Saturday is a Very Productive Day!

 We got the walls painted with the primer coat of Kilz.  Since it was bare sheetrock it needed to be primed first before the actual coat goes on.  Now that I had a man with good knees, he got all the high stuff and I got all the trim and baseboards completed. 

I wont be sure which color is going to go on the walls until I get the cabinets done. 

 I took the doors off, not easy to do since it has been on there for 31 years.  My wrist is sore from unscrewing all those tiny but tight screws!

I used Liquid Wood to fill in all the holes where the knobs and toilet paper holder was.  It has all been sanded so I am ready to paint the cabinets tomorrow.



 If you ignore my messy closet, you can see the shelf Frank built in.  It was the door to the laundry chute and lifted UP.  We never used it since it made the laundry sit in a dark place with no circulation of air.  And that is never a good thing!

I had the idea to make the linen cabinet look like a piece of furniture with an open shelf.  I need to go to Habitat For Humanity's ReStore on Tuesday to see if they have a cabinet door that will fit. 

I want to have a glass door on the top area.  I could leave it open, but I would have to be neat.  I could put the old door back up.  Or I could use some embossed wallpaper and make it look like a tin panel inserted in the door. 

In preparation for the trip to ReStore, I put  all the old hardware into baggies with their right amount of screws.  I will donate all the stuff, like that extra door I am no longer using and the curtain rods I won't put back up.

When we were at Lowe's this morning getting the wood for the shelf, I looked at the embossed wallpaper, cabinet hardware and handles and cabinets to see if they would sell just one door. 

Not sure about the door thing, but I am pretty sure I can find SOMETHING at ReStore.  I'll show you what an amazing place it is! 

Right now, i am going out to dinner with friends at the fabulous Thai place we love!

Habitat For Humanity Art Progress

I was talking to daughter Carrie last night and offered her the remaining amount on  my gift certificate for the Habitat For Humanity Art Auction because I know she likes all that stuff.  She is tied up in Junior League's Hollydays right now though. 

It was lucky, beause when I hedked whn it was due, I realized I had to get my pieces to them by November 1.  That means I spent today doing some work on Habitat!

 I hot glued the metal pieces to the vinyl covered cement backer board.  I was thinking this would be a permanent thing, but it turned out to be temporary.  As I was washing the dye off the backer board, the pieces began to come loose.  This is good because I can rearrange them next time, maybe all circles and no squares!

I thickened the Procion dye with what I think was corn dextrose, but may have been something else.  it was leftover from the Ann Johnson class.   It looked like corn syrup wiith a slight golden tint.

When I was going into my dye junk, I found several slk scarves I had intended to dye years ago, and brought them along to the party.

Here is the pre-washed scarf.



               Here is the post-washed scarf.
                    It looks like glacial ice.......



Then I made a dyeing pass on the other pillow case that came from Re-Store.   It was dry when I  make the print. 

 Here is a close up of a wet silk scarf section.






And here is my clothes line.  Fun, huh?  It is  much nicer without the bees that visit the flowers in the spring time!
 I am going to Home Depot tonight to fix the clothesline problem. 

Habitat For Humanity Art

I was invited once again to participate in the Re-Store Art Auction for Habitat For Humanity. What a perfect venue for quilters, one that helps people have a home to put quilts into.  I accepted with relish!

For those unfamiliar with Re-Store, it is a wonderful, quirky, odd,  incredibly interesting place full of stuff donated by local contractors when they have excess materials.  Or from the home improvement who is updating their house and replacing cabinets, bathroom fixtures, kitchen stuff.  There are so many little screws, and fittings and washers and tiles and pierces of wood.  It is like heaven for me!!!!!  Next best thing to a fabric store!

They send each artist a $50 gift certificate with which to purchase materials.  You get to scour the store high and low, inside and out for stuff with which to make your art pieces.  You then donate your art to the auction and they make money!  I have seen some incredible stuff made from other people's junk!

And I am about to make some of my own.  Here is some cement backer board with a vinyl covering that will make an excellent base on which the other stuff will be glued.  I bought some circles, some wonderfully ridge-y strips, some squares with holes. 

I plan on gluing these pieces to that cement backer board and using it as a printing plate.  I also scored a set of 100% cotton pillow cases in a light blue that can be the fabric that gets printed!

I also found a smaller piece of PVC pipe for my shibori dyes, which I think will be the first technnique I subject my blue pillowcases to.  Just prior to the circles stamping.

I have procion dyes, which I will post later this week with some cheesecloth I just dyed.  I need to figure out how to thicken the dye so I can paint it on to the circle plate.  And I need to get a brayer.  Maybe a trip to Hobby Lobby is in store!

I am going to post this to Nina Marie's Creations page for her Off the  Wall Friday post.  Check out what others have going on as well.