Laume's Studio

The brick corner painting is finished. I promised step-by-step photos. This area has low natural light and it's hard to photograph. Without a flash it's dark and you can't see anything even in the middle of the day. With a flash everything appeaers washed out. I did the best I could.

Here's a photo of just the base coat. It's actually not this bright. Imagine it a bit darker and more gold, less yellow.

Next comes a medium gray brown . I mixed it with a glaze, paintbrushed it on and then wet ragged it until it blended and faded into the base coat.


Then I added a second color, a medium terra cotta color in glaze, treated the same way. If you double click on the photo, you can see a bit more detail.

It's nice in person. After I was finished, hubby admitted that he really had no clue what I was up to originally. He came home to the base coat a few days earlier and thought that was the finished result and wondered what all the hullabaloo was about - it just looked like a wall painted yellow. Then he came home to find the topcoats applied and was suitably impressed.

After all that work, it's mostly going to be covered up with shelving. (which is why I'm not particularly worried about that one streak in the bottom corner that's a bit unblended - this was my practice area)

Nothing else to show you for a bit. I've been working on unloading and moving shelves around since then. Even though logic tells us it would be easier to do the whole project in one full sweep (you only have to prepare and clean up once), it's not practical for me to tear the house apart that much, so I'm planning on doing one or two walls at a time. I'll be sure to post photos as I finish each section. I'm currently dismantling the area in the dining room, which means making a decision on another paint color. ARGH!

On a different creative level, I made a couple of necklaces today. Oh, okay. Truth. I selected the beads and my friend Shirley who owns the bead shop actually put the necklaces together while I stood around chatting with her. I gathered up all the materials and she just started putting them together for me. I told her "I was going to at least pretend I was planning on making these myself."

She responded "Don't bother. You're just spoiled." She does. She spoils me. Lucky me.

Here's the first one. It's just a pretty moss agate on a simple cord. I wanted it to be completely basic.

Here's another stone, I think it was called a serpentine or something like that. It was a blend of greens, blues, blacks and grays. The little tear drop on the bottom is a green and black glass bead. Pretty, huh!

I had a very nice gifty day. A goodie box from my mom arrived in the mail today. In it was a bunch of miscellaneous fabrics and old clothes to use the fabric from, and some old doilies and ribbons for craft work. Plus these handmade butterfly magnets. They're made from fussy cut fabric butterflies embellished with plastic wire antennae and glitter. They're lightly padded with a felt back and held together with both glue and a blanket stitch. A small magnet is simply glued in the middle. One of them wouldn't stick. I realized they'd glued the magnet on backwards so I just pulled it off and reglued it. They certainly make the gas heater look a bit less blah in the off season.

I took some pet photos the other day. Check out the adorable fuzzy faces over at Beach Treasure.