Days 6 & 7: Revisiting old negatives

We took these pictures earlier this year using some "mistery film" we got gifted. The thing with this film is that you can get lucky and get a great roll that produces great pictures and scans really easy, or get a roll that is a pain in the butt to scan/develop, like the ones these negatives are from. Day six is taken with a Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim somewhere around Wrigleyville and day seven was taken in the Chicago Cultural Center with our beloved Olympus OM-1 and a 28mm lens, also Vivitar.

Day 3,4,5: Weekend Projects

I have been wanting to paint walls for the last 3 months. As I mentioned in a post earlier this week (here), I have a problem making decisions about what color I want to paint. There are just way too many options!

That said, I am proud of myself. Yesterday pm and I made a trip to the home improvement store. My goal was at least to buy paint for our bedroom (that color selection was easy). I also wanted to see if I could finally make a decision on the accent wall in the kitchen along with the colors for our hallway. Mission accomplished. Dreamy caramel won.

There is something about painting for me that is both relaxing and very gratifying. pm wanted to hire painters, I refused. While I admit I do not particularly like the "prep work", I do very much enjoy changing the look and vibe of a room paint stroke after paint stroke. I will also admit that I get a little too excited about painting at times. For example, waking up in the morning and immediately (before coffee folks, before coffee) doing the trim and touch-up work.

End result: A much brighter kitchen. This color really brings out the yellows in the stained glass window parallel to this wall. A photo of that will follow shortly, once that wall is also painted.

Haikus from the weekend:

Day 3, Haiku: Shine Friday Night Lights | Down on the busy bustle | Until the sun rises

Day 4, Haiku: Don't know what to say now | Too many errands and such | Makes for a quick day

Day 2: Simplify

We recently started thinking about how to pare down the number of items/belongings we own and have collected over the years. Since moving into our own place, I have been surprised by how many boxes we keep uncovering of things we have forgotten we had.

Spring cleaning has come late for us. We did do a good cleaning out of the closets and storage room within the last month, but it has proven to not be enough. While we do have the space to keep things, I've recently been inspired to adopt more minimalist habits. (Part of this admittedly is from pouring over design magazine and furniture catalogues where all photographs depict clean, almost zenful, rooms.)

The time has come for us to practice feng shui (or pseudo feng shui to start). In order for our creative wheels to get a moving, we needed to clean up our act while also making our sleep environment more organized and inviting. First step: night stand. (Click here to see how our paint job made your average Ikea Rast nightstand stand out).

We wanted for our night stand to have the essentials -- water, light, alarm clock, kleenex--, but to also have some other points of interest -- reading materials, decorate vase. This weekend we plan to slowly begin mapping out a way to minimize clutter and create more crisp, clean areas room by room. If we've learned anything about living spaces it's that having a small space filled with items not only makes cleaning even more of a chore, but it also doesn't give you extra space for impromptu projects and creative endeavors. Time to simplify, then time to create.

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Haiku, Day 2: Simple Life

Warm breeze, sweet lemonade

Rocking chair slowly back and forth

No worries, only calm

Day 1: Create

The journey begins. In thinking of what would be the best way to kick start the next 30 days of uninterrupted creativity (minus for working & sleeping), we decided to roll back the hands of time. We're not going too far back, just one year ago today when we participated in our first round of 30 Days of Creativity.

We're changed up our medium some this year. Rather than household items to write out C-R-E-A-T-E, but opted for a more natural route this year. The background is the same, the letters are not. You'll have to let us know which one you like best. Here's the link to last year's creation

The glory of the use of spring foliage is that on my walk home from work I got to feel like a child. I was scanning the ground for the signs of summer on the way in the form of plant letters. It would have been an interesting sight to see me searching for plants and randomly stopping and starting to gather more.

Moral of Day 1: Creativity is simple, you just need the idea to start it off.

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Haiku, Day 1: June Arrives

June bugs, blossoms and sun

Light the corners of my bedroom

Easy rise, easy go.

+My side project during this month is to write a haiku a day. I'll post to our Twitter feed (@ampmcrafts) daily.

Inspiration

As #30daysofcreativity quickly approaches, and our plan is to participate again this year, I find myself reflecting on what we can do throughout the course of the next 30 days.

I recently at my blog stats -- I was on a roll in 2010, blogging almost every other day. This year, well, I am ashamed by my stats. I've been lucky to fit in 2 posts a month. This has left me a) embarrassed and b) puzzled. What was going on in my life in 201o that allowed for me to have more energy/ideas/ambition to keep up with regular posting? And, more importantly, how can I get back into the grove?

This is not something that I do just to do. I don't do it to see the number of followers & readers increase (albeit nice). No, I do it because I want to share what's going on in my creative mind. I do it for nothing else -- to document things. This has proved to be quite handy when I've needed a recipe on the fly when away from my cook books (cue: one bowl choco cake, sugar cookies, tomato soup, coconut macaroons & seafood gnocci.)

A side step. My last post I talked about opening up the voting for the color I will be painting our kitchen/dining room. My end goal: to have a color that inspires cooking, warmth & good times. I am aiming for a "Tuscan-yellow" (to which my Mediterranean husband does not understand :)).

Voting is open (choose your favorite name) by way of comment:

1. dreamy caramel
2. toasted pecan
3. brushed almond

Tomorrow I will get geared up to do this again more frequently.

Tomorrow....

color swatches

Time for me to share a secret. A secret talent I wish I had, so that I could have made a career out of it. This time, no, it is not having one dominant artistic talent so I could live strictly off my creativity. I am convinced after all that this may not be the life after all.

I wish I was an expert at the color palette. Admittedly, I do have better skills than many. I can tell the distinct difference between colors -- which have more browns, reds, yellows, blues, etc. Although even with this, it's not enough to cut through the color and identify what would look best.

As per the photo, we're in the midst (correction: I am in the midst, and pm has given me all decision making capabilities on color--as long as it is not red) of choosing colors for the walls. We had a couple of easy decisions.

I always wanted a green bathroom. After 30+ color swatches and evaluation, we got that project done. Since then, we've only done one other wall and it was just the accent wall. My next project entails painting an accent wall in the kitchen. The larger project tying into this is painting the hallway.

I know that I want for the colors to be rich, but not overbearing. We have a very well lit kitchen. We've already got reds, blacks, greens, purples and beige. This got me thinking in the direction of yellow. Blue and green (in my opinion) are too chill for a kitchen. Since the party almost always starts and finishes in the kitchen, it has to be a color that evokes energy. Since red is out of the picture, I am leaning toward yellow.

I took an inventory over the weekend of the paint swatches to date I have collected. It is ridiculous. How hard is it to make a decision? Well, hard. I know it's just paint and you can just repaint it again if you decide you don't like it. I am perfectionist people -- I want to do it right the first time and get it right the first time.

My master plan is to make some decisions this weekend so that more paint can go up on the walls. I have a few tricks up my sleeve to help me make decisions:

1. The paint color must have a food name. To date, we've used "Pistachio Ice Cream" and "Italian Roast" (I am personally leaning toward something with coconut :))
2. Label my favorite colors with numbers. Ask pm to select a random number.
3. Have you vote. I could post the colors, and you could vote.
4. Don't paint this weekend. Ponder more...

And, so there it is. I wish I was a colorologist. With that, I wish I could just make a decision. It's just paint, right?

DIY: China Cabinet

If we've learning anything through our more recent home ownership, it's that there's always a project on the sidelines.

We went from nearly no furniture to an immediate need for more--mostly so that we could store the many items that were packed safe and sound at the 'rents house. Owning property has expedited the lease on that free storage space.

Our first big DIY project stemmed from the need for more kitchen storage. While our new kitchen has plenty of cabinets, with a 10+ foot ceiling, not all cabinets are conveniently accessed or useful.

pm and I decided to start our search for a china cabinet. We wanted something that would be big enough to hold a good portion of our kitchen wares (p.s. it's amazing how much kitchen stuff you get from your wedding that you ultimately do not use unless you have the space to accommodate it). We started our search by going to the usual suspects--Crate&Barrel, Ikea, Target, World Market, etc. No luck. There were very few china cabinets that fit our style and our budget.

On a random Monday night we decided to stop off a local thrift store. This trip was made more to donate old clothes, than it was buy anything. Turns out: Once we walked in we discovered an amazing china cabinet (with character!) that fit the bill for what we were looking for our kitchen space. The cabinet (as pictured) was in great shape, but needed a modest amount of TLC. (We later discovered that it would need more than a modest amount of TLC, but I digress...)

Nearly 2 weeks after the purchase--plus 3 coats of paint, sanding, waxing and reconstructing--we could hang our towels and toast to a china cabinet that was truly ours. It's nice to know that the piece we ended up getting not only goes well in the space we designated for it in the kitchen, but it also is an original. No one else will ever have one just like it. This fact makes us proud (even if it was a pain the butt to do when we were in the process). What may make us the most proud, however, is that the whole project (cabinet, paint, etc.) cost us under $300. A small price to pay for what we were looking at in all stores.

So here was the whole DIY project timeline:

1. Find china cabinet and purchase it.
2. Move it to the house. (aka: Hire strong men to move it to the house)
3. Remove all hinges, screws, glass and other hardware.
4. Clean it, bleach it, clean it.
5. Sand it. Sand it. Sand it.
6. Prime time. We primed the whole cabinet with an oil based primer.
7. Paint cabinet, drawers and details in white with a latex paint.
8. Paint drawers with green accent latex paint.
9. Patiently wait for all paint to dry.
10. Wax. (Minwax, finishing wax in natural)
11. Add all hardware and glass back to the cabinet. (we found the knobs at Ikea--of the snodd variety)
12. Fill cabinet with kitchen items.
13. Blog about it.

Not exactly sure what our next big project will be in terms of furniture. That said, we're experimenting with different paint options for the hallway.

Never a dull moment. Never a project undone. :)