Painting Tips for Moms

My house is peeling. The paint, that is. The whole thing needs to be exfoliated and painted. But that takes time and time without kids underfoot. Which, as a stay-at-home-mom, is impossible. I was telling my neighbor about my idea to spend a few months painting my house myself. Like painting a couple of hours during the day and then cleaning up and doing it again the next day. She's an artist and a teacher and has been painting her house for 5 years, so she had some tips for me.

1. Use a Cart. Keep all of your supplies on a wheeled cart or wagon. Then you can take everything with you as you paint and have a place to store it out of a kids reach when you're finished. I was going to keep mine on my front porch and then I won't have to run around for an hour looking for all my supplies.

2. Use Glad Press'n Seal Wrap for Brushes. When you are done for the day, wrap your brush/roller in the Glad Wrap and pop it in the freezer. When you're ready to paint, put the brush in the sun to thaw while you prep your wall and then it's ready to go. And since you don't have to rinse your brush every night, it wastes less paint.(Not a paid endorser, just a wrap lover).

3. Use Clear Coat. When you're painting between wall and trim, tape off your trim and apply a clear coat to seal the tape. Then paint the wall. You'll get a nice clean line.

I should mention I'm not a professional. These are just things I've learned from painting things. And in my house, everything has a coat of paint on it. Except Barkley. Unless he gets too close to my paintbrush.

 

 

Fun with house painting at Sherwin Williams.

Coaster Child

The problem with being a night person, (I am not an "owl," too hipster-ie), is that I feel inspired, (or have inspiration emailed to me), so I set forth bringing it to life and then I have to wait until morning to photograph and/or write about it. The best lighting in my house is 10am in my kitchen nook. People keep telling me "Light Box!," but these people probably have a bigger house than me. Or don't live with wild monkeys bent on destruction.

Today I asked for ideas for my next project and I got one response, "cake!" which, it turns out I actually made. Without realizing it until just now. (Good use of "the secret," Deborah!) And then later I was reminded about my coffee melting my new bedside table situation. It seems a hot beverage placed on a ModPodged nightstand sort of melts the glue making it fog up again. So I made this:

 

A little coaster! The fabric was in my scrap bin and it's one of my favorites. I only had a little left but couldn't throw it away. I'm so glad I figured out something to do with it.

 

See what happens when you photograph at night? So dark. With weird shadows. But don't you love my mug? It makes me happy just to look at it.

If anyone else has an idea of something I can make, let me know. But remember I'm lazy and have limitations.

Palette Season

 

I've been redecorating my house in my head lately. Which is bad. Because if it's not on paper I always forget something. Like a wall or a door or I get the measurements wrong. Or I mentally paint the walls orange and then mentally pick out an orange stove and an apple green countertop. This could all turn out just fine. Or it could look like the circus is in town.

Enter COLOURlovers.com. I can create custom palettes and save them. It's so amazing. I am addicted.

Here's a palette I created based on a flower a friend gave me today:

 

 You can also view other palettes and vote on them. And sometimes you end up creating a new unnamed color and you get to name it! Magical! Here's Steamed Artichoke named by me:

 

Here's a palette I designed for my kitchen:

 

Seriously. I need to be stopped.