Creative Dawn

I always remember this chair in my Grandpa's apartment.  When he originally had it, it was upholstered in yellow vinyl.  It became mine after he past away many years ago.  The vinyl had seen better days but I still really liked the chair and wanted to recover it.  The fabric had to be just right and it took a while to find the perfect design.  This awesome art design was THE one, the only problem was the price.  Luckily it wasn't a popular pattern and it eventually got marked down to a price that was affordable.  It was easy to redo, a little sewing and a lot of tacks.  Now it is more of a decorative chair but it always brings back happy childhood memories when I look at it.  

A few weeks ago I was walking around my home trying to find stuff to paint.  This is a Goodwill find from a few years ago that I always meant to paint but never did.  It's a nice looking chest that was all gold and it's current use is storing old cards and miscellaneous memorabilia.  The green paint was the first choice for a background and then cream stripes were added.  Today, after glancing at it I decided that the stripes just didn't work so after covering them with a few coat of the green these designs developed.  It's got a little of a psychedelic feel to it without bright colors.  It's fun to see what you already have that you can update. 

FIRST DESIGN This little piggy originally posted on April 12, but after looking at him, I decided that the design just didn't look good to me.  I have a friend that would freak out at this color combination but with the right design brown and black are great together.  Yes, brown shoes and black pants are NOT a good pairing but if you know how to blend the colors correctly it works.  I love fun patterns and after I painted the top realized that it looks kind of like a giraffe.  My new pig painting is more appropriate for adult decor than kids, but who says grown-ups can't have a piggy bank!

This is something that I have had for a while and had forgotten about it.  It was from the Goodwill originally and it was gold.  I had painted it last fall or summer and stuck it in a cupboard.  This is one of those projects that didn't turn out to my liking at first.  The purple, blue and gold are a great combination, but it just did not look right.  A few nights ago I rediscovered the tray and painted it in this beautiful powder blue shade.  The color for the edge was just an experiment, but it really complimented the blue.  The final design element was the patterns that are painted in white.  It is very simple but pretty.  It is now on my bathroom counter displaying lotion, soap and other miscellaneous objects.

With every decade there are trends in decorating.  In the nineties there was southwestern, cows, pigs, apples and my mom's favorite white geese.  She had just about everything you could imagine with a geese theme and the color that was associated with them was a cornflower blue.  Seriously it looked like the theme exploded in her house.  She even had sheets and a bedspread with the goose motif.  This was is a mail holder that I got from her, it was in the basement collecting dust and I decided to do my magic on it and update it.  This is once again a project that I painted in a different color before settling on the brown.  I love accenting brown with light blue because it looks great together.  I am not sure if the original purpose of this piece still works.  With the color scheme it would look nice in my small bathroom and maybe useful for something other than mail.  We will see what becomes of it, but it really looks more modern witho...

  Instead of buying new furniture, sometimes just changing it can give it an updated look.  This was a bench that I had purchased about five years ago at a thrift store.  It was originally green and the top was white vinyl.  I painted it gold and added the tan jungle fabric.  It looked fine in my old house, but in my newer home, it just looked boring.  I added some brown paint on the sides and changed the fabric to a bright tropical print.  It is amazing how changing it made such a difference in the room.  It really popped!   Painting and upholstery are a lot more budget friendly than buying new stuff and this way you are able to customize it perfectly for your home.