Maple Leaves

Things have been a little crazy around here. Just sat through watching all the elections yesterday and I'm happy that many of my candidates won. Whether they can improve the state of our economy and other issues remains to be seen but I am praying that they will provide the leadership to do what it takes to get us out of this mess. We really need some hope that tomorrow will be a better day.

I am getting ready to paint my oldest son's bedroom. My youngest son wants to make it into a movie room so I am going to paint some movie cameras and other equipment on the walls. Right now I am just imagining what it will look like, now if I can just turn that into reality.


Did a little painting for my etsy store and it's called,"Maple Leaves".

The Economy Christmas Gift Bag

I decided to downsize to a gift bag which has only one set of cards, pen and chocolate candy. I also have snowman and santa bags with matching gift tags to go with it. In this economy, people are looking for better deals and less expensive gift ideas . I can print the person's name on the cards so that it will be a more personalized gift.



Ready to go gift bags in my Etsy Store and I can customize them too!

Christmas Gift Art Bags

I decided to offer some of my cards and magnets in a gift bag as I have been getting orders from customers that buy my cards and then want them shipped to someone else. I looked at the cost effectiveness of doing gift baskets but the price of shipping these was going to be very expensive. The gift bags are a lot lighter and easier to handle. I also added a pen and some candy as some extra amenities.



Check out my gift art bags in my Etsy Store.

Bleak Week

The financial crisis has been dominating the airways and it has been a pretty depressing picture. Several months back, my husband was told by different reliable sources that it would be a good idea to get his retirement money out of stocks. He went ahead and took the advice and switched most of his 401K into bonds. I don't know if that was a safe move or not. This is one heck of a mess and I am hopping mad over it. How could this problem have gotten this big and this bad without anyone sounding the alarm or doing something about it? It just boggles my mind and I am afraid that we will be mortgaging our kids future because this is a problem that is going to have years and years of negative consequences. My husband and I are 10 years out from retirement and this really has impacted us as it has every other person in this country. I have no idea what the future will hold but right now it just doesn't look good.

I decided I needed to paint to get my mind off of this bleak week that we have had so this is my new painting called, "Reflective Eyes." I have a feeling I'm going to be painting a lot more than usual this fall.

What To Do Next?

Now that the remodel is for the most part done, I am trying to get back into gear with spending more time on my blogging and artwork. My in-laws are due to arrive in a couple of weeks so I am organizing things in preparation for their visit.

Friday, we went and saw the musical, "Chicago". They were doing only one show in our area so friends of ours asked us if we would like to go and of course we said yes. It was a very good show and a lot of fun. I am hoping to see more of these types of productions in the future.

I am looking into taking guitar lessons although I am having quite a time trying to find someone locally to teach me. I even advertised on craigslist.org with no luck so far. I may have to bite the bullet and drive 40 miles to take lessons.

I was able to sell some of my new boutique girls clothes on craigslist.

Another thing that I would like to learn is to speak Spanish. Through craigslist, I found someone that was willing to trade Spanish for English lessons. I contacted them but it wasn't going to work out which was disappointing.

We have a lot of old doors and a window that were leftover from the remodel so I will be advertising them on craigslist for nothing.

I highly recommend using this free online service. There are a ton of things on there and easy to find them locally too.

Bathroom Model Complete

I just took these pictures before my bathroom became a disaster area. Since my small bathroom is being remodeled, everyone has moved into the master bath and there are towels everywhere. With clear glass shower doors, we had to treat the glass with Rain-X to keep the water deposits from building up on it. It takes about 5 minutes to squeegee the glass and the tile, then wipe everything down. My family has been beating me into the shower first so they won't have to be the last person to wipe the shower down.

The shower looks nice but it will be more work to keep it looking that way.

This is the old bathroom:


The remodeled bathroom:


My studio is also complete. I still have to get more drawer space for it and for my walk-in closet but I am glad we are done!

Bedroom Remodel Almost Complete

It has been a looong 5 months and all I can say is that the bedroom remodel is almost complete. I really like it. It came out better than I thought despite all the headaches. One of the major problems amongst many that occurred during the process was that my cabinet maker did not use the right stain on my doors and the bathroom vanity. The bedroom door sits very close to one of the kitchen cabinets. Since the cabinet was a couple of feet from the door, it was really obvious that the stain did not match. One of the reasons I went with this cabinet maker was because he had done my kitchen cabinets and he said he would use the same stain.

My husband said, well there's nothing we can do about it now so just get over it. I guess never assume anything is what it has taught me.

Here's a picture of my room after installing the French doors:



And the new room:





My furniture that I repainted looks like all new furniture. Saved a lot of money by keeping the old set.

Bathroom remodel will be next. Stay tuned.