Our bathroom!

Sorry that I don't have a before picture, but i'm terrible about remembering to do that! Here is our bathroom as of this morning. I realize there are streaks on the mirror (oh my!), but this is my kids' bathroom so there you go. This is really clean for them! Before we did anything, the walls were two toned beige-y colors. The shower curtain was pretty but more traditional looking with wine colors and taupes and stuff. When we moved into this house the previous owners had painted these cabinets white, which looked horrible with the cream colored vanity. So I stripped all the paint off shortly after we moved in. And they sat there bare and untouched for 2 years! I'm pretty bad about not finishing projects. So bare cabinets and beige-y walls. The rest of our house is more contemporary looking in decor, and this bathroom didn't match that theme at all. So i decided to paint the cabinets a darker color (they're not actually as dark as in the picture) and i wanted white walls. I had this Marrimeko shower curtain from our last house that I love and wanted to use again. I love it when there's white walls and pops of color to brighten a space. But we have that cream colored vanity (which we may replace someday) so i chose a white color that had a bit of creaminess to it so it would go with the vanity. Next we are planning to replace the light fixture and then re-tile the floors. Yay! It looks night and day different and better than it did. And see the painting i did over the toilet? I haven't quite finished it yet, but i needed something to go over there. I love my bathroom now!

Tiny paintings are done!

As soon as I get some time and a nice sunny afternoon I'm going to take the pics and get these listed in the shops. I've really enjoyed working on them. It was such a nice treat for me not to have to worry about which colors to use and focus more instead on the lines and patterns in the flowers. After I get these listed i'm going to take a bit of a break from making new things while i try to finish up projects around our house. I worked on the bathroom last week and early this week and I'll try to post a pic tommorrow. I love it now! The kitchen is next on my list. I'm planning to paint the cabinets, paint the walls and get new flooring. While i work i'm going to be thinking of what direction to take my shop in the future. Hopefully these tiny paintings will keep you happy until I return!

Latest Accessories Favorites

There have been some really great accessories on the front page of etsy lately. Have you guys noticed? Here's some of my faves:

Oh, how i love this little clutch! My only beef with it is that it's made out of satin, which is gorgeous, but I know i would get a run in it the moment i used it. Maybe if it was made out of leather in the same color? I love the style though. It's by emmagordonlondon for $55 here.


This seller was on the front page this morning, and I have to say she has got to have the most interesting jewelry I've seen in a long time. Almost all of her work in done with silver and CONCRETE! Concrete! How original! The one that was on the front page was actually a beatiful oak tree pendant which was gorgeous, but it sold. So here's another one from her shop that I adore. It's by lulubugjewelry for $68 here. Go check out her shop to see all her jewelry! It's amazing!


Here's yet another clutch because a girl just can never have too many. This one is very retro looking and I love it to pieces. It's a shame i'm not much of a clutch-y kind of girl or i'd buy it. It's by kailochic for $32 here.


I'm not sure if i'm stylish enough to wear a necklace like this, but isn't it so interesting looking? I love the organic feel to it. It's made out of felted balls and leather. Very creative though, i must say! It's by glasfaden for $25 here.


I've gotten the bug to fix up our house, so i'm planning to tackle the kitchen and guest bathroom in the next week or two. So i'm not sure how much i'll feel like posting, so it may be sporadic. I'm also still slowly getting the originals into the artfire shop. And i'm just about done with my 4 tiny paintings. I'll post about those maybe early next week. They look awesome! Have a great weekend wherever you are!

My Hub's website

My sweet Hubs is a graphic designer, which I think I have mentioned before. He just finished his online portfolio recently, so go check it out!

http://cbartos.com

Ode to my favorite color...

I've got several things cooking up in the goodbloom shop lately. I found these tiny canvases (5"x5") that I bought and felt that I needed to do something interesting with them. So since I've been experimenting with different styles and things painting-wise, I did something new and different (for me) in these. This one is the first one done, and I have plans to do 3 more. I'm thinking of offering these as only originals, but that are affordable since they're small. (like $20-25 or something) Oh, and I just decided that green is my favorite color. More specifically bright kelly green just like the green in this painting. I just found a cute trenchcoat in this exact color and I can't tell you how happy that makes me! So green it is! I couldn't quite decide for awhile there...turquoise is way up there too, along with orange, and brown, and red. So many to choose from.

Also, for those interested, I'm getting close to listing some of my newer originals in my artfire shop this week. I've been taking pictures today to get ready. And I'm still planning to add 2 more to my Zoom series but am having problems finding the same wood I used for the first 2. So as soon as I find it I'll get those finished. I started one that I mentioned last post but I didn't like how it was turning out so I need to sand it all down and start over.

Changes

All of my notecards are printed full-bleed now! For those of you who have no idea what that means, it just means that the printed image goes all the way to the edge of the paper. In the past my cards had a white border around each image which always drove me crazy. Apparently my printer can do that and I didn't realize it until recently! I think they look a lot more professional now, and I'm a happy girl. I'm currently working on a new Zoom painting and will post pics when I'm done!

My fingerless gloves...

As promised, here are my fingerless gloves I knitted this week. Well, actually I did make another one that was way too small for my hands so I gave it to my 5 yr old. Now she wants the 2nd glove to go with it! But I used a chunkier yarn on these and they worked out awesomely! I'm totally enjoying the mustardy color too. Now I can work at the computer without my hands getting quite so cold.

Handknits

Lately I've been going crazy over handknitted items that I come across on the web. Like look at these pretty awesome wristwarmers. I so badly want some wristwarmers. And the little ivory details on this pair are to die for. So I decided to try to get into knitting again. I learned last winter but never quite finished my first scarf. I finished it the other day and have been learning the rest of the basics and am currently working on my first pair of fingerless gloves. If they look halfway decent when I'm done I'll post a pic. If they look like crap then i won't and we'll pretend that I never did them in the first place!

These wristwarmers are by Sandra Juto for $59 here.



These next two images are from Flocks at their website here. This scarf makes my heart thump i love it so much. I'm planning to try to do a similar one in charcoal and white.


And is this pouf not so amazing? I wish I could figure out how to make it. I also love this photograph. Again, is from Flocks at the website I mentioned above.

#2 in the new Series

I finished the 2nd in this new series of paintings I'm calling "Zoom". The two paintings look awesome together if I must say. I'm planning to do two more to complete the series. The first print is available in the shop. Hubs like this new painting turned on it's side, but I like it with the big circle on top. I guess that's a cool thing about abstract- you can hang it any way you want! I'll hopefully have the print in the shop by tommorrow sometime. Here are the other hanging options:

New painting

I managed to get a painting done this weekend! I really wanted to start this week and the new year off with something new and fresh for the shop. The crazy thing is that I didn't sketch this design out beforehand or anything. I just sat down and started painting. A first for me! I'm also pretty surprised at how modern looking it is. I know some of my stuff is slightly modern, but this one is more modern than I usually go. I wanted to leave some of the wood showing underneath, and like that organic feel that it lends to the painting. Thankfully I didn't mess up while outlining those darn circles! So yesterday I decided that I wanted to make another painting to go with this one. I kid you not that I sat there forever with painter's block and couldn't decide what to paint. I tried to force something and wasn't feeling it, so I stopped. That is so irritating to me that I can't turn on my creativity when i want! I guess I'm still coaxing that part of me to come out and play.

On another note, I'm planning to add some of my more recent original paintings to my Artfire shop this week, so if you're interested go there to check them out. I'm still working out a few small kinks in this print, so hopefully i can get it in the shop in the next day or so.

Update***Okay, I came up with some other stuff to paint to go with the painting above, and thanks to my wonderful friend Adrien and her advice, I've decided to shoot for 4 paintings for this set. That way folks can group them in three's or four's or however they want.