Sip n Shop Success

This year's Sip n Shop run by MONA (Mothers of North Arlington) was a huge success. There were over 43 vendors, mainly MONA moms representing their own small businesses. I love to feel the creativity all around me, and am inspired by the skill and vision of moms like myself who are able to balance running a house as well as find small moments to create for themselves. Not that I'd actually consider myself balanced...

Speaking of moms, I owe so much to my own mom. No doubt I have inherited her artistic and creative genes. She is an amazing quilter, sewer, knitter, needlepointer, crafter, etc. She has an eye for beauty! For the third year in a row, my mom was at my side at the Sip n Shop. We are quite a team. It was a super busy evening, with so many generous moms supporting my business. At the end of the night, with no gas left in the tank, my mom helped me push through in taking down my display and the packing up the leftover remnants of what had made up a quite impressive collection of hair clips and other goodies (forgot to take a photo of my table of course!). We were directly off to bed when we got home. Thank you Mom!

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Owl Silhouette Project

The animal of the moment for Au is the owl. This summer she has devoured Kathryn Lasky's fiction series The Guardians of Ga'hoole . Au selected the species for the project based on their characteristic sizes and profiles. I created silhouettes in Adobe Illustrator based on the photographs Au found at owlpages.com . Next we will print and frame them for her room.

Navy Bed

Painting in blue is something that I haven't done much of, so when a client was interested in painting her son's vintage white bed in navy blue, it was really a great opportunity. Annie Sloan's Napoleonic Blue wasn't quite dark enough for the room decor, so we chose to finish the piece with a generous helping of Annie Sloan's Dark Wax. I preceded this step with a layer of Clear Wax (and let it dry overnight) because I always want to have max manipulation when it comes to the dark wax application. This pictures shows the difference between clear and dark waxes. The paint, followed by the dark wax to achieve navy blue, also created depth and movement in the painted surface. A single navy blue paint color wouldn't bring that style!

Yankee Doodle Re-Do

If you were a boy of the 70s growing up in New England, this piece may bring back fond memories of playing with your Lite Brite or He-Man, splayed out on the shag carpet in your den: I donated this fixer-upper to the Junior League of Washington's "tossed and found" charity sale last month. A massive cleanup, repaint with an Annie Sloan grey mix (leftover Paris Grey, French Linen, and Pure White) and reupholstery with fresh modern home decor fabric gave this toy bench a complete new look. So cute. Another of those projects the girls are sad to see go. Who knows, maybe we'll run across another Yankee toy box some day.

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