You were made for me

Look at the colors in this table clock, it is a perfect match for my living room. That blue is my kitchen stool, the yellow is my coffee table, and the orange, well is all over my place, starting with my front door and kitchen cabinets.

This little beauty is from Mxyplyzyk in New York for $28.

Before I saw that one I was seriously thinking of this retro time clock from MUT, the Museum of Useful Things in Massachusetts. Check out their site, they have the most unique things.



Unfortunately, I just found out that it is no longer available due to an unexpected manufacturer problem. What does that mean? The demand was probably too great as I did find out about it on another blog.

Hopefully, I won't have that problem with MY clock. So don't run out and order them all, ok? At least not until the 16th when I can justify the purchase.

Finding inspiration on eBay and the newsstand

When you are about to tackle a HUGE project it is best to be inspired to succeed.

1st Inspiration:



While searching for sofa reupholstering information, I found the above sofa. See the similarity between that and mine...the rolled arms? I prefer rectangular block arms so I needed to find a rolled armed sofa that I liked. I also like the way this sofa looks without all the cushions, which in my case are lumpy cushions.

2nd Inspiration:

A great redo of a traditional sofa showed up in the pages of the fall/winter 06 issue of Real+Life Decorating, unfortunately, they don't have pictures available on the Web so I had to scan it in. They not only covered a camelback sofa in an incredible chili-red velvet color but they also painted the wood legs to match. Then they added a great patterned gold/red/brown bolster to lay across the back.



I am thinking that if I take my loveseat above and...

• Strip and recover the base of the loveseat in a great solid color,
• make one bench cushion for the seat; eliminating the sliding around that the two cushions do now, and
• remove the lumpy back cushions and replace them with one fabulous funky bolster across the back...I just might be able to fall in love with my loveseat.

What do you think?

Three down, none to go

From this:



To this:



The color I used for the CD holder was Benjamin Moore's Pear Green, courtesy of their convenient and cheap sample pots.

The next painting project will be my small dining table in a shade of pale blue I might possibly have decided on. But before I get into that, I need to finally purge the items I have in my Outbox, as they are now becoming a dangerous housing hazard for my entryway.

IKEA, wonderfully cheap

This weekend, I was just in the general IKEA area saying goodbye to great friends who are moving to Italy for two years. They will also take two of the sweetest little girls in the world with them, my "god daughters". Boo hoo.

However, on my way home, I ended up in IKEA. Since going to Miami on vacation two weeks ago, I have no money. I was just going to look...there is no harm in that, right?

Well, I did end up spending some money, but it was very little, I swear! In fact, I only spent $8.

1. BETTAN cushion cover is to be made into a skirt much like FehrTrade did here. She inspired me to try it too. I don't wear a lot of bright colors, so I decided to take a risk, and for $6.99, how could I resist? One thing I don't understand is why they chose to show the back on the web site, when this other side is more exciting. I am going to try to make it while keeping the zipper intact and just adding a few darts, a solid color band for a waistband, and a hem. However, the zipper would be the full length of the skirt, so perhaps I need to think about this a little more. I'll keep you (If there IS anyone out there?) informed.
   
   
2. SKOGSBAR plant pot. This is an incredible deal at $.99 a pot! Come on? I'm not talking a clay pot, which goes for about $3-4. This is a glazed stoneware pot, available in great colors for less than a dollar. I want to get them in the green, orange, and yellow. Hopefully, next time I will be able to keep a plant alive as my Calla Lily finally passed on about four weeks ago.

I did not mean to do it...

it just happened that way.

It seems I matched the Rust-Oleum American Accents Saltwater color almost perfectly without even trying. I even copied the angle of the picture, again, that was just a huge coincidence.

I wasn't happy with their Spring Green color

and decided to alter it myself using some acrylic paint that I had in my stash.

And that is just the color that I happened to turn up with. I love what the additional paint did to the coverage, it became much more opaque with a smoother texture.

These two pieces did turn out to be much more similar in color than they were meant to be but I like them both.