I needed a curtain for the bathroom in the studio. In a pile of linens, I discovered a single canvas curtain panel with a few holes in it. I decided that I needed to repair the rips and shorten the curtain (no one wants a curtain dragging on the floor right by the toilet). I stitched up the holes... ...and cut and shortened the curtain: As you can see, I tacked it up to my painting wall and then went to town with spray paint and spray ink: It didn't feel quite done at this point, so I added some... Read more →

In the new house, my studio is in the attic. It's a wonderful space with one big problem: low angled ceilings. Beyond the fact that this eliminates the ability to hang shelves for storage (a problem I am currently working through as I unpack), it means that I don't have a painting wall or a place to put a quilt design wall. I talked to my contractor about it and he built me two huge wooden walls on wheels! This means that I now that 4 flat walls (2 sides on each of these wooden "boxes") to work with! Yay!... Read more →

Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you have a spooktacular day! We have done zero decorating for Halloween this year because we're still unpacking, but here are some pumpkins Steve and I painted back in 2016: I'm usually 100% against anything fake, but I've been thinking that I might buy some *gasp* fake pumpkins and paint them. That way I'd have them year after year instead of having to re-do it every year...is that sacrilege? I'm going to have to think about that. We will see if the after-Halloween sales offer any great deals on fake pumpkins! In the meantime, I've got... Read more →

Today is the first day of Fall! I figured that it might be the perfect time to share this Fall-themed project: This super fun ScanNCut banner incorporates some basic sewing on no-ravel materials like cork fabric and felt. No-ravel materials make this project quick and easy because they require absolutely no finishing! The best part is that this entire project uses built-in designs from the ScanNCut DX225! If you haven't taken the time to explore what's already built into your machine, I hope that you will. Watch the video for the how-to: Here are the basics: Choose banner shape. Load... Read more →

Decorative tile is really expensive. You probably know this. For a while during our home renovation I thought very seriously about painting my own decorative tiles. I even went so far as to make some samples to see if it was a good or a bad idea. The previous homeowners had left a box of plain white square tiles in the basement. Score! I did my online research and discovered that enamel paint was going to be the best bet for painting on top of finished tiles and actually having the paint stick and stay. And so off I went... Read more →

I figured that it might be time for a home renovation update! Here is a video walk through I put together: I filmed this video a week ago. So much more has already gone on at the house and I wanted to share a few photos! Renovating a house means getting excited about boring things no one else cares about, like towel rings and hooks going up in the bathroom: We changed out the tile on this fireplace. Here's a before and after. (The before is a photo taken by the realtor, clearly designed to make the wood look much... Read more →

We are painting the walls in our new home white. This feels like it should be an easy task to pick white paint, right? I mean, here is a white paint chip: Only it's not really white. Suddenly it looks very peachy, right? (I did no editing or filtering on these photos. These are straight out of my phone.) Color is relative. We see colors -- even white -- differently depending on what it's next to. White: Actually, it's vaguely green: Again and again -- the whites seem to change even photo to photo: I swear to you that in... Read more →

As I mentioned before, I've been wanting to actually try out some of the projects I pin on Pinterest. This week, I decided to tackle this one: One of the reasons I chose this project is because I had all the supplies on hand: stencils, paint, and Dura-Lar. I even had the battery operated candles in my stash! I ended up not using a gelatin plate, as the caption under the photo seems to recommend (the pin, unfortunately, leads to a dead page). Instead, I used a makeup wedge to stencil onto the Dura-Lar -- btw: If you're not familiar... Read more →

As you probably know, the biggest craft project I'm working on is a home renovation. And renovation doesn't really seem to cover what it is. It's kind of building a new house inside of the old house shell. Listen the podcast to hear more: If you do not see the podcast player above, please click on this link. You can listen to a podcast anywhere and at any time. It is a recording that is available to you whenever you'd like to listen. If you'd like to download it to your iTunes library, click here. You can also pause and... Read more →

I have always said that there are three hobbies I enjoy: buying art supplies organizing art supplies using art supplies (Sometimes I do a little too much of hobby #1.) As it turns out, renovating a house has some similar activities to engage in, particularly when it comes to the buying part. In some ways I suppose this isn't surprising. This house is simply the largest arts and crafts project I've ever done! Because I have an old Victorian house (built in 1890) I have been visiting lots of super fun salvage shops up and down the East Coast. I... Read more →