Sheet Music Project, Take Two!

 

Please Let Your Voice Be Heard!

Go VOTE TODAY!

Sheet music artwork, take TWO! I still have to tweak it, but here's the update. (Here's the first try at this project if you missed it).

• Modpodge DOES stick to styrofoam! (Thank you for that suggestion!) I used one 4' x 8' styrofoam panel from Lowe's and 1/2 a container of matte modpodge (from JoAnn's Fabric...Ellie did not sneak in, haha), together costing $25.
• To get a more aged look, I mixed Annie Sloan clear and dark wax (I already had from a previous project) together and then rubbed on the pages with a dry cloth. This does create an aged look, however, it would 'grab' certain areas more than others. It looks better in person, but does appear uneven in some areas and sometimes like spilled coffee. But I love coffee, so it's all good! (I have aged sturdy papers with strong coffee or tea also, btw, so that could be another option).

Conclusion: As with the aging and modpodge suggestions, I'm also taking the suggestion of possibly creating some sort of frame, which means Hubby will create a frame, and then layering something on top....I think it has some potential around Christmas time, but I'm keeping that a secret for now. :)

Speaking of Christmas, GUESS WHAT!!?! SOOO EXCITED! I have been invited to be part of a Christmas house tour this year! I know!!

What this means for you is that for three days I will be posting mulitple links to other bloggers who are opening up their homes and showing us their Christmas decor. It's December 5, 6, & 7th. LOVE ME some home tours, so I can't wait!

Wear the crown one more time, she said. It'll be fun, she said. 

In other news, I'm a HUGE Downton Abby fan, so I can't wait to start watching The Crown on Netflix, since it looks like it could be similar. Anyone else watching? Do you like it? What other Netflix shows do you recommend? 

Ellie!

Thank you for all your kinds words after the last post. HUGS! I love you guys.

I'm not mentioning any names...but some mysterious person in our family is turning 6 years old next week!! OK, you guessed it, it's ELLIE! Happy Birthday Ellie!!

I've had a lot of questions about her, so I thought this would be a great time to give you the scoop on my sweet buddy.

BREED:  Havanese      

AGE: 6          WEIGHT: 5 LBS        

SHEDS?:  Never       BARKS?:  Hardly ever

EATS:  EN canned food from the vet      

TREATS: Yes, please, bacon preferred, popcorn accepted

ALLOWED IN JOANN'S FABRIC?   NO

Ellie is a Havanese. I'm usually asked, a what?? Is that a mix of something? Nope, she's a full bred Havanese, which is the best little dog breed EVER! This breed doesn't shed, rarely barks and has the best temperament of any dog I've ever seen. I had never heard of the breed previously, but found it when I googled 'non-shedding small dog, good with kids'. Hubby and I both have allergies so we have to have a 'hypoallergenic' breed that doesn't shed.

Cats are cute too, but they make my eyes swell shut.

Ellie is on the small side at 5 lbs for a Havanese. They are usually closer to 8-10 lbs. We got Ellie when she was a year old, so we already knew she would stay small. She was extremely timid and literally didn't bark one time during the first year that we had her. She wouldn't play fetch, or anything for that matter, she basically just clung to my side from day one.  I often wondered if she was abused or possibly in a puppy mill at one time because she had no idea how to play at all. After becoming fast friends, if I have to leave her, she howls. HOWLS. This coming from the non-barking dog was quite startling. I didn't believe Hubby and thought he was just trying to be dramatic, but then he videotaped her. She even howls sometimes if she's home with the rest of the family and I leave. I'm her person.

Which is why I have a big purse and hide her in there when I'm on the go as much as possible. She just sits contently with her little head barely sticking out.

Did you know JoAnn's Fabric made me leave because I had sweet Ellie in my purse?

"They didn't!"

Oh, Yes. They. Did. 

I wasn't even done shopping. JoAnn didn't sell as much fabric as she could have that day.

Everywhere else I go (I do draw the line at food establishments) welcomes her completely. In fact, she's so stinkin' cute, I have to allow for extra time for all the people who want to stop and pet her. 

After she settled in to our family, she nows insists on playing fetch, going for walks, etc. She tucks Bear into bed every night and is his constant companion when he's in trouble. Which is a lot, haha! :) It would be hard for anyone to find a sweeter, more well behaved family member than her.

Seriously. You must adopt her twin sister. 

Just don't take her into JoAnn's Fabric. Did I mention we got kicked out of there? Just as I was discovering those cinnamon scented pinecones and all?

Ok, I like to joke about my JoAnn's Fabric experience, (sigh), but I understand that they have policies and I just waltzed in and broke the rules. I'm not usually such a wild rebel. So seriously, nothing against JAF.

But guess what!

Hobby Lobby loves dogs.

I know!

I knew I loved that place. And their scented pinecones are probably half off.

BAM!

Love,

Elizabeth 

Hello dahlings. Today I am modeling my new tweed dress with my fabulous pink flower accent that I got for my birthday.  I'm totally wearing it to Hobby Lobby.

What I Want You To Know...

When you enter the blogging world, you are given all sort of advice. Two things that stuck out to me were that you must know who you are writing to and what your central message is.  

I knew I wanted to write to you.

Because here I am in my 40s and my inner voice is sometimes still not nice to me and I wondered if yours sometimes isn't either? For those of you trying so stinking hard to make a house a home, who sometimes doesn't think she (or he!) is good enough but who really is. Who is so many things to so many people but forgets to treat herself like she is worthy of anything special.  I wanted to remind you that you are worthy, you may have just forgotten.

Maybe you never even knew.

I'm writing to you.

I want you to be uplifted, inspired, to laugh with me, to cry with me. But most of all, I want to give you hope.  Hope because you saw this crazy lady on the internet who runs around with a little white dog and likes to try to decorate but seems to fail a lot. Who is the Lucy to her Desi. Who sometimes loses her temper with her kids and occasionally burns dinner. Who is late and whose car is a hot mess.  

I want you to have hope because if you continue to struggle as I do and as I did, know that there's a whole league of us out here with the same exact struggles. The same exact flaws. We can band together because God made us all the same.

None of us were made less than.

Not one...

That ten pounds here and there doesn't make you ugly. You are beautiful. You are.

If you burn dinner, you know we all love a good PB&J.

When your kids are mad because you don't act like so-and-so's mom, it's a good thing because that kid turned out to be wild as a buck. 

The laundry. The chores...the rotation that never ends that is exhausting....but thank God, you have a family.

And if your struggles are bigger, and weigh on you more than these... 

Know that some of your struggles won't last forever.

And know that some of your struggles will not go away but one day you look up from your burden and realize you have learned to cope. It hasn't changed, but you have.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.  I pray for you, we are in this together.  I will continue to display my fails and weaknesses only to show you, you are not alone.

But most importantly, despite our fails...

LET US NOT FORGET OUR VICTORIES.

Thank you for being the most wonderful readers, you are the best.

Love,

Elizabeth

Clearly, Elizabeth is a little emotional this week, but I know that she meant every word.

An AMAZING Victorian House on Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! You guys are the best readers ever! Thank you so much for your suggestions for my sheet music project, I knew y'all would have the answers. I'll show you my remake soon. As for the most votes for Ellie's costume, tallied by comments, email and Facebook, she is wearing the winning choice at the end of the post.  

No tricks here, I think you are going to love this treat! An exterior tour of a gorgeous Victorian dressed for Halloween!

This house! Every time I have an opportunity to drive by it, I do. It's a restored Victorian owned by the most amazing people who decorate it beautifully. Their Halloween decor is one of my favorites...

In addition to being such wonderfully kind people, the McBurneys are incredibly talented decorators. The home is owned by our town's mayor, Williard McBurney, and his wife, Darlene McBurney. Steven McBurney, their son, is an interior decorator who also lives locally and owns and operates McBurney Designs, a fine interior and antiques store. 

My Bear, 10, with some scary friends

He has helped me several times with my home, remember my large foyer mirror and curtains? (Here if you missed it).  He's currently remodeling his store, which is housed in a beautiful historic building that was formerly a church (with soaring ceilings and stained glass windows! Love!) and will reopen soon. I've already been stalking it, trying to get in early. :)

Steven restored the Victorian home several years ago. Darlene loved the house as a child and used to walk past it often, saying that just maybe someday she would live there. 

It was meant to be, because she and her family have lived there many years now. She and Steven always decorate the house beautifully and give the town a treat with each season.

That trimwork!

I hope this to be the first in a series of local house tours. This may entail me knocking on some stranger's doors, but a tour is worth possible humiliation ,right? 

Great detail...and look at that window...swoon

For now, enjoy this beautiful Victorian. Thank you to the McBurneys for sharing your home with us! Happy Halloween!

Love,

Elizabeth

Elizabeth thinks this is hilarious. I think it's the creepiest moment of my life. And I'm dressed as a pig.

DIY HUGE Artwork

I know that gallery walls are all the rage. I know. 

I think they can look really awesome, especially when you use baskets, large initials, etc., along with pictures. I love it.

But confession time: If there's a lot going on, I get a little frazzled. Like I could come visit your gorgeous gallery wall and we'd be best friends, but if I tried to put together a gallery wall, I just get antsy thinking about it. Maybe if I start small and symmetrical...but I'm just not there yet.

So, in decorating this house, I've got big problems if I can't do a gallery wall. These are 10-12 foot ceilings with wide open wall spaces. Where do I find huge artwork? So far, hardly anywhere. And if I do find something, it's $10,000. 

If I'm spending $10,000, I'm going to Paris.

With no other options, I came up with a couple of ideas for do it yourself huge artwork. One came to about $40 and the other was over $200. The latter not cheap by any means, but at this point after looking and looking, I'm willing to fork it over. Most of my ideas usually end up with me putting Hubby to work; I'm okay with admitting that he is the actual talent of this duo. If you hadn't already figured that out, you'll see in the examples to come. :) I'll start with his, the pricier one:

This is a mural that we bought online from Anthropologie.  Sorry, there are no windows in this hallway and it's about impossible to get a picture without shining harsh overhead light, which gives a pink tint to the mural. The above picture shows the color of the mural most accurately. They have several to choose from $100 and up (we bought a couple and one was on sale for $100, so hoping they will go on sale again!) It's a little over 8 feet tall and almost 5 feet wide. You can hang these as is, but Hubby mounted it with spray adhesive on a sheet of 1/4" birch veneer equal to the size of the mural.

He stained trim and then built the frame, which is why our cost was closer to $250. He did have a little trouble getting it to lay smoothly, but the picture itself has a thick, wrinkled texture, so a couple of extra wrinkles really didn't affect the overall look of it. I also found murals online at Etsy here (the owner said she could do single large sheets up to 52" wide), and I'm thinking of doing the floral one for our master bath. Again, I know this is pricey for a DIY, but I think it can give you ideas for mounting large photos, even wallpaper or large posters yourself. I've seen some pretty photos enlarged at places like Walgreens that have also made incredible larger art pieces for a fraction of this price.

The hallway has 10' ceilings to give you an idea of the height. I love how it turned out, it's HUGE! Yay!! Hubby is the greatest.

 And now for my project, the one that I'm going to just go ahead and admit...is now added to my fail list. Ugh. BUT I'm showing you because I think it still has potential and I want your input on how to make it work, because it's more doable at $40. After seeing a huge display featuring sheet music in the furniture store, Arhous, I decided to try to copy it. I started with two foam boards that I bought at Lowe's for around $15 a piece.

They are each four foot wide and eight feet tall. I wanted my 'artwork' to be 8' x 8', so I taped together two boards. Obviously, you can make these any size smaller that that. *Note after moving this monstrosity, I wish I'd made two separate boards and hung them side by side as one piece instead of taping together. I figured it wouldn't last forever, but it'd be something unique to fill the space until I found what I wanted.

After years and years of piano lessons, Hubby and I both have a lot of old piano music that we don't use anymore. We should both be Beethoven by now, but something went way wrong...It's old, so it looks a little antiqued, which you know I love. I sprayed the back of the sheets with $10 spray adhesive and covered the entire boards, (white side up) with the music. I used two piano books worth, about 110 sheets or so between the both, all pages with no titles, just the notes, except for two pieces. Canon in D was played at our wedding and Fur Elise was a song I grew up playing over and over, so I used two pages with those titles. I also included a page that my grandmother had written the names of the notes on, and a couple of pages where Hubby's teacher had written comments to him. It's hardly noticeable, but I thought it would be neat to have some memorabilia in hidden in there.

I overlapped the boards edge about a half an inch with the sheets of music and glued the entire perimeter of the boards first. To finish the center portion, I leaned it up against the wall so I could reach the rest without crushing the styrofoam when I stepped on it. I tried to not fully glue down the torn edges of each sheet so the frayed part would stand out a little. Start to finish, it took me around two and a half hours.

Here is the finished project behind the piano in the area off of the foyer. It's just leaning now, but the plan was to hang it on the wall.  

So here's the fail part...Hubby walked in right after I'd placed it against the wall. I said, what do you think?? All he'd say is, 'Um, it's big!'. LOL I admit, it ended up way too big! In my mind, 8' x 8' would be perfect. It's not, I feel engulfed by sheet music! Run away! I was thinking of taking one of the boards away to see if half the size would be better. I still think it's a neat concept and love the height of it, just not the width.

Then, overnight, piece by piece, the sheet music started to fall off!

Apparently, spray adhesive doesn't permanently stick to styrofoam. It just sticks long enough for you to think it does.

Trickster.

I did not know this! Hubby apparently did, but did not know my grand piano sheet scheme.

Hello? Why isn't he reading my mind when I need him to??

Good times. 

What do you think? Is there potential here? Is there a way you can successfully glue something to styrofoam?? If so, what do you think about half the width, just using one styrofoam board centered on the wall (or a different kind of board completely)? Or is the whole thing too homemade and cheesy looking? You guys know what looks good, I need input please!

Signed - Just A Girl in Need of Large Art

who really just wants to go to Paris,

Elizabeth

Ellie's Costume Pick

Queen, Pig or Viking??

Elizabeth's Vote - Viking

Bear's Vote- Pig

Your vote?

Costumes are itchy.

A City Boy and The Little Treehouse In the Woods

Bear likes to create things.

Without my permission.

This weekend I found a tiny crockpot plugged up in his room where he was melting crayons and coconut oil, oh, don't forget the essential oils! A recipe he found on Pinterest to make me homemade lipstick.

Oh my.

This kid! I love him. He was so excited about making me lipstick and of course, you have to wear it because he worked so hard and is so proud of it. And he did a great job.

Except it was Eggplant Purple.

I walked around looking like Joan Jett all day.

The deer are everywhere around here! Love them!

So when Bear kept asking his dad to build a treehouse this summer, Hubby thought it would be the perfect project to help him build and get some of that creative energy out. Little B (my 20 year old who isn't little anymore) helped as well..and we felt a little guilty since he had also always wanted a treehouse, but this is the first time we've lived in the woods and actually had trees. So it's for the both of them, even though Little B is about to be living on his own, lol.

They worked and worked. Mainly Hubby worked and the two kids would meander in and out, with Little B only here occasionally and Bear working as long as his little attention span would allow.

Finally the day came! It was done! Bear spent the first few days in there continually, he loved it!

He brought his friends over to see it!

He listened to music in there!

He had decorating plans for it! (That's my boy!) 

Then he left a little food up there...

We had told him animals would move in if he left food up there.

And...it got really windy.

Hubby had built it (he has been in construction most of his life, so he knows what he's doing), so that it would give a little with the movement of the trees.

 It swayed just a bit.

It creaked a little.

The metal roof made a LOT of noise as the acorns started falling from the trees above.

It sounded like gunshots.

Raccoon feast?

So once Bear climbed up there and he was convinced raccoons had just left and were coming back any minute, the creaking meant the whole thing was falling down and the noisy acorns hitting the roof were gunfire, he was outta there. He's not returned in quite a while.

Sigh.

And as I sit here shaking my head with my rock-n-roll lipstick on, I think...

Treehouse for sale. 

Love,

Elizabeth

LAST ONE...ELLIE'S HALLOWEEN COSTUME CHOICE #3

(the next post will feature all three, then I'd love to hear which one is your fav!)

You about have to be a Viking to survive this bunch, but I love those guys.