Perfect disaster

Dianna and one of her two female BFFs started a day ahead of time, and set the tone for the room.

I'm sure most people will hate this, but to me it will always represent a certain moment in time for my daughter. It's not a pretty room that she has to grow in to, or a classy room that she can't relax in. It's her, right now, with the people she's closest to. Full of inside jokes, and secret words and the miriad expressions of individuality.

I'm not sure if I mentioned that 80% of my daughter's friends are boys...so you can imagine the fun of putting brushes in their hands and letting them go.

They even let me teach them how to stencil. They loved the retro stencils especially and they did a really good job. There are several images proving the male need to mark their territory.

But it's still cute at this age, right?

Spray paint stencilling

Over the weekend we did some spray paint stencilling in Dianna's room. I got this great book full of ready-made retro stencils. Since spray paint is typically oil base and toxic, I used this great contraption that you can pour your own water-base paint in and use as an aerosal. I thought it worked really well. I wouldn't use it on a big project, but it was ideal for these little spots.

I hand painted some musical notes with gilding size and applied metallic foils. They came out great.

Dianna's favorite band.

Today all of her friends are coming over to put their names and anything else they want on the walls. I am so excited that I woke up at 5am. It's like Christmas for me. Pictures will be posted as soon as I wash the paint off my hands.

Happy Halloween

Our front porch is ready for trick-or-treaters. I put a fairly elaborate porch together every year. All year I save all the plants I've killed and recycle them into my spooky abandoned looking porch. This year my girls grew Mammoth Sunflowers (yes, that's their actual name), which I saved and dried and then strung up along the sides of the porch. Some of their heads weigh 20 lbs. So to have them hanging in toward treaters is really cool.

We have several crows which are my favorite along with a rabid cat and several rats, one of which is screaming from a trap at the front door. It never fails to scare the crap out of somebody. I usually add something every year. This year I bought these eyes that glow out of whatever plant you stick them in, but what I didn't know was that you attach it to the bush and it makes it shake and growl. Bonus! Combined with the skeleton that's begging to be let out of a cage ("come on you guys, I'm serious!") it will be pretty loud out there.

Dianna puts all these spiders climbing the walls and around the doorbell which is hysterical. Now we have to get ready for our party. All our neighbors come and chat while the kids run around getting all their sugar energy out. Always a good time had by all.

The next generation

The ceiling is done. With my daughter's help it went quickly, and now she knows why I hate ceilings. To her credit, she never complained or quit.
I educated Dianna in the art of metallic foils. She loved how the foils looked, but I wish I had caught on film the look in her eyes when I showed her how to use them through Melanie's new Stencil Impressions. It was love at first sight.

We will be doing a trowelled paint finish, but I wanted some random patches of foils peeking through. I'm going for the look you see on the walls of underground stations where they plaster paint and ads over and over leaving small patches of old ads visible in the cracks. So after spending 3 minutes teaching my daughter, I let her loose on all the size spots. She did a great job and loved the foils. I intentionally let the size drip and the foil looks so cool on the drips.

Now on to the trowelled paint.....

Finally we paint

After the complete drag of prepping the walls, we finally painted on Sunday. Because we have orange-peel textured walls, and what I will do on the walls requires a flat surface, I skim coated the walls and ceiling with fresh drywall mud to smooth them out. If you have ever hired someone to do this, please remember to pay them twice the amount they are asking for. This was the worst thing I've ever done. The trowelling is easy and not different from anything I normally do. It's the sanding. OMG that totally sucked. And even with my mask and goggles, I am convinced that it took two years off my life.
We primed over the mud with a product called GARDZ that Melanie swears by if you're going from new drywall to Modellos at some point. If you have ever pulled a piece of tape off a freshly painted wall only to pull off all the paint, you will understand the kind of pain I am trying to avoid.

Dianna chose this awesome color. I totally love it. It's a dark charcoal grey but it has some blue in it as well. It's so beautiful. Typically you would do the ceiling first, but Dianna really wanted to paint, and she can't help me with the ceiling since it will be metallic, which is a little trickier. Since we will be trashing the walls with a bunch of different colors, textures, and ephemera it won't matter if the walls get a little silver from the ceiling on it. We got this done in about an hour...because we're pros ya know.

The End of Childhood

I have begun the project that marks the end of my daughter's childhood....I am redoing her room. We are both huge Harry Potter fans and her room has reflected that for probably four years. Eventhough our (okay my) obsession with Harry hasn't faded, we're both ready to turn her room into a safe harbor for teenage angst. So say goodbye to Hogwart's and hello to the London Underground.

Vacation in Paradise

If you haven't been; Capitola is Paradise. My husband is blessed with an aunt who owns a darling beach house in this town. She lets anyone use it and we try to get up there as often as we can. Since my daughter is in a year round school, she has two weeks off at the end of September which we love since everyone else is in school and the weather is still good.

This is the darling house we stay at. It looks quaint on the outside but it is equipped with the latest technology and a chest full of movies all catalogued and alphabetized. We just chill when we go. Do a lot of reading, build puzzles, walk to the beach and the town, sip coffee and sleep late. Not in that order, but you get the idea. My version of paradise.