Pink Saturday 7/3/2010

First of all, I have had so many bloggers email me the past several weeks complaining about losing their old templates. I've told you to save it before doing anything with the new "Design" element. And I've had to save a couple of bloggers bacon. So if you want your old templates back, you can get them. But you need to check out my blogging tutorial for the information at the top of my blog above. The info is there and yes, I'm going to make you work for it, but a good idea would be to check on my post from Wednesday, June 30. That might cause you to not waste so much time. AND next time, be very careful and heedful when I tell you something!
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Please join Beverly of How Sweet The Sound for Pink Saturday by going to her website and checking out all the chicks. You won't be sorry.

The bloggers I visited last week for the first time were: Christi of A Southern Life, Jenn of The Red Bulletin Board, Sonia of Miss Bloomers and Jen of jnichelle. Visit with them! Cute blogs.
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I finally got to cover this vintage suitcase, but I'm not sure now if I'll put it on the plant shelf. Hmmmm...

Oh, why not! It looks good up there.


Random Thoughts:

The other day I got home from buying gas for my car and hubs asked me what I paid for it. I said, "$2.72 a gallon." He raised his eyes and said, "Ooooh, that's good!" I never, ever in my life thought I'd live to see the day when he said that about $2.72 gasoline!
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Look, can we talk about self-esteem for a minute? I am so sick and tired of people talking about the self-esteem of children and teens. I don't think they worry about it half as much as their moms worry about if their child was prettier, too fat or smarter. That has nothing to do with self-esteem. It has to do with confidence and truly knowing who they are. I know who I am. I have no problem with self-esteem. I'm confident in my ability to be...what(?)...a nice person, a child of God, not a raving beauty (In fact, if homely was a disease and had an organized charity, I could be their poster child.-!) I guess someone in my life—parents, grandparents, hubby—has made me realize how special I am, as each person can feel by just realizing their own abilities and working to the very best of their ability. And don't even get me started on plastic surgery for 12 year olds. That's absurd! When we are resurrected, we'll be just as we are now without all the plastic surgery and gender changes. (And for me that means, no gray hair (and I love it!), no wrinkles, no age spots on my hands, no saggy...uhhhh...you know, and an ideal weight. I can promise you that! So, get a life, live it to the fullest and thank God you are here at this particular time in the history of this earth.
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And speaking of that, the other day I got out of bed and looked in my mirror while hubs was shaving and asked him how he could love somebody that looked that I did in the morning. He looked over at me, closed his eyes and gave me a kiss. Then he said, "Like this, that's how." I knew at that moment how much he loves me.
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I was at Sephora in the mall the other day to buy a face brush for cleansing my face. I paid for it and the saleswoman asked me if I wanted a sample of some face cream or something like that and I said, "No." She kept at me until I finally said NO rather emphatically. I didn't want or need it so why take it when I know perfectly well I wasn't going to be enticed to buy it. So, what is it with people when they simply can't take NO for an answer?
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Why liters instead of ounces? We live in America and don't do liters and yet on every bottle of soft drinks it has liters and I have to guess what ounces they are.
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I'll leave you with these today. I have lots more I can assure you. :-)
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Pink Living Room #1

Again, some of you wanted me to post on my living room after we did the pink paint on the walls and, while you can see it on my right hand sidebar by clicking, I'll do it for you.

The walls are Behr paint called Cupid's Arrow and is definitely pink. I am loving it. It feels like I live in a pink cake box with white frosting (the trim) or in a confectionery store. I tried several different kinds of curtains but these plaid ones look the best with the pink walls. The pink pillows are another TJMaxx find for $13.00 each this time but still feather pillows. The other pillows on the right I made from a gorgeous roses barkcloth fabric and the one of the left is from my friend, Rhea, who made it. My lamps are ones I got about 6 years ago and added the silk roses to the shade.

I stack boxes under my coffee table. Paper covered boxes and fabric covered boxes bought mostly in Calif. when we lived there. I only bring beautiful things into this house. (Well, okay, mostly beautiful things!)They contain storage for things not pertaining to my sewing or craft room or for my office. See what you can do with a bit of creativity. I have numerous hat boxes in most rooms to hold other storage also. I'm very limited in this 1800 sq. ft. house but it's easy to keep clean...that is when Love Bunny remembers to take off his mud trackers at the laundry room door. ;-)

I have numerous plates I try to hang on walls where appropriate without looking too crowded. I'm finding since the walls are pink and not beige I'm less likely to fill them with so much froufrou and fluff since I'm loving the color so much. I'm also not a fan of cathedral ceilings but they came with the house and not much I can do about it. But I do love my ceiling fan and am just trying to figure out how I can hook up a chandelier to it. Not sure it can be done, but I love chandeliers. If there's a way I'll figure it out, but in this Idaho desert we need ceiling fans way more than we need chandeliers.

I had to give one plant shelf to hubs for his limited edition prints of trains. But I also put up some vintage train cases. Most of them I've either covered in roses fabric or decaled. One in front of that vintage fence gate is still in its original form, but when I can find the time I'll be doing it in fabric also. I have one or two in my craft room waiting for me to finish it also.

My tribute to my favorite artist, Susan Rios. I absolutely adore this woman and her paintings. Most on the wall are hers—either paintings or limited edition prints. The one of the woman in the black hat with roses reminds me of Susan's self-portrait she did many years ago. I've emailed her to let her know this. I picked that picture up in Goodwill for $2.00!

The lampshade is another one I decorated with paper roses and lace. I bought that antique chair on the left of the sofa table at a store in California last year. I've piled books on it and put one of my vases from a collection I have and stuck some realistic roses in it. The trunk under the table is my hubby's old USMC trunk he had. I painted it white and use it for storage now since I doubt he'll be shipped out to foreign lands again. :-)

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The Pink Painted House

My greatest treasure is hubby. He gives me license to do as I darn well please. Whatever I want to do is just fine with him 99.9% of the time. Well, there is the occasional "I wish you wouldn't do that", but they are very few and very far between. When I said I wanted to paint the house pink, fine with him. So these are the first photos of the living room, kitchen and dining area for you to see.

I feel like I'm living in a confectionery store now. I absolutely love and adore it! How can a simple color make such a difference in a room and in a mood? Yesssss, it truly does. It just lifts my spirits up. As most of you know who've seen this blog before, I recently did my office/painting room and my sewing/craft room in a vibrant pink. This time for the main areas of the house I went a shade lighter. I did it this way.

A trip to Home Depot and looking at their samples got me thinking about a paler pink than the other two rooms simply because if I changed any furnishings in the living room it might be a tad hard to "coordinate" things with the wall color if it was too bright pink. So I picked a color I love, Behr's candy tuft, and had them make me up a quart with 1/2 the colorant in it. When I came home and painted it on several walls to test it, it seemed more lavender because the only colorant in it was magenta. Magenta has blueish tones to it. So I picked another color, Behr's cupid arrow. It had different colorants in it and after getting them to put in 1/2 the colorant again, that color seemed perfect after I came home and painted patches on different walls again and lived with it for a couple of days. The paint stores will do anything you want. You don't have to accept just their "colors." Then I bought 5 gallons to start the painting. It was definitely pink but not "in your face" pink, which I really like anyway, but wanted something softer in the main rooms and hallways.

Then there is the concern of getting the "pink" to show properly on different monitors. These past 3 weeks I've been on my laptop and notice huge differences between it and the desktop and huge monitor in my office. So I tried to pick settings that show it accurately. Impossible, chicks!! The closet I can describe it is "a tad more than light pink but definitely pink." I'm loving it.

I also decided that I had put too much stuff on the old beige-y walls to try and obliterate the color with the frou-frou, so this time I "scaled" down a bit - scaled down is a relative term here. I "reassigned" things to different places! ;-) Case in point - the living room. I brought the shutters I painted white from the dining area into the plant shelf in the living room. I like it much better here than in the dining area.

Notice the uncluttered look in that area now. Something here, just less "fluff" and the pink shows quite well. I brought in a picture that my brother and his wife gave me from the living room and put it on the right side of that entry.

I also brought the leather chair from the family room into the living room. It looks much better in there than in the shabby chic style family room. I prefer my living room a tad more formal than the family room.

The archway separating the living room and the dining area is only about 4" wide and being from California, I don't want anything up there that can kill me if it falls so I've had these little blocks of wood that I put little roses decals on and put the up there for a little bit of pizzazz.

Yesssssssss, the train limited edition prints still went up there to satisfy hubs but I put the pink suitcases back up there to "feminize" it a bit and only one suitcase did I leave in its original vintage state. But by the white door is probably the most accurate of the color of the walls I could get on THIS monitor. Yours will appear differently probably. That hallway on the left is still the beige-y color. The painter's wife went into labor and he had to leave! I'm soooo excited for them, but not sure when he'll be back to finish the hallways. You can see he prepped by putting up tape and can definitely see the color difference from the walls in the room to the wall on the other side of that archway.

Another view of the dining side of the archway and the wall to the right of that plant on the living room side is the wall in the hallway that still has the original color on it. See how much brighter and cleaner it looks. Squeeeeeeeeeal. I love it, chicks!!!

To be continued.................

Barefoot Roses Suitcase!

I have a number of vintage suitcases, large and small, that I painted white. I added decals of roses to them and put them on plant shelves around my home. But after seeing one the other day with fabric on it, I was smitten! I have soooo much fabric that I decided to cover them in fabric. I've started with a beautiful pink roses one and will continue until all are covered in roses fabric. Could you ask for anything sweeter than this??!! And I only paid 50¢ for each of the suitcases. What a stunning difference it makes!