Musical Angels

 

Wildlife angel

 

Time for some angels

 

I have been collecting some angel images over the last few years and like to share them at Christmas time. If I know any information regarding the image, I will share that too.

My "Lenore" painting

 

Another creepy Fuseli

 

Senor and Senora Flaco

From my own little Halloween sugar skull paintings

 

Autumn Leaves

John Everett Millais

 

Fall Plowing

 Fall Plowing

Grant Wood

Lanterns

Japanese lanterns, Luther Emerson van Gorder. American (1861 ...

 

Grape Harvest ongoing

 

Or maybe it's just sleep paralysis...

A dark painting by Henry Fuseli.

 

October by Tissot

 

This is one of my favorite paintings. I have a copy looking down at me in my sewing room. I admire James Tissot and his lovely paintings of fashionable women and just discovered, we share a birthday.

The chestnut trees are changing color

 

Grape Harvest

 

They are picking the black grapes in Creston.

October is here

 

October is my favorite month. I will be posting some of my paintings and favorite images as the month unfolds.

October 1st

 

Fetching floor cloths

I took a cotton drop cloth, some Cutting Edge stencils and leftover paint and made a floor cloth for the living room.

The subfloor is pretty raw looking and hard on the feet.

Once I finally finished the design, I gave it a couple of coats of polycrylic as a topcoat.

It will work until we get new flooring laid.

Skunked

I have had the pleasant experience of being a neighbor to baby skunks. They were so darned cute. Plus, skunks like to eat rats, in case you are experiencing a rat invasion. Just don't make my husbands mistake of walking the dog in the dark and thinking that the skunk is just a black cat. Unfortunate consequences.

Just down the hall

Original hall before stripping out carpet

I spent the last week painting the six dark wood doors

to a white. Much brighter now.

And an older painting so people will know I paint more than just doors.

Fresh Starts

One of the things l like about Creston is the abundance of Mourning Doves.

Sewing Room is operational....

This just makes me happy. I put some of my favorite paintings by local painters, family photos and my own paintings around to keep me company. Now I just need some time to sew.

More lighter

Dining room before

Dining room after

After a coat of super adhesive primer

two coats of stain blocker

two coats of eggshell paint in a very light taupe.

Going lighter

from this

to this in six easy (NOT) steps.

A good thing

They grow asparagus in Creston and it is tasty.

Roll out the hues

I love a sunny yellow kitchen

from this

to this

Think pink. My statement wall for my bedroom is this lush shade of flamingo pink. The other walls will be just a light blush shade of this color. Going to go full Bohemian with all my tchotchkes in here.

a sunny sunday

Bruce and I took a break from our unpacking to enjoy the sunshine and do a little exploring of our new locale. Creston has a bird sanctuary not far from town. It is currently closed but I look forward to visiting when they open.

We also took a short stroll along one of the trails. Nothing says romantic date like waling past aromatic skunk cabbage.

My work list for yesterday included scrubbing the dining room floor on my knees with a scrub brush (sometimes a toothbrush), scrubbing the furnace vent (coated with the grime of ages and other things I'm not sure I want to know the source of) moving more boxes out of our storage unit, priming the dining room walls and a load of laundry. No wonder I fall into bed exhausted at night.

One little makeover, a newly acquired file cabinet got a spray paint facelift:

 

A new place

We sold our house, put our possessions in storage and moved to a new home as the C19 pandemic began to unfold. We feel very lucky that people have been so kind and helpful to us when everything has undergone such a shift. We moved into our new residence after spending two weeks with relatives that were kind enough to give us and our pets a place to stay until we received our keys.

I think most people are finding the isolation from their friends and family to be the hardest part of the pandemic response. I am just starting to feel the lack of personal interaction as I have been so focused on just getting into a house. Being an introvert and a crafty person probably makes it easier for me to deal with the isolation than some people.

Projects, boy do I have project. This is a 1974 raised rancher. The first thing we did was tear out all the carpets. I think they may have been original. We are living with our sub-floors until we can put laminate down (which will be a while). Initially, I had lots of ideas for remodeling. I am scaling that back by a large percent because our remodel budget is pretty small. I am also finding, that as I live with the house, there are lots of things I am learning to live with and appreciate. Most of the makeover will have to be created by painting.

Current project: Living room

There is a lot of paneling. It makes rooms very dark. There were lovely heavy dark drapes but they too were quite dark and both the carpet and drapes had been despoiled by a bad kitty. It all had to go.

I had to treat some floors with odor remover and painted them with three layers of odor blocking primer. This stuff seems to work, thank goodness.

I did a fair amount of research on the internet on how to tackle painting the paneling. I washed them, lightly sanded them and washed them again with a safe tsp alternative. I then used Home Hardware's Beauti-tone Stick it, a super adhesive primer, followed by two coats of Zinsser 123 primer and then two coats of Beauti-tone eggshell paint. I like how the fireplace looks against the light walls. I stuck up some temporary drapes for privacy.

Eventually, I hope to make (or have made) drapes from this ikat material I found at Fabricland last year. It was on clearance and I really love the pattern.

Back to work I go.

Crazy Ravens studio is just landing in our new digs in Creston BC. Rather excited!

Robins