a surprise gum ball

I was having one of those blah days yesterday. I was just not feeling myself and things really weren't working out right. But, then something great happened, like when you were a kid and you ate one of those ice cream cone-shaped cups from the ice cream man with the bubblegum flavored ice cream and just when you thought you were finished, a surprise bonus gum ball is waiting for you at the bottom of the cone!

So anyway, later in the day I tried some retail therapy and out to dinner at CPK (one of my favs) with my Momma (which I must admit, helped for the time being). My Mom got a stylish, winter down coat, gloves, a scarf, a pair of shoes and a vest! She never spends money on herself and especially with everything going on with my Dad, I think she enjoyed a bit of retail therapy herself! Then I got home and I was back in my funk even while watching my favorite show "Parenthood". I was looking thumbing thru emails, Facebook news feeds and Twitter posts on my iPhone and I found out that there was a "whole" blog post about my illustrations on FLOR's Musings blog. A-FREAKING-MAZING! Talk about a surprise gum ball! Not just a post of one of my images, a whole blog post about my work! Woo-hoooo! I'm taking this a sign from the big guy upstairs -- keep going... you're doing a great job and people are beginning to notice your hard work so keep it up! Some days like yesterday, I kinda needed some reassurance that I've been doing the right thing and going in the right direction. I think especially when you're doing something creative where you put your heart + soul into what you're doing it's nice to have a "sign" once in awhile.

Now you may be wondering what is Flor? Okay, only the most brilliant idea in modern carpet squares! There's every color, texture and pattern that you can imagine and styles that would fit any home's decorating style and palette. I love them so much I have two rugs in our home (and I'm always trying to find another place to put them too). The most current one is in our kitchen that we have been working hard on remodeling into a more swanky, modern atmosphere that is more our style. The other is in our basement in my art studio. This one, at one time was also in our kitchen for oh, I'd say maybe 6 years. I loved it and still do and it's still in amazingly, great shape for being walked on by two humans and two dogs every day in the heart of our kitchen so it got plenty of high traffic. I had no idea what I was going to do with it when I had the new plans for the kitchen, but didn't want to just pack it up and then it dawned on me.... heeeey, this will work out great in the studio too! The colors and everything!

Their blog is all about design findings. Four gals contribute to writing the blog all of which have every unique creative backgrounds. A big thanks goes out to one particular gal, Miriam Bradford who owns her own Social Invitation design site, LimoncelloSTYLE for writing the blog post on my work! Thanks so much, Miriam!

project kitchen continues...

For over a year now, we've had a work in progress in our kitchen. First, we got new appliances, then we had a new counter top & sink installed and a mosaic backsplash. Things got put on hold for a year when we found out my Dad was sick. Now that he's doing better (well, slowly getting better), we're back at it again. A few weeks ago, the floor finally got finished and it's GORGEOUS! Totally worth waiting for. We had ceramic tile installed for the kitchen floor, the landing to the basement and the steps leading downstairs to my studio.

I saved lots of pennies to splurge on this iridescent, mosaic glass tile from Oceanside Tile. We purchased ours from Virginia Tile in Farmington Hills. It's been so long since we've been back at the kitchen that I may have even posted some of these photos before!

Both photos are from the tile brochure. The color we chose is on the second image (top left) called: Anthracite. We also purchased this tile from Virginia Tile.

Today I sanded the walls, because about 9 years ago, we decided to do a painting technique with glaze on the lower portion of the walls underneath the chair rail and it really needed to be sanded before we would paint over it. The chair rail is being removed so there was a lot of sanding! To tell you the truth, we never thought we'd be the ones to have to sand it or at least I never thought I'd be the one having to sand it. I have to say I thought the power sander was going to be more fun, but it wasn't. What a huge mess!

So, since we had to put everything on hold for awhile. I had begun putting together a folder of my ideas and a digital folder full of images. One of the things I had been brainstorming about was an area rug by Flor. We had one previously and it worked out so nicely, that we decided we should do another for the new kitchen too. Here's a sneak peek on the 9-piece rug from FLOR that will eventually be going into our kitchen as an area rug near the sink & stove. The image is from the Flor website. I love the chairs in this photo too!

The Flor carpet tile is from the Ins & Outs group. Color: Black

Another part of kitchen is the dining room. At some point, the wall between the kitchen and dining room had been opened up to create more flow from the living room, dining room and kitchen, like many homes built today. I chose a new chandelier for the space from West Elm... that I LOVE! We finally ordered it and it has arrived, but I have to say I was shocked speechless to see that every little glass link is wrapped separately & securely in it's own little section tucked into foam. This is going to be a job putting this baby together, something that I haven't shared with the husband yet. He may freak. I definitely have more patience on this sort of thing.

More to come soon!