Rorschach Walls or If These Walls Were Therapists

I once had a doctor, dead over one hundred years, tell me, through a channel, that I like to be surrounded by color because inside I am full of color. Well, thank you, doctor, I absolutely enjoy being surrounded by color and I will take your word for it about my insides. From that point on, I never made excuses about the brightly colored house I was painting, not even when the Sears deliveryman thought I was racist for "remembering" him until he saw my lime green hallway and replied, "Yes, I have been here before, I remember." Not when my friends think my husband is going to leave me because whatever project I show them is too colorful or too bold or too whatever they were implying. And certainly not when people try to talk me out of the brighter color and to consider something more neutral. No! Lime and chartreuse and shocking pink forever! See: my insides, bitches!




So when I came home after seeing this pin on the pinterest and proceeded to just go for it, the only thing that actually surprised me was that I wasn't like this in all aspects of my life.

I saw the above pin and literally grabbed a paint brush and a small bottle of craft paint that I had lying around and started painting. It took me ninety minutes. And I never paused to rethink or ponder my decision, I just painted until black ran down my hand and my cuticles were stained. I didn't even pause to change clothes, ruining a black t-shirt. (Maybe not ruined, but if you see me wearing it, don't point out the weird drip seen when the light hits it).

Here's a before. I took this pic because my friend was telling me she wished she could finish a project she was working on so I immediately took a pic of my terrible, no good, very bad bedroom. (Also I refinished that frame, move the agave block print and squared off the missing plaster).

Wow. That before pic seriously looks like a flop house. For basset hounds.

So here's the after. No time for during. I was too fast and too sure of the outcome.

Meanwhile, other areas of my head are filled with doubts and negativity. I can't even pick out a stationery for myself. Though, honestly, designers of stationery have divided women into 3 super annoying groups, grandma (swirly Crane's initials with tuscan envelope inserts), uber preppy (pink initial with high heel and/or alligator), and twee (whimsical animals with umbrellas and top hats), and I am not those.

So, yeah, I'm impulsive design-wise and it's because I am confident in that area. That wall's two corners have a flat roof above and after eighty some years has been repaired and plastered so much it's bumpy and wavy and less a wall than a hallucination. But paint black spots on it and you can no longer see the imperfections, the white actually drops back leaving the black in the foreground making the wall seem square and perfect and lovely. (I don't owe $18,000 in student loans for nothin').

At the same time I became obsessed with black dots, I received an email from Joss and Main about a bohemian stuff sale. And I love bohemian stuff! I haven't been able to find the page, but somehow my brain managed to have a cache of the pic on my phone. No idea how that happened.

Those mirrors! I loved them. But, like most things that suck, they were not even for sale. They were a tease to get me to the sale. Sad Face. So like any abnormal overly confident, (in one area), type of lady, I bought some fabric and made some tassels and pom poms and made my very own.

(Also, I took these pics with my phone and I am too lazy to edit them).
1 yard of fabric, 4 yards of pom pom trim and a whole bunch of hand made tassels. Also a mirror that I already owned. (Tassel tutorials abound! Find one you like!)

I cleaned out my random yarn stash and just got busy. I also used embroidery floss that I bought at a yard sale making sure it didn't match. I hate it when things match. Obviously.

Here's the mostly finished peek at my bedroom. The ONE space I never even started. Even my closets are more interesting than my bedroom was. I eventually recovered the basset tuffet with a grey Ikea fabric. It's the means with which Barkley gets on and off the bed and it needed some action. Also, I really need to paint that bedside table, but more likely I will get rid of it and replace it with something less. It looks like an anvil in there.

So, what've we learned here, Bootsi? Maybe in the future we just go for whatever makes us happy? Standing on my bed, covered in black paint and feeling really good about what I was creating not giving one second over to any doubts or negativity or fears, just existing in the moment. Because failure is no biggie. Mistakes are a part of life, they are what make us interesting. So, go for it and do the thing you're afraid of. And if you do make a mistake, there's always black paint.