Cards are going to be used for an upcoming PBS Creative Living Segment!!! I'm so excited! I'll post a link once everything is set up and under way. Thank you, Maria, for this wonderful opportunity, I'm so thankful for you!

Autumn Adventures...

Our Radtkopink Double KnockOut continues to amaze me! Even through the cooler temperatures during the past several days and night, this beauty has continued to hang in there. I cannot believe so many blooms on a six month old plant! Although, I did cut me a nice bouquet of flowers to bring into the house and to help assist the plant with some hardening off for winter. I can only pray this baby as much effort into into her many roots as she did on her beautiful display; I'm excited to see what joy she'll continue to bring into my life as she grows, blooms, and begins to blossom again next Spring.

Last Sunday, Don and I took a couple of friends of ours up to Findlay for the Christmas in October Craft Show. It was a miserable day! Cold, damp, sprinkly, and windy... so after exploring the craft booths we headed to the Cracker Barrel for a nice Sunday brunch. Somewhere along the way, I obtained the first cold, upper respiratory of the season, so I've been feeling a little under the weather the past several days. The good news is my fever broke last night and I started an antibiotic today. Should be back to my old self soon.