chevron: the good and the bad

since we've been married most of the decor we have are frames with wedding pictures. after 15 months it was starting to get a little old. so i decided to start with the shelf we have about our tv. our ceiling is really high so i wanted something bigger that would fill the space a little better. while i was at joanns one day i went to browse the canvas section and they were 50% off! so i bought one and thought about painting some chevron on it, since it's all the rage right now. i also got a few bottles of paint at michael's.

i couldn't decide which color(s) to use at first, but i finally decided on the turquoise. i then found i template online of a chevron pattern, printed it out, and fit it onto the canvas...

after spending too much time trying to figure out a good strategy, i ended up marking the points of the zig-zag pattern and then lined up the tape using those marks...

then i painted...

i let it dry and then peeled off the tape to find...

yuck. the tape didn't work as well as i hoped :( i think the canvas is at fault actually, since it's a bumpy texture and the paint seeped under the tape in too many spots. so i then asked my hubs if i should paint the pattern a color and he thought the yellow would look best. so after spending about an hour doing that i had something that looked like a charger fan would own... and i hated it. no pictures with the yellow...sorry charger fans :)

i went back to joanns two days later, bought a bigger canvas, and went with the gray for round 2. i also nixed the tape idea and instead traced the template i still had. and then i painted. and painted. and painted some more. and ended up with...

 

 so much better!!!! if you look closely you can see imperfections, but from the couch it looks great :)

so that's my chevron story. i don't plan on doing anything like this again anytime soon. i do have more plans for the shelf though. i'll keep you posted :)

septmeber already??

where has the time gone??? i can't believe summer is coming to a close. it's always a bittersweet time; sad that the days are getting shorter and the warm weather is leaving but excited for all things fall
(which isn't much here in san diego but what can you do?). here's a few pictures of things that we've been up to the last few weeks...

penny and i went on a long walk. she's pooped.

sushi for the sister's bday

lego action with j & r

awesome concert in la jolla

river trip with the family

i STILL have not done anything to my studio... i'm ashamed of myself. i have stuff sitting on my counter ready to be hung and enjoyed by the lovely little faces that come into my room each week, and yet i have somehow forgotten about it every time i go to teach. sheesh... maybe next week i'll actually be proactive and take care of this project!!!

this and that

over the last few days i've had all these ideas for our condo, so i've pretty much wanted to tear everything down and start from scratch. curse you pinterest. lucky for my husband i didn't really do any tearing. but i'm hoping to slowly revamp this place. i recovered some pillows, i started a "painting" today and i'll post pictures hopefully tomorrow,  i'm already re-doing the bedroom makeover we did a few months ago, and i have ideas brewing for the bathroom. it's a good thing we only have 675 square feet to decorate.

anyways...

i'm also getting closer to having some fun decor in my studio and that makes me very happy! i sewed some bunting the other day and got some other items today and i'm making it a goal to have everything looking good by next thursday. fingers crossed.

happy weekend almost!

love is in the air

my hubs is so cute.

we've been to a wedding each of the last three weekends. that's a lot of weddings. but ever since we got married weddings have a whole new meaning. i love watching people who are in love! it makes me so happy seeing two people commit themselves to each other for the rest of their lives. and it makes me even happier when they are my friends :)

it also kinda freaks me out that i'm old enough to be married and my friends are old enough to be married. and to have babies. i could have sworn last year was 1998.

thoughts

i really don't like fake people.

i'm blessed with awesome family and friends, and i take all my relationships seriously. nothing is more important to me than the people i love and care about. so when i see others treat their relationships in a way i find wrong it makes me mad. and i wonder why i keep these kind of people around in my life. maybe i'm supposed to be an example to them, but sometimes i just want to kick them to the curb and say "good luck". but i guess that would make me the kind of person i just said i don't like...sheesh.

anyways...

i don't have any projects planned. i did get martha stewart's encyclopedia of sewing and some other goodness at the border's going-out-of-business sale and there's a whole section on dying fabric. and i really want to do some experimenting :)

look what i did today

we got this ikea chair off craigslist a while ago. (sidenote-my husband is a craigslist master.) it didn't come with a cushion, so we went down the street to our lovely ikea and got a cream colored cushion. it ended up being penny's favorite place to sit. after a while i started noticing how dingy it was looking, but the cover was dry clean only so i just put it out of my mind.

then penny decided to barf on the ottoman.

i took the cover off and saw how nasty it really was looking. we are not buying anything that color ever again! the cushions ended up being three pieces of thick foam, so i thought it wouldn't be all that hard to recover it in fabric i can wash here at home. or at my mom's house where laundry-doing is free. thanks mama :)

i got fabric, and today i covered the cushions (with mom's help. what would i do without her?) after a few mess-ups, i finished and i love it!

close up of the fabric

now i want to recover some of our pillows. my love of color has finally caught up with me and it's looking kinda crazy in this castle.

p.s.- i pride myself on being a good multi-tasker. but when it comes to sewing, i have a one-track mind. which means i have to do a lot of re-doing... baby steps i guess :)

my first apron

a few weeks ago my dear friend jess had a bridal shower, and since she is a baking queen i decided to carry on my mother-in-law's tradition and make her an apron. i'm trying to get better at using patterns so i found one for $3 and managed to sew it without any major issues :)

ta da!