cowboy girl art

cowboy girl

as proud of the thorn as she is of the bloom.

This is my latest piece of canvas art.

What do you think?

It's a 10 inch by 20 inch canvas. For the background I actually used pages from an old "See The West" book that I found at St. Vincent de Paul.

I aged it a bit with some tinted paint glaze.

For the images I decided to create my own. I found this chair at the Farm Chicks show in June. I haven't had the heart to recover the torn black leather seat yet. I put my cowboy boots and hat on it.
I cut some roses from the garden (love that shade between peach and pink). and took some photos.

I love the grainy texture of the images on the canvas.

I used Lazertran inkjet transfer paper for the photos. It creates a very nice watslide transparent image that works great for these type of applications.

Here's some of the photos I used...

Autumn is in the air on this Saturday morning in the Northwest...I've got lots of projects I'm working on this weekend.

Hope your are having a wonderful "last days of summer" weekend...

Eat, Pray, Love - In That Order

Last week my daughter and I went to see the movie.

I thoroughly enjoyed the file and Julia Robert's performance was amzing.

I'm not going to lie....it left me craving some good Italian food (if you've seen it, you'll know why).

I had quite a bit of basil in the garden, so I decided to make pesto. I haven't made it in years.

It's simple:


Pesto Sauce

4 cups packed basil leaves
4 - 5 cloves of garlic (depending on your preference)
1/2 cup pine nuts (toasted - you can toast then in the oven)
1 cup Picorina - Romano Cheese (grated)
kosher salt and pepper to taste
1-1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Put all the ingredients in your food processor, except the olive oil. Pulse the food processor until the ingredients are still a little coarse.
Now slowly add in the olive oil and continue pulsing until smooth sauce is formed.

Add it to your favorite pasta. We tried a new pasta from Safeway called Tortole (a larger Gemelli type pasta) and it was really good.

This recipe make enough sauce for probably 6 -8 entree sized bowls of pasta.

Serve it with a great garden salad and you've got a delicious meal reminiscent of Italy.
Enjoy.....

Vintage Girl Sign

This is a new sign I made for the shop.

After I did the Garden Girl sign I decided to do a few more and came up with this one.

It's done on a 10 inch by 20 inch canvas. I started with a background of old dictionary pages and added some images.

What's next?? I think cow-boy girl.

Look What I Won & A NEW LOOK

Look what I won at Flea Market Trixie's!

This is the first time I've won anything in blogland. So, you CAN win!

She made this GORGEOUS frame using the DecoArt modeling paste.

Isn't it just the prettiest????

The photos can't really do it justice.

I put this great photo of my oldest son from his last visit in July.

I love it! Thank you so much Flea Market Trixie! If you haven't been to her blog, you've got to go over there. She is so talented and so creative. So much to learn from her!

NOW, for the other exciting news.

I've been wanting to give my blog a new look for awhile now. I tried reading tutorials and working at it until I felt like my head was going to EXPLODE!

Well, I found this wonderful blog designer--Jill at Sneaky Momma. She helped me come up with a fresh new look for my blog. I really wanted to use my own photos in the header--so much more personal. Plus, she can change them out for me every 3 or 4 months (with the seasons). If you've been thinking about asking for some expert help with your blog--contact Jill.

You won't be sorry.

I hope you like the new look.

What A Day!

The kids started back to school today...

Here they are crossing the field to catch the bus...

Here's what came in the big brown truck today....

It's the DecoArt giveaway that I won at Flea Market Trixies!

Two jars of the modeling paste and two beautiful stencils.

I am so excited!

Do you see the mason jar hand soap pump in the background?

Well...I've been wanting to try one since I saw the idea on My Sweet Savvannah and then recently in Country Living.

Here it is! I love it! I'm going to make some more.

The oil rubbed bronze just works perfectly in our house.

Now I want to learn how to make that foaming hand soap....

putting it on "the list".

Look What I Found

Yesterday I found this great vintage dresser at a yard sale. It is in incredible shape and has six great big drawers for storage.

An extremely well made piece.

The pulls are so unusual, I think I'm going to keep them and change the color depending on my color theme.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.

Definitely paint it.

Perhaps I will try a fun design on the drawer fronts.
Ok all you creative and lovely creatures out there--if you have an idea for this piece that will give it a wonderful new life - send it to me!

I'm open to anything!

Oh.....I felt honored this morning when Little Miss Momma featured my little rustic bench on her "favorites" post this morning. This was my first visit to her blog and from what I've had a chance to peek it, it's fabulou1s

I went by the shop yesterday and found that two furniture pieces had sold!

This one (the cute funky vintage map desk)

And this sweet little nigh stand that I painted and used the DecoArt modeling paste and laser cut scrapbook paper for the drawer fronts.

Turns out the college kids in our town are moving in for the year and they can appreciate my unique little furniture makeovers.

Let's face it girls--you can't buy pieces like this at WalMart)
Hope your week is off to a greet start!

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A Rustic Side Table

Here's a little work bench table that I found at a yard sale.

All I did was clean it up with some warm water and my favorite Murphy's Oil Soap and then paint it with a paint wash.

I used about 2 parts paint to one part water. The Martha Stewart paint at Home Depot comes in the small tester bottles in many shades. I used the teal for this project.

This is how is looked BEFORE. I absolutely LOVED the saw marks in the bop, but that's just me : )

This piece had so much character to start with, it didn't need much.

There you go--a very quick and easy makeover and a sturdy side table with a true cottage feel.

Off to the antique mall space with this piece.

Here's to your future home and new life : )

A Vineyard Beauty

We purchased this poster art from a beautiful winery that is only a mile or so from our home.
We loved the colors in the art.

We didn't want to just put it in a frame, so it has been stored for over a year in our closet.

Remember how vintage bed turned bench project from a few weeks ago?

Well, there was a nice piece of wood left after we trimmed down the footboard for each side of the bench.

I took the leftover piece of wood and stained the raw cut edges.

Then I trimmed the poster to fit the wood. I took the trimmed pieces of the poster and tore the pieces into some rough leaf shapes. I added those shapes to the corner of the art. I also added some scrolly images to the top of the art.

I used a matte gel medium to apply the at to the piece of salvaged wood from the foot board.

I came over the top of the art with a copper glaze to finish it off.

We just hung it with a simple piece of twine.

How is that for using a leftover piece of wood from a previous project?

Love that.

Here she is hanging over the bench. I think the colors work really well with the bench.

So now I've got a center piece of art for the bench and will be in search of some other wall art for either side of the beautiful vineyard fairy.

Any ideas?