Urgent Care, Birthday Parties and Candlesticks...

OH MY.

Well, my dear readers... the last week has been a crazy one. I apologize for my lack of posts. I have a small project to show you, and some stories to tell.

"We are unattractive, oui?"

I'll start off with the candlesticks, I suppose. While on a search for furniture at thrift stores, I decided to visit the Animal Humane Thrift Store. Not only do I love good prices, and finding little treasures, but I'm a huge nonprofit fan. I like knowing that my money is going to a good cause. I adopted my little beasty, Bailey, from a similar place. I bought a couple things.... a frame or two, because I can't help myself, a cute (actually, it was really ugly before I painted it) wall hook and a pair of ugly, dark wood candlesticks. I had a plan to make these candlesticks worthy of Lumiere's attention, feather dusters be damned. Honestly, these sat in the garage for a long time. I go through phases of wanting to do things, and not wanting to do anything at all. I decided not to prime them, because I wanted to make them look very aged. I had a little bit of Rustoleum Heirloom White leftover from El Table de Chevron. I gave them a couple of coats, since I wanted to make that ugly brown wood disappear. I gave them both a good sand down, considered glazing them, but didn't.  I think they turned out beachy and cute. A nice, little addition to our new dining room table. Don't you think? I bought the two blue printed damask candles from The Shabby Chic Cottage. Love them. They're a bit too small, so they look a little wonky, but I'm considering using the hot glue gun to get them to stand upright. That's how I roll. You look at me crooked, I hot glue you. Mess with me, I dare you.

Lumiere would totally have a creepy French affair with these babes.

As for the birthday party story... don't worry, you didn't miss out on telling me Happy Birthday.... Mine was in April. Wait, so maybe you did miss out. JERKS!

My friend from Up with People, Anthony, had his birthday last week, and I offered up my house as a location. I think I feel obligated to open up my home at all times, because I spent so many nights in host families homes. His mom bought pizza, cake and ice cream, and he invited about 10 or 15 of his friends and coworkers. Good times. Any night that involves pizza and the book, All My Friends Are Dead, is a good night. If you haven't seen this book before, and you enjoy my sense of humor, you will love this book. I think it's absolutely hilarious. If you have no sense of humor at all, you might think this book is depressing and morbid. You would be so wrong. HI-LARIOUS. I want to hug the people who wrote and illustrated this book.

So the Urgent Care story is nowhere near as interesting as I wanted it to be. The last time I went to the Emergency Room with my grandmother, it was amazing. I'm talking crazy people and yelling. In fact, a man who was VERY drunk decided it was a good time to run around outside while stripping naked. He got entirely naked before the police arrived. My grandmother was completely entertained, as was I. Unfortunately, this trip to Urgent Care was not even close to that awesome. I woke up with stabbing pains in my ear, throat and where my wisdom tooth used to be, all on the left side of my face. I've been having what I figured was really bad allergies for a while now... apparently, it was more serious. I went online, as I have a new insurance provider, to find an Urgent Care. I drove across town, and picked up my grandmother on the way. (She insists on going to the doctor with me, just like I insist on going with her)...I walked in to find that even though the website had it listed, and it still had signs throughout the hallways, there was no Urgent Care. I used my handy dandy iPhone (aka the love of my life) to find another location. I had to call two before I found one that was open on the weekend. Drove BACK across town, it was, literally, two minutes or less from my home.... le sigh. Waited for three hours, while my grandmother and I got to watch the ENTIRE movie, 102 Dalmations AND some college gymnastics. Her commentary included judgments about two different mothers in the room, and how they treated their children. Mine included winces of pain, groans, comments about Glenn Close being in Up with People, and cries of horror when I realized that all the gymnasts were covered in dancer makeup and glitter. All I know is that my gymnastics coaches would have smacked me upside the head for that. When did gymnasts start looking like pageant toddlers? Turns out, I've got a sinus infection, which pretty much feels like I'm being punched in the face 90% of the time. Pleasant. The doctor wasn't sure during the five minutes he actually saw me, which sort of "cillin" to give me. I'm fairly certain I changed his mind to Amoxicillin. He also prescribed me some sort of nasal spray, which I find horrible. I can barely swim underwater without plugging my nose. This spray feels like Old Faithful erupting up my nostrils. Whatever. I just want this sinus business DONE with. 

I still have the tables I bought sitting in the garage looking like a drippy mess, and I hope to get to those soon. When I have the energy to get nuts on those tables, you, my friends, will know. 

<3 Liz

Aqua Obsession

I have an obsession with aqua lately. I'm surrounded by such intense colors in my room (red, black and white) that I felt the need to put something fun and colorful in there. Hence, aqua obsession. I'm slowly, but surely adding in bright aqua pieces.

I saw this Krylon Ocean Breeze at Walmart, and said, "She will be mine. Oh yes, she will be mine." Not really. Although, I do quote Wayne's World a lot. Who can pass up a good, "psycho hose-beast?" I digress. This was the exact color I wanted to introduce to my room. Room meet Ocean Breeze. Ocean Breeze meet Room. Problem was, I didn't have anything to make aqua.

Ew. You's ugly.

Cue Flea Market Collectibles & Things, where I found a super gaudy, gold mirror. To anyone with spray paint, a gross, old mirror like this is a freaking jackpot find. Don't believe me? Check any of the blogs I read, they all want this crap. I have caved to blog peer pressure, and I wanted it too. So I got it, for a decent price. My mom looked at me like, "Seriously?" Yes, mother, seriously. My lovely grandmother would have kept it in this gold color, and it would match the other 231298274 gold frames and mirrors in her house. She knows how to make gold work. It works for her. Not my style. Homie don't play dat. Just like my aversion to browns, I have an aversion to golds. They assault my eyes and my general sense of happiness.

Apparently, that box was from a drugstore.

Here's the mirror, mid-makeover. I don't love the color that it was looking like at that point. I started to freak out a little bit, thinking it was going to be that powder blue. NOT aqua. I do not have a powder blue obsession. Not cool, wet paint, not cool. Thankfully, it dried into a lovely aqua. I should probably wait to freak out until the paint is dry.

The thing that actually made me semi-freak out was that I clearly didn't do a great job taping the cardboard to the mirror, because little aqua particles were ALL over the mirror when I took them off. I had no idea if it would come off, or if I was doomed to look through grains of paint for eternity. Thankfully it scraped off.... albeit not easily. I spent a while scraping it off, and really didn't do a great job cleaning it before putting it on my wall. Someday, when I care enough, or get sick of the smears, I'll actually clean it. For now, it brings the right shade of aqua into the corner of the gigantor master bedroom. Good job, me! (Stay tuned, I might get nuts with some glaze to make it look more aged and antique-y.

Hey baby, lookin' good.

Next up, an aqua gun rack. "A gun rack? What am I gonna do with a gun rack? I don't even own A gun, let alone many to necessitate an entire rack? What am I gonna do with a gun rack?" Oh Wayne, you slay me.

How I gave myself carbon monoxide poisoning....AKA the Shutter Headboard Adventure

So I've found this store across town that has become my new heaven: Flea Market Things & Collectibles.  I stumbled upon it while trying to find the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Best accidental discovery, EVER. It's basically an indoor flea market without a bunch of people hassling you. You can just shop through the different sections and pay for them at the front.

I found a ton of things that I scooped up, but this little story is about the ugly pink shutters I found.  I imagine the ugly, pink shutters I found lived a depressing life as a teenager's abused closet doors. They were absolutely HIDEOUS. I'm talking hot pink, sticky, glossy paint with additional paint splatters all over the place. INTENTIONAL paint splatters. GLITTERY paint splatters. Awful. It was like those poor, pathetic shutter doors fought in a puff paint war, and were declared a casualty.  So there they were, gaudy and horrible, sitting in what someone must have thought to be their final resting place. I saw them and had a vision. A moment of clarity.

Hello gorgeous! This picture really doesn't capture how awful this paint really was.

I had been searching Craigslist and everywhere in between for a queen size headboard. I've never had a headboard on any bed. It's a sad affair, being so headboardless. As I just moved into a new house, with a GIANT master bedroom, I knew it was time. Even my old vintage furniture doesn't fill this monstrosity of a room. (I know, I know... wah wah wah you have a big room.) I just don't have enough to fill this space. I did a little feng shui-ing (not really, I just moved things around til the room didn't look so ridiculously big)... and knew that I needed to do something big to make a statement in this room.

I had no desire to even attempt to strip the paint from these.... Too much work, and let's be honest, I'm still learning. I covered both sides with some Krylon Gray Primer, which took for-freaking-ever. I realized that I also had no desire to paint the back of the shutters since no one was ever going to see them if they were against the wall. The least amount of work sounded great to me.

Primed and ready to go.

Next up, layer upon layer of Krylon Flat Black Spray Paint. Thankfully, black is great for covering up imperfections (just ask any bloated woman). Although you can still see the drips of paint from the previous, bad paint job... I figure no one will be looking that closely... and if they do and actually say something, I'll smack them.

The final product. Yes, I probably could have made my bed. Clearly, I need to work on my staging for these big reveal pictures. Whatever.

So here's the ridiculous part of this adventure. I did all of this in my garage, with the garage door wide open. There was a nice breeze flowing through the garage. Silly ol' me didn't bother to wear a mask of any sort. Silly ol' me has had pneumonia in the last couple of years. Because there's nothing that says "spray paint without a mask" like respiratory problems. My friend, Ian, even said something about the fact that I shouldn't inhale all of those chemicals, which I brushed off nonchalantly. Worst plan ever.

So later that night, I looked in the mirror and noticed that I was a lovely shade of bright pink. I'm talking... princess pink. I had been hiking in the mountains earlier that day so I figured I had a nice, little sunburn. Usually when I'm sunburned, my skin feels hot to the touch.... this was different. I was just.... PINK. I ignored it, thinking I was being silly...until later that night when I was having a conversation with my roommate and suddenly became VERY dizzy... and immediately ran to my bathroom to throw up. This means a lot. I think that throwing up is the worst feeling on the planet, and will do anything to avoid doing it. I started thinking about all of my symptoms, and had a flash of an episode of CSI. I remembered an episode where the parents died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and when found were a lovely shade of bright pink. Yeah. After a little more self-diagnosis via the internet, I realized what was going on. I gave myself minor carbon monoxide poisoning.  Ridic.



Moral of the story: Wear a mask, moron.

Linked here:

A Little Different

So there's something I've noticed about all of the blogs I read. Almost every one of them is written by a twenty-something with an adorable husband/fiancee, a fixer-upper, newly purchased home and a perma-smile (maybe because they have an adorable bald child or their own vintage style). That's not me. It's not to say that I'm not a happy person. I am. The difference is... I'm as single as it gets, living in a rental home with dingy, white walls unable to be painted, a roommate with the perfect relationship, and a little black dog. At least I'm still in my 20s.... at least for another year.

I work from home, which means that I'm horribly sick of looking at empty walls and bad furniture. In fact, I think I may be going completely stir crazy sitting in this house all day long. As I'm sitting here typing, I'm thinking, "I hate you, cheap DVD shelves, I HATE YOU."

So the way I've decided to fix this hatred is through thrift store shopping, blog reading and spray painting everything I touch. I wish I could say that I have the creativity and know-how to come up with incredible ideas and designs, but I don't. I blatantly steal ideas from the blogs I read, and try to make them my own. I started small, and I'm wanting to go big.

I started off going to a few garage sales to buy some frames and came up with these beauts...

"Oh hello there ugly frames! What's that? An ugly owl. I think I'll take it!" Now, I must have looked like a pathetic mess when I rolled up in the Corolla, because the girl gave me everything for free. FREE. That's right. She did ask me to "take care of her owl," which I found to be equal parts funny and creepy. Mostly creepy.

So what'd I do, you're wondering? I went to Hobby Lobby or Michael's (can't remember which now) and bought myself some overpriced spray primer and spray paint. I'll be going to Walmart from now on, even thought it's my absolute least favorite place on the planet Earth. Walmart frustrates me more than when I'm watching a TV show live, and can't fast forward through the commercials. NOT COOL. Sorry, let's get this choo-choo back on track. So here's the super fun (/sarcasm) part. I tried to use the primer, but the primer decided to come out as a solid rather than a liquid. It looked to be a mixture of cottage cheese and asbestos. It left a horrible texture on the ugly owl. Oh well. I gave up on the priming and started in on the spray painting. My roommate and I had decided upon a black, white, and blue scheme in the living room. Basically, between the two of us, those were the colors of furniture we already had. Neither of us are rolling in the dough, so we're not really looking to go all out with the decor.

I just went nuts with the blue paint. I even grabbed up an ugly, little white cherub I had been given as a kid. Although I'm not even the slightest bit religious, I used to have a thing for angels. I figure the owl needed a winged friend.

As far as the frames go, I can't do wood. I'm not that natural kind of girl who can do earth tones. My roommate has found a gorgeous mixture of modern wood, greens and browns for her room. I can't do it. It just doesn't fit me. I'm still in my black, white and red phase. I do damasks and antique, painted furniture. I had to make the frames black or blue, no wood allowed. Here are the results, a first attempt... don't judge me.

Welcome, blue owl, to my empty mantle.