Showing posts with label Tonic Living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tonic Living. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

A little bit of this and that

This was one of those weekends where everything went wrong. Hubby and I had a sort of depressing visit with his mom in Guelph on Friday & Saturday – getting old sucks :-( The furry somethings that were supposed to arrive on Saturday night missed their transport and are still in Kentucky. And on Sunday my laptop crashed and burned, along with ALL my pictures. Toby pictures, Malcolm pictures, before & after project pictures… I HATE TECHNOLOGY! Hubby is trying to save as many files as he can from the laptop, so hopefully it’s not a total loss.

That being said, my blog post plans for the week are kinda screwed up. So I’ll be winging it, starting with today’s little-bit-of-this-and-that post…

Heather at Setting for Four and I met up at C&M Textiles last week to look for some drapery fabrics for her new home and for my master bathroom. We both found some nice ones, which of course are super-expensive. Why does that always happen!? In spite of the $151.98/yd price tag (YIKES!), I brought home a sample of Helena, as well as the comparatively bargain priced Zippy at $39.98/yd. And then I remembered I had ordered a sample of a pretty blue fabric called Theo a while back from Tonic Living for another project. And I think we have a winner! Because not only is Theo’s colour a perfect match to the accent tiles in the bathroom, his price is pretty close to perfect too – $17.95/yd.

fabrics 1 pm

Speaking of perfect colour matches… I’m seriously in love with the combination of these two colours from PARA Paints: P5021-41D Shopping Spree on the left and P5044-62 Leek on the right.

brushes

I’ve been working on another PARA Paints Blog Crew project using these colours that I’ll hopefully finish this coming weekend. Although the way things gave been going lately, no guarantees!

Christine at Bijou and Boheme had a big multi-day giveaway a few weeks ago, and I won a prize – Woot! It’s a book by Canadian designer Eileen Marshall called Dancing with Design.

book cover

Not only does the book have lots of great advice on how to create a unique home, but there are some lovely renderings and drawings as well…

book Collage

Thank you Christine and Eileen!

And I was so happy to receive a wonderful update from Malcolm’s new family yesterday. He’s doing amazing in his new home, and gets along great with his new Catahoula brother :-) Yay Malcolm!

Malcolm artsy

Friday, October 5, 2012

Long weekend plans: DIY and dogs

What’s better than a long weekend? An extra-long weekend! Can I say I’m just a littl ebut excited about having the next five days off? :-) WOOT! And it’s a good thing too, ‘cause I have a lot of projects on the agenda!

For starters, I’ll be starting my next PARA Paints Blog Crew project. I’m turning a small room in the basement into a craft/painting room. Hubby has installed the ceiling and crown moulding, and now it’s ready to paint. I was originally going to do something bright and funky and graphic, but now I’m leaning towards trying something different and doing an ombre effect. Like this:

ombre-wallImage via P.S. - I made this…

Now I just need to decide on a colour palette. I’d love to do navy, but it’s a small room with a low ceiling and no window, so I may have to go with something lighter. I really love the colour I used on my little chair, P5168-51 Time Will Sell. I might use a series of colours from that colour chip.

ombre colours

I’ve picked the ceiling & trim colour for the room – white! I know, pretty exciting, eh? ;-) It’s P5216-14D Climb the Mast. It looks a bit pink in the picture, but it’s not at all. It’s a yellow-based white, so it’s slightly creamy.

climb the mast

So that’s project #1. I’m also planning to paint a bookcase and desk to go in the room. I’ve had the Mulholland china pattern by Kelly Wearstler in my head for a while now…

mulholland

…to do a little something like this:

Inspiration for my craft room deskImage via Timmy the Weiner Dog {blog no longer exists}

I think I’ve figured out how I’m going to do it – now I just need to get it done! That’s project #2.

Project #3 is easy – upholstering seat cushions for the four stools that hubby built for the kitchen . I bought this fabric from Tonic Living – it’s called Make Waves in the Latte colourway. I love the pattern, and the colours tie the kitchen and family room wall colour.s together.

Make Waves, Latte

FYI, the ladies at Tonic Living are super-nice and their service is super-fast – my fabric arrived two days after I ordered it :-)

I’ve been transforming a couple more pieces of furniture with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. The first is a side table that I gave a driftwood look to. It still needs a few touch-ups and a new pull for the door. Here’s a peek:

round table

And this little table is taking forever – the stupid spindles are a lot more time-consuming to paint than I thought. It’s almost ready for its debut, but for now, here’s a little preview…

close up

Besides these DIY projects, we have a lot of dog stuff going on this weekend. Jackson & Toby are going to a photo shoot on Saturday morning, and then Toby is meeting potential adopters in the afternoon.

squirt toby hug

They seem like a great couple, and they have a home that’s right on Lake Erie, so Toby Won Kenobi {that’s my nickname for him} will be able to do lots of swimming and playing on the beach. I want them to adopt me too!

jennie beach

I’m really going to miss Toby when he leaves for his new home – we’ve been fostering him for almost two months and he’s become a part of our family. But this will probably help with the transistion – we have a new foster dog arriving on Sunday. His name is Malcolm. When I saw this picture of him on the Catahoula Rescue Ontario Facebook page, my heart broke and I just had to help him.

malcolm

Have you ever seen such a dejected dog?! Poor guy! He was scheduled to be euthanized the following day, and I just couldn’t let that happen. I told Gloria who runs Catahoula Rescue Ontario that I would foster him if she could pull him from the shelter. Luckily, we were able to rescue him just in time. I’m really looking forward to meeting him so I can finally see what he looks like – he didn’t face the camera for either of his shelter pictures. Assuming there are no glitches with the transport or issues at the border, he’ll arrive in Ottawa Saturday night and Gloria will bring him to our house on Sunday. I’ll post better pictures then :-) By the way, if there’s anything you want to know about Catahoulas or if you’d like to adopt or foster a dog, you can find all the info on the new blog. I designed it with lots of help from Heather and Tanya – thanks girls!

houla collage

We’ll be having our Thanksgiving dinner on Monday with my dad and mom #2. If there’s time, I want to do a little crafting with them and paint some pumpkins for Hallowe’en…

blue-pumpkinsImage via Landee See Landee Do

And finally, I need to put the finishing touches on this painting and mail it to its new owner. It’s my first official sale – thank you Janet :-)

janet-ocean pm

Of course, just because I plan to do all these things doesn’t mean that I actually WILL do all these things! Come on by next week and I’ll let you know what I manage to get done!

Oh, and one more thing – I’m just $65 away from my goal of raising $500 for the Growing Our Pits For Tits campaign! Thank you Chuck, Diane, Lana, Stephanie, Vanessa, Sarah, Suzanne, Lisa, Janet, Kate, and Pam & Oded for your support! If you’d like to make a donation towards breast cancer research and awareness, click here to go to my donation page.

What are your plans for the long weekend?

Happy Thanksgiving & Happy Columbus Day!