iseecerulean

My time at the Indianapolis office was very productive. 

I stopped at a Hobby Town (a bust) and a Hobby Lobby (got a few things) during the drive...other than that it was work, work, work.

Got home to find I'd lost my house keys somewhere and had to sit on the front porch for half an hour in the cold waiting for Matthew to get home from work.

The package of miniatures to finish the bar arrived while I was away, which means I can finish the box this weekend to enter the competition.

I'm still tired and really don't want to go into the office today, but have to get my behind moving...will post more later.

...because it's very difficult and frustrating to work in there.  (For perspective, my glove size is small.)

I've got the shower glued in place, hopefully it works out okay...I'll pull the pins out of the curtain once the glue is dry, they're holding the pleats in place where I want them.  I suspect that I glued too much of the top of the near end to the wall and will have to tinker with the wire rod a bit to get it to look right with the tub in place.  I couldn't put the tub in place while I was gluing the curtain in because there's not enough room to work in there.

I made a new wicker looking shelving unit out of tagboard covered in embroidery fabric.  It's awfully utilitarian, but once the shelves are full you won't be able to see much of it.  The shelving unit looks a little wonky but it's really the room that's slighty crooked...I had to cut the right foot off to get it to sit crooked enough to look straight (did that make sense?).  There is a piece of wood the same thickness as the baseboard taped to wall beside it, acting as a spacer while the glue dries, just ignore that, I'll remove it when I remove the pins.

While I was working I was thinking about how to make wicker bins out of embroidery fabric to sit on a couple of the shelves.  I'll be out of town on business next week, and making bins is a clean project I can do in a hotel room, so I'll pack a little craft kit to put in my suitcase.

This was the view out of my living room window last night...

My daughter's car isn't a pretty center point in this picture, but I was too lazy to move it out of the way. 

Oh, notice how little snow we have?  It's been in the 40s the last few days, we've lost over a foot of snow so far.

This is what I ended up with for the shower...it looks pretty good sitting in my hand.

It looks okay in the bathroom too...though it's not sitting straight for the picture and I can't hold it in place with my hand for the photo because my hand fills the room.

I don't like it with the rest of the furniture in place, I think it looks too crowded.

This is a picture with the curtain shoved back a little more...it's still too crowded, though now I think it's because of the shelving unit...I need a skinnier shelving unit that sits straight.

I made some changes to the toilet tank and bathtub because I thought they looked blah finished in one color. 

I scraped off the pewter paint that I put on the brackets and the letters on the box...used the dremel to grind off the handles on the side of the box and to grind down and even up the edges of the brackets and the lip on the lid of the box...then I painted the brackets and letters silver.  The only oil based silver paint I could find at JoAnne's (I didn't feel like driving across town to either the hobby shop or Michael's) was a creme stencil paint.  I also scraped the pewter paint off the feet of the bathtub then repainted them silver.

The fabric on dowels in the background will be a shower curtain, hopefully.  The fabric is too sheer to pin pleats in, so I'm trying this method (with copious amounts of hairspray) to put waves into the fabric.  It would have been easier to use a quilting weight cotton fabric, but I'd like to see the wallpaper through the curtain if I can, so I'm using this sheer cotton instead.  The fabric is leftover from making curtains in my life-size bathroom so I'm not out any money if this doesn't work, and  I've got quite a bit more to try again with a different method if I need to.

I'm not sure yet exactly how I'm going to fashion a  circular curtain rod or shower head, but I'm forging ahead anyway, hoping I'll figure it out as I go along.  If anyone has tips please, please, please put them in the comments section.

I need to add a pull chain the to the toilet tank yet, don't let me forget...I'm thinking a fine chain from my stash of jewelry making supplies should do the trick.

I liked the silver paint at first...I thought it looked more realistic than the unfinished metal pieces I bought, so I painted some candlesticks, a teaset, a brass goblet, and repainted the base of the lamp...then I polished a real silver bowl for comparison to discover I was wrong.  Then this morning when I put the lamp in place for a picture my fingers came away silver.  I don't think I'm going to use this paint again.

I left some unfinished pieces on both sides of what I painted silver so you could see the difference...I didn't think to set the real silver life-sized bowl in the picture.

I've already glued the candlesticks in place on the mantle, so their finish can't be altered again, but I'll definitely repaint the lamp base.  I'm not sure if I'll repaint the tea set or not.

The necklace definitely looks better with more rings.  It was a pain to get them in place, and I didn't realize I'd done such a poor job bead weaving until I looked at it that closely and noticed so much thread between beads...I shouldn't have stitched it while watching TV.

I put different legs on the table....wish I had managed to get them all straight.

I got this liquid leaf pewter paint stuff off the clearance shelf a couple of years ago.  I wish I could accurately photograph the finish, you'd love it...it's a deep dark metallic gray with undertones of browns.  I painted the tub and toilet tank with it, then, because I was entranced with the finish, I repainted the base of the floor lamp, the drawer pulls on the dresser, the bed frame that sits in the attic, and the burners on the stove.

While the paint was drying I glued some platters (paper circles) in the back of the kitchen cupboards to give the illusion of more depth once I fill them.

Did you notice the stove burners?  They look much better pewter than they did shiny silver.  I meant to paint them black before I glued the stove in place, but I forgot...I'm glad I did, they look more realistic this color.

Sigh...I'd like to stay home to putter all day today, but I really need to go to the office.  I should get moving, I meant to be there already this morning.

It's nice to see you.

...but I don't like it.

I made it with jump rings instead of thicker rings, because that's what I had on hand.  Maybe I'll add some more rings...

I'll see you in  few days, I'm busy making the necklace on the cover.