Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Pintester Movement Challenge - Ombre dresser

If you are not reading the blog Pinterster, you need to get over there after you read this post and check it out! I'm serious. This girl is something else. She created her blog testing pins from Pinterest and I would consider her success rate less than impressive - but she completely owns that and has made a job of attempting pins and documenting her final product. I would consider her effort super impressive considering she's done far more pins than most of us with a Pinterest account. She threw down the gauntlet and challenged her readers to get to moving and actually do something they'd actually pinned.

Challenge accepted.




Here you can see my board called "everything gets painted" - and here is what I have been dying to do every since I pinned it:
Source
Well, it just so happens that a friend of mine, Summer, was having a little girl and had a dresser that they wanted painted. I told her I would do it if I could do suggested ombre in pinks. She was on board - her husband would take some convincing considering it was a piece from his family and rather old. But, his wife was pregnant and that's what she wanted, so that is what we did.

Here's what I started out with:
Luckily, I didn't have to sand this piece. 

But I did use my Norwex dusting mitt to remove
all the dust prior to priming. 

Then I taped everything off (which I feel is important if you're going to be doing any type of painting - nothing ruins a good paint job like splatters and drips):
This was probably the trickiest part....

Then I got to working:
Oooo pretty pretty

Yes, I did spill some pink paint in the process.
Make sure you close the container before shaking. 

I primed everything white to begin with. I used spray primer from Sherwin Williams but I should have used a roller for the primer. This was a really old dresser that had recently been sanded down so the spray did not give me the finish I was hoping for. I used a foam roller for the entire dresser after that. The white took me a few more coats than I would have liked, but sometimes that happens. The finish of a paint job is determined by the prep work and because my prep wasn't exactly as I would have liked, it took me a few tries to get the finished product to get to my standards.

I gave it a few coats of water-based poly to protect it from what is sure to be years of use and ended with a little something like this:

All ready for baby!

I used sample paints from Sherwin Williams - they sells quart samples for around $6, which is a great deal considering you only get a few ounces at other stores for around the same price.

Now, if I can just get to moving on the other 112 pins I have on the "projects to complete" board and 61 pins on the "projects for friends" board...



Monday, May 13, 2013

My Opinion Monday - Getting back to me.

As you faithful 19 blog followers know, I opened an Etsy shop last November. And then I stopped blogging. And then in the name of trying to create a brand, I moved all my "My Opinion Monday" posts to another blog - myopinionmonday.blogspot.com (oh you didn't notice that...well, I did). I didn't want people to not like my stuff because sometimes my opinion isn't the nicest or with the majority or very tactfully written.

Over the past 6 months I have not crafted my way to being a millionaire - or hundred-aire really - I'd like to think that I just NOW broke even (although adding up all the receipts that I've misplaced and refuse to try and find might tell me otherwise) and you know what, it's a lot of work. A lot of time. A lot of sacrifice. A lot of money. A lot of stress. And I knew it was going to be a lot of time, work and money when I went into it so blindly. But what I didn't realize is that it was going to be more  of all those things than I had expected. Oh you want to throw me a surprise birthday party? I need to go home after work and sew up a couple wine holders for a prize tomorrow for a show I just decided I'd be in! (No joke people, I screwed up my boyfriend and friends plan of throwing me a surprise 29th birthday party this year - I felt like a total loser...and the show was the day after a Wilson Phillips concert, so you can imagine how amazing I was feeling....). Shows are a lot of work. I only did 2. Mad props to the handmakers out there that do that every weekend!

To add to the level of stress, my sewing machine took a nose dive a few weeks ago. Not a colossal one, but enough for me to know that I should stop using it. My machine is from 1975 and it's a solid piece of metal. All the parts are metal - even the foot petal is metal - and when metal parts are not oiled and maintained as they should be for 38 years, they're bound to stop at some point. I felt like that point was a few weekends ago when I was in the middle of a large order for a bride - she had ordered 7 clutches for bridesmaids. I threw out a bunch of cuss words and borrowed my lovely friend Summer's machine and finished the order. Just in the nick of time for Etsy to tell me that I was right on time shipping it; thank gawd because I don't need another stat going in the red. Stress me out.

On top of this, I have a full time job. So after my day job, I'd come home and retreat to my basement where I'd taken over all but the laundry area and do work (son). It was miserable. Well, it was fine when it was snowing out but now that the weather is finally getting nicer and the sun is out and I'm lazy on Monday and  I'm playing volleyball on Tuesdays and I've got a standing date with Summer every Thursday and then it's Happy Hours on Friday...and Wednesday should be laundry night. So that left me with weekends to do work (son). Just what I wanted to do. Hole up in the basement for 7 long hours of work. eeeffffff!!

So where am I going with this? Well, when I'm at my day job and my computer shuts itself down for no reason (or because I have 100 files and screens open and haven't restarted in 19 days), I figure it's telling me it needs and break and I'll do some organizing of my desk and filing and maybe pick up some things in the main office area and tidy things up. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to let my sewing machine rest (and get it tuned up too). I'm going to organize some items in my craft room and make room for a bit of a man cave as the boyfriend has requested to use some of the space (I guess the entire upstairs is not enough for his lounging needs?? Who knows, it's technically his house so I feel like I need to oblige). I'm going to take a step back and figure out what I liked about doing so many orders and what I didn't like. I'm going to take an impromptu weekend trip without worrying about finishing orders on Sunday because I've procrastinated enough and need to ship something on Monday. I'm going to enjoy the weather and sit outside on our awesome deck and sip a cocktail. I might even get myself up for my 5AM workout (I have been telling myself that since February, perhaps writing it down will help).

Most importantly (as cheesy as this sounds), I'm going to get back to me. I love being creative and doing projects - I just don't know if I love doing it all the time and under certain deadlines and concerns the feedback isn't going to be what I want. Criticism gets me down and I take it so very personal and have a really hard time letting bad/rude comments/feedback go. One bad comment makes me forget that I had 20 good ones. It's just how I am. They say you have to give this business 100% and right now, I'm just not in it 100%. I want to be able to give it 100% because that's when I do my best work. I can't have a bunch of items out there with my cute little tags on them that only got 60% of me because I had other orders I had to finish at the same time. I don't to create a brand that way.

So here's what you can expect of me. I'll be importing my My Opinion Monday (or MOM as I so lovingly call them - because my Mom does read them - Hi Mom!! -..and because it's the acronym) posts back into this blog - because this is who I am. I'll be posting more MOM's because that is who I am. I'll be doing a few things here and there and posting them on the blog. I'll be working on getting organized because I know that will make me less stressed. And again, just working on getting back to me.

Thanks to everyone that has supported me, "liked" my Facebook page (which I'm keeping up and will post some projects from time to time) and helped me with this venture. As Arnold once said, "I'll be back!"
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