Pretty, Easy and Cheap 3 Beautiful Words for 3 Beautiful Pieces

Yesterday I started working on my living room artwork. Been pondering the idea of what I want to do with my 3 large canvases I bought a couple years ago for $6 a piece. Well instead of having them in the basement collecting dust I made my final decision on what I wanted. In my search for the perfect piece of artwork I found this great inspirational piece that I fell in love with and Craig loved it too.

 

So here is how I did my 3 pieces of Artwork.

 I first started by hanging all 3 pieces in sync on my wall in the basement, which I am currently doing plaster work on so I wasn't worried about nail holes. Secondly I applied 2 layers of standard wall primer. Thirdly we choose what colours we wanted to use. I choose to leave my background white and have the branches black and the birds green, that way it would tie in with the grey or monochromatic colour scheme we have going on upstairs. Fourthly I started by lightly penciling in the structure of the branches and flowers. Sorry the picture isn't that great but you get the idea.

 Step 5: I started with one colour, The black. until I reached the desired look I was going for. I paced myself and did it one step at a time because I knew something would happen and I'd mess up.

 These are the 2 main paint brushes I have used for my artwork. Also I used cheap acrylic or folk art paint from the dollar store or walmart. It's like 88 cents to a $1 a bottle of paint.

 And there you go, simple and cheap artwork that you can customize to any room and style you want. It's not perfect but I haven’t painted in years. I really like it but I do believe something is missing I've already added and made some changes to the picture where I thought needed. I just can’t place my finger on it. Maybe it will be fine when it’s upstairs. Now all I need is a couch to display all 3 pieces over.

Please let me know how you like it and give me any suggestions as to what might be missing.

Treasures

Today I thought I would share with you some of my neat thrifty finds I have found lately. I like to shop at Salvation Army (which I call the Sally Anne), the Goodwill Store in Orillia and the Habitat for Humanity Restore building which is perfect because all the proceeds go to a good cause and I love nothing better than a great find. So here is my first piece:

I found this great white little vase at the Habitat for Humanity for $2.50. I just love this white glass so I had to purchase it because it's SO cute. It also matches my vintage inspired salt and pepper shakers from my grandmothers store.

 I found this really cute bunny pot at the Sally Anne, I paid $1 for it because it was a blue tag 50% off sale. Craig hated this item when I brought it home, his wonderful reply was "I hope you didn't pay for that." I think it's cute but only for Easter. I'm actually thinking about planting grass seed in it and using it as a great Easter decoration. Right now it has a 87 cent geranium in it that I purchased today at Walmart.

 I got this dish for $2.99 at Goodwill in Orillia. I just loved the shape of the glass and it's pretty small but very vintage.

 

 I love green glass, I got this piece at Sally Anne for $2 once again at a blue tag sale 50% off

 I got this tiny little pitcher for $1 at the Sally Anne too. It has a small chip out of the bottom of the handle but it's a perfect porcelain piece to fill with flowers.

This pitcher I got for $3 at the Sally Anne at the same blue tag sale, it's pretty big as you can see my coffee maker behind it. I'm not crazy about the flower print on the pitcher so I might paint it like Thrifty Decor Chick did to hers. http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/2011/02/february-before-after-pretty-pitcher.html 

this is how hers looked before:

 And After:

BEAUTIFUL, I fell in love right away. Sadly later she wrote a blog post about how the pitcher had a crack in it and leaked all over her island all week. I will have to double check mine before I attempt to paint my pitcher. Everyone Definitely check out her blog she is SO thrifty. I love everything she has on her blog and shes always full of fun and creative thrifty ideas. As for me I will continue to post about my great finds that I add to my home. Just waiting for my next piece...

UPDATE RE: ENTRANCE

This week I had Friday and Saturday off so we headed home to see my family. I miss them soo much its hard to get home a lot but I try to get home once a month. This time I had to go home to get my T4s for income tax and I had an amazing visit with my family. So on Saturday I was asked to take my sister in some lunch because she was asked to stay at work longer, we were going into town anyways because Craig loves to check out the Bargain Shop there for jeans because they always have brand name jeans for cheap. Boy am I glad I went into Canadian Tire were my sister works. Craig and I have been scoping out lighting for the house and we both love this one that is $109.99 at Canadian Tire. We found it for 50% off in Bancroft so it was $54.

So here it is, looks great on the box but even better installed. So my sweetheart Craig changed my light fixture for me in the entrance. It was nice of him to do it so quickly and to do an excellent job at it. So here is a recap of what our previous light fixture looked like. It was GOLD AND BROWN tinted glass. Pretty sure it’s original to the house.

 Here is our light installed. I took 2 pictures one with the light on and one with the light off so you get both perspectives. 

I just LOVE IT!!

 It’s perfect for the space.

JUST PERFECT

Now all I need to do is change the railing and banister, paint the risers white and all trim white, paint the steps black, put a finish coat of green on the door, install baseboard trim, paint the trim around the window white and re caulk around the window. There is so much more to do but one step closer to the finish.

Knitty

Today I worked with the most inspiring woman ever, my co-worker Barbara Kendrick. I just love this woman she makes the most amazing soap and bath bombs; she lives in the most beautiful off grid log home with a huge pond out front, she loves to fish in BC with her son, she has to cutest little red convertible car named RUBY, she loves tea, she loves pottery and anything artistic, she knits and she spins her own wool from her goats wool, she has laying hens, she’s full of spirit and is the most down to earth most genuine woman you'd ever meet, she is truly my idol. We always have the best conversations at work and today she was telling me about her favorite knitting site. 

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEw11/index.php

Knitty, I love the name. So I had to check it out. OMG! Do I love what I see! Right off the hop the first image on the main page took my breath away. This yellow pattern is called diversify its beautiful.... I think I have found my new favorite site. I am not a knitter but I do crochet, but I might have to learn to knit. I am sure my little sister Annie-Megan will fall in love with this webpage too. I hope everyone enjoys it.

Cleaning House

Today started out sarcastically lovely, time change waking me up at 6am that was previously 5am with no heat. So until I could take care of the problem I started cleaning house. I cleaned the bathroom, our room, put laundry away cleaned the kitchen and living room, vacuumed and changed the garbage. Thank God I did because we had Tim and Jean at the house this morning to bring me 20amp fuses for the furnace and to check out the Furnace fan motor, which we couldn't locate. So tomorrow we call a heating technician to come clean and inspect our natural gas furnace. Then later on Craig's Nanny (grandma) and his uncle Ernie came to visit. So it’s been a mad dash 40 day. After receiving all this company I realized how disgusting our basement really is SO I had to start fixing it.

This is what it looked like previously;

And now it looks like this:

So I took down this headboard, not sure whats going to happen with it, I swept and vacuumed the whole floor.

I moved the vanity which is currently upside down and I found the kick plate for the bottom I'm not to sure if I should give it to habitat or garbage it because it's not that bad just dated. I also finished removing all the nails from the wood paneling pieces that were laying down there.

I've got a door to hang, a box full of trim and bags of extra bedding to go through. A cabinet to decide on and wires to ask Craig if they are garbage.

Here is my Garbage Pile (minus the plants) which means a huge dump run. I also have a pile of old cabinet doors that I took off my kitchen cupboards.

Old closet doors to donate. 

I feel as if I have made huge progress in the basement today it will be even better when the garbage is gone and I can start plaster and painting my basement commencing the birth of our rec room.

UPDATE RE: GUESTROOM

Craig and I finally decided on a guestroom inspiration and we choose this:

The best thing about this room is that we currently don't have to paint our guestroom because the blue matches pretty closely. Instead of doing black accents we choose to do brown.

 So here we go this is what I have done soo far:

I cleaned off the bed which had become a drop zone, that is why I needed to get this room done and organized. I removed the desk and all the extra clutter. I vacuumed and swiffered the floor.

Yesterday I bought these 2 brown curtains which are actually 2 Double Sized flat sheets that were $5 a piece. I also added my sticker to the wall that I had recently purchased at Dollarama for $1.50.

"DANCE LIKE NO ONE IS WATCHING"
How perfect! I love this saying and I dance crazy all the time even Kane has joined in.

We haven't decided on a headboard yet but I did love these Marilyn Monroe pictures that came from a calender I had also purchased at Dollarama at the beginning of the year for $1. I wanted to see what it would look like before I purchased frames or canvases. I thumb tact them to the wall as a temporary fix until we decide what we want.

We do still need some more things for our guestroom like; pillows, brown bedsheets, brown bedskirt, night stands, lamps, a dresser or wardrobe for all the extra blankets and sheets, as well as storage for our guests. I'd like to get a brown throw and a serving tray. We would also like to get a small bistro style chair and table set for the porch. So I will be keeping my eye open for good deals to complete this room.

UPDATE RE: LAUNDRY ROOM/CRAFT ROOM

First of all I’d like to thank everyone for the great feedback I’ve been getting on my blog, I am sooo happy that everyone is enjoying it as much as I am. Please feel free to leave comments or questions on my blog posts I would love to get back to everyone who enjoys my space. Secondly....I haven't been getting much work done on the house lately but I did do some today and yesterday. I started painting my laundry room Green, which it is starting to come together.

SO I have the base painted with 2 coats of white. I have the adhesive cork board up and the start of the trim up. I still need to paint the trim white but I’m waiting till the shelf is installed and the desk part. SO far, I love the drama that this paint creates and it covers the walls amazingly. Sooo well I wondered why so after carefully examine the paint can I realized its exterior paint. Well did it give me ideas or what! It’s the perfect exterior colour to threw in with my grey house with black shutters. So I tried it on the inside of my front door and I LOVE IT! I can’t get over how awesome this colour is. The more I look at it the more I wished I had painted it before. Craig loves it too. So now we are going to paint the doors green on the exterior when it’s nice and not snowy. Best of all Craig is going to make me a matching planter box for under my front window on the house. We will be the freshest house in the subdivision.