Category Archives: Decorating Ideas
Gorgeous Gates
Filed under Creativity, Decorating Ideas
More Fabulous Pencil Drawings
Filed under Decorating Ideas, drawings
Immortal
My husband has, once again, made something immortal, fixing the light by my chair that had gone wonky. I would turn it on and then it would go off by itself. Sometimes it would come ON again, making us feel as if the gremlins were in charge. We decided it had to be the lamp part that the light bulb goes in, and so went to Yeager’s this morning and bought a replacement part. After my husband did his thing, it’s working fine.
We built these two lamps in 1969 when we married. We couldn’t afford ones we liked, so we went to an aircraft junk yard and bought two parts of a helicopter. (Yeah, we were weird back then, too. )
We sandblasted each of these and wired them, installed lamp parts, and then a holder for the shade. They weigh about 50 lbs each, so I get a bit of exercise moving them back and forth on the tables to dust them – and under them.
We’ve loved them because they are unique. No one else in the world would probably HAVE them if they were offered, but WE like them and they aren’t like everybody else’s. We put a spark plug in each of them, just as an accent. :0)
We’ve laboriously moved them with us to each new place. So far, they’ve been with us for 49 years. With the fix my husband did on the one by my chair today, they’ll outlive us!
Fresh Look
Macy’s is having a sale, since they’re closing a lot of stores. My husband saw this on the net, and we ordered it.
It arrived yesterday, two days after we ordered. We got the 12 pc set for under $60, including taxes and shipping. We tried the set last night and were both pleased how cozy – yet LIGHT – the comforter is!
Filed under Changes, Decorating Ideas
Christmas Gift Ideas from Creative Artworks!
High quality hardback. Limited Edition. Signed by the illustrator! Jane will also include 5 die-cut detachable images your child can hang on the Christmas tree or play with at no extra charge.
Go to http://www.janedaniell.info/tnbc to see the beautiful illustrations. This will be an instant classic you can enjoy year after year with your children and grandchildren. Wonderful as a gift, too! Please allow approximately two weeks for delivery.
This exquisite nativity scene is made from hand-painted gourds by Linda Faber. The size of the pieces range from 7.5 to 10 inches tall. The width ranges from 4.5 to 5.5 inches. The baby is just a bit over 3 inches. 9 pieces in all. The bottom picture shows a closeup so you can see more of the detail. Exquisite detail and top quality workmanship.
This is an original watercolor painting by Martha Dollar Efurd. The dimensions of the painting are approximately 10 x 13. This painting is triple matted with a medium blue, and then dark blue mat, plus a beautifully texture linen mat, as well. With the gold frame, the dimensions are 12.5 x 15.5.
LAST DAY TO ORDER IS TOMORROW, DECEMBER 9TH! A ornament for the teacher! Say “thank you” to a wonderful teacher by giving her this cute ornament she can use from year to year. Wooden heart attached to the bear’s bottom for personalization, such as to: (teacher’s name) from: (student) (year). Please indicate your choice of “tan” or “white” bear, plus personalization desired in the special comments section of the order form. THIS IS A DECORATION ONLY AND NOT A TOY. NOT INTENDED FOR CHILDREN UNDER 13. Please allow approximately 2 weeks for delivery.
Each mitten is handcrafted by Linda Lewis. The base is wood. Some of the mosaic pieces are stained glass, and round glass beads for accents. The piece is approximately 3″ at widest point and is approximately 4.5″ high. 1.8 oz. It has a shiny metallic silver ribbon hanger attached. This decoration could be hung on a wine bottle, drawer pull, window pane, door knob, lamp switch; affixed as a decoration on a present, and of course, hung on your Christmas tree. Nice as a gift. 4 are available. Please indicate your preference: “Light Blue,” “Turquoise,” Red Orange,” or “Deep Red” in the special comments section of the shopping cart. Please allow approximately one week for delivery.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Filed under Decorating Ideas, Holiday Gift Ideas, holidays
I Love Christmas Trees – Take 1
This has to be one of the prettiest trees I’ve ever seen. I love the fatness of it. The lights and ornaments are just perfect.
When we built our home over 30 years ago, we loved the design. We still love it, although we would make it larger now. The biggest change I would make is figuring out where we would put our Christmas tree every year.
How could we build a house that doesn’t have a good place for a Christmas tree?
The main windows in the front of the house are in our office. My desk is pretty immovable, and it is right beside the window. It would take an act of Congress (I know – we’ve had such inaction for the past several years this cliché almost has no meaning… ) to move it enough for us to put our tree there. Moving the desk would also displace the dog bed and make our built-in shelves unusable.
We move to the living room –
We can’t put it close to the fireplace, so that’s one whole wall we can’t use. We CAN put it in the corner in front of some built-in shelves, but we have to take a table out and put it in the garage, move the couch, the table by my chair and my chair….
We CAN put it against the wall behind my chair – but then we have to take out that same table and move everything forward so we can’t use our shelves, but we can just barely walk between the Christmas tree and my chair. This is a main walkway in our home, so it’s a problem.
When our son was young and at home, we did one or the other each year. We’ve also gotten a table sized tree and set it up in the corner. That works okay, but I love a full-sized tree…
We’ve decided that when we win either the mega-millions jackpot or the Publishers Clearing House contest, we’ll build a new home on a lake somewhere. We’ll start with the Christmas tree, and then build out from there….
Merry Christmas, everyone. :0)
Filed under Decorating Ideas, holidays
New Mailbox Decoration for Christmas in the Works!
I found this picture on the net a month or so ago. My husband said he didn’t like the Christmas tree we’ve displayed for a couple of years now, and wanted something different. I saved a bunch of possible images and finally got him to look at them a few days ago. We decided on this one.
My husband got onto his computer and ‘did his magic’, transforming an image to a code that the computer can recognize and recreate using the plasma torch, cutting the outline out of a sheet of metal. I will never cease to be amazed that he can do this. I love watching the torch cut the piece out of metal, untouched by human hands!
After we cut the outline, my husband chipped the slag off the back of the piece with a power tool, and then built and added the metal support that attaches the piece to our mailbox.
He then hung up the decoration outside and sprayed it with primer spray – a billious yellow we had plenty of – that will keep the piece from rusting.
We hung it up on a stand in the shop. We had printed a transparency of the design and put that on our overhead projector, turning off the lights in the shop so that I could use a magic marker and mark the design on the metal, front and back. (This one was more complicated because we had to do the Santa and the lettering separately so that it could be read on both sides.)
I’m now painting the decoration in the shop. I’m first just making sure the right color is where it should be on the front side. I did the white yesterday on the front. After I get the color blocked on the front, I’ll turn it over and paint it on the back.
I’ve ordered some clear glitter glue to paint over the red and green to make it sparkle. I’ve also ordered a special paint called, “Sno-Tex” that will give the white a lot more texture. I’ve never used either of these, so it’ll be fun to see if the results will come close to the picture in my mind’s eye.
I’ll take pics as progress is made and post them.
Filed under Decorating Ideas, Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox Decorations
Prints for the Young and the Young at Heart – Take 2
I’m so proud to display the 8 x 11 prints of these original sketches by Bethany Kerr. Delight your child or grandchild, put them up for a giggle or two in your office, decorate your classroom, give them as gifts to friends who appreciate intelligent, creative artwork!
Filed under Decorating Ideas, drawings
Prints for the Young and the Young at Heart
These are 8 x 11 prints of clever and creative original sketches by Bethany Kerr of Creative Artworks.
- If I were still an elementary school teacher, I would want all 12 prints to decorate my classroom.
- When I did medical transcription for 8 busy general surgeons, I had a wall-sized bulletin board where I put wonderful things. Patients would regularly stop to see “what was on my board” this time. I would LOVE to have delighted them with these!
- You could decorate the walls of your child’s or your grandchild’s room with these, adding some for each occasion until you had the whole collection.
See all the artwork of Bethany Kerr on Creative Artworks!
Filed under Decorating Ideas
I Want This!
Live Life in Color-Kalyani Vyas-Mohinder Shastri
Isnt’ this gorgeous?
Filed under Decorating Ideas, Fabulous Fountains
Propane Painting Project – Cleaning
We used the pressure washer to get the tank as clean as possible. We got the front and both ends, but ‘somehow’ missed the back… I got out and cut off a gazillion branches that were either hanging over the tank, almost touching it, or making it so we couldn’t even think about doing anything with the back.
While I was pruning and weeding in the front yard yesterday, my good husband did the rest of the pressure washing, so the tank is now as clean as it will ever be. You can see where we need to prep before we paint, scraping off peeling paint.
If the weather will give us a bit of a break – it’s really sunny with a heat index of almost 100 degrees F out there right now – my husband will remove the dome. We’ll tape baggies over the gauges and put down some kind of protection for the concrete pad.
The first step in the actual painting is to paint the whole thing a light shade of green. My husband said he would try to set up the paint sprayer so that it feeds right out of the can, rather than our having to stop over and over again to refill the sprayer.
With any luck, we’ll have a 1000 gallon light green tank the next time I take a picture!
Here’s the ‘watermelon’ design we’re trying to emulate – found on the Internet –
Filed under Decorating Ideas, Lewis yard art
Propane Tank Painting Project Plans
We have a 1000 gallon propane tank. We used a pressure washer on it recently because it had all kinds of sticky, grimy dirt all over it. I thought we had finished the cleaning, but discovered my husband didn’t do the back of the tank.
We were talking about the fact that it needed repainting. Part of the paint is peeling on one end, and the whole thing just needs attention. My husband was talking about getting several cans of white paint.
I told him I wanted to do something less boring. I looked on the net and found this –
I love it and will ‘borrow’ the idea from the ingenious person who came up with this. I’m sorry, but the credit for this wasn’t given with the image.
We had two shades of green paint created at Yeagers, buying two gallons of light green and one gallon of darker green paint.
I did the first part of the project last night – cutting LOTS of branches that hung over the tank and cut branches all the way across the back of the tank. I can see why my husband decided not to bother with the back. It was impossible to get to!
The next step will be pressure washing the rest of the tank.
I’ll report again when we’ve made more progress.
Filed under Decorating Ideas, Lewis yard art
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