Faux Painting

My remodeling is going very slow. Can't get the contractor for another 2 weeks. The bathroom vanity is going to take 2 months. I just found out the french doors I wanted could take 2 weeks to a month to come in depending on whether I want wood or fiberglass. My husband and I decided to start on the demolition part just to get the ball rolling. We also may have asbestos issues to deal with as our house was built around the time it was banned. It is becoming a big headache already.



As far as the colors of the room, I would like to either rag the walls or try something a little different. I was researching faux techniques and came across Murals and Faux Painting Inc. I saw her demonstrations on Youtube.com and have to say they were quite impressive. She had a palette where you could load several glaze colors. She pressed those colors on over a base coat and then went over it with another pad to blend the colors in. The results were beautiful. She also has techniques to achieve the marble, rag, sponge, color wash look and more. I went ahead and ordered the kit and am anxiously waiting for it to arrive so that I can practice some of these methods.

Fleeting Daffodils

My daffodils are all about gone but not before I had a chance to paint a few of them. They were one of the first hints of color to emerge in the spring and I am sorry to see them go.

The daffodils were first written about in 6th century AD by Mohammed. They were mainly growing wild for centuries until some Englishmen in the 1600's decided to tame them and bring them into the garden. Their popularity continued to spread and now there are over 20,000 hybrid varieties being grown in the world.

I wish the flowers would last all summer but since they do not, I thought it was fitting to call my latest painting, "Fleeting Daffodils".

Fleeting Daffodils found under SOLD in my Etsy Store

Qassia.com

What is Qassia? It's something a little different. You can sign up your websites for free and it will help you gain valuable quality backlinks. You can earn qassia dollars that are really just points by adding intel (short for intelligence) which are tidbits of information. Each intel provides a backlink to your website. The more qassia dollars you earn, the better ranking you will receive in search engines. You can also gain qassia dollars by reviewing other people's intel. Each intel needs 12 reviews before credit can be given. I have already learned some interesting facts just by reading other people's tidbits.

Real money also can be made through Google Adsense Ads that run on your Qassia User Page. Need to have a Google Adsense account though. You will get all of the revenue that is generated by that page.

Qassia is in beta and they are giving away a lot more points than usual. When they go public the points will diminish to a more reasonable amount. The only way to sign up right now is to go through this Quassia's User's Page.

Emergence of Spring

In between all the remodeling, I am still trying to watercolor paint here and there. This is my newest, "Emergence of Spring." Although our tulips are not blooming yet, the daffodils are and I suspect the tulips will be coming shortly. Definitely spring is in the air. The robins are making nests and all the trees are budding out. Just hope we don't get a cold snap here.

Emergence of Spring in my Etsy store

Bathroom Remodel

I am pushing my husband to get going on the remodeling that we can do ourselves. The master bedroom and bath will have to wait a while as we are going to need a contractor because frankly, I have knocked out walls and rebuilt walls and I don't want to mess with that anymore. The guest bathroom, however, is small and all I want to do is tile the floor, repaint the walls, paint the cabinets and have a new sink ,sink top and mirror put in. Originally I wanted to replace everything in the bathroom except the shower. It was going to come in around $1000, which I thought was a lot considering how tiny this space is.



After going to Lowes and some other places, and comparing prices, we found our sink. Fourteen years ago, we put our shower in to match the old sink and toilet, we now have to match the new sink to the old shower. Really limits our choices as it was this old beige color that is really difficult to find. The toilet I wanted didn't even come in that shade so we can't replace it. Got our tile on clearance, and I am going to just paint the cabinets so they won't have to be replaced either. I am hoping to do this all under $500.00. Also we have to replace the door and the molding as it was done in a darker stain and I have since remodeled the rest of the house in a lighter color.



My back is already hurting from painting the bedroom furniture, I just hope it can hold out until all the remodeling is completed.

Remodeling the Bedroom

After a very slow start, I have finally begun painting my bedroom furniture. I am trying to save some $'s so instead of getting new furniture, I am recycling the old by giving it a whole new look. I spent the last 3 weeks working on one nightstand. Painted it about 5 times with primer and 3 different color coats of green. I was looking at the sample color rectangles to choose my colors but when I went to paint my furniture, the color never matched the rectangle and I was very dissatisfied with it. I went back to Lowe's 3 times and now have finally found the color that will work. This is going to be a huge job as I have to paint another nightstand, dresser, chest, mirror frame and the head board to the bed. We are also going to redo our entire bathroom,knock down walls, put in a walk-in closet to my master bedroom and also put in laminated hardwood floors. Hopefully, we can get a contractor to help us with some of it, but the majority of work will be up to my husband and me.

First coat of primer

Grass Pattern

Custom Domain Names Through Blogger

I was looking to buy a custom domain name for a blog that I had monetized on blogger but I didn't want to make the switch because I thought I would lose my PR and back links. Not that I have such a high PR or many back links but I really didn't want to start over. Then I found out that you could buy a custom domain name for $10.00 per year through blogger and have it redirect to your blogspot blog. The URL looks more professional. The original blogspot URL will continue to work too and automatically switch to the new URL which will mean back links will still remain intact. I found out my PR did drop to zero though, which was a bummer and will take a certain amount of time to get that back.

At least that is how I understand it. It definitely gets confusing at times but we will see how this goes. The idea of having to start all over with a new blog, custom domain name,hosted on another site, I just can't do that right now. I am in the middle of a house remodeling job and I really need to spend my time on that.



$55.50 earned- Cashcrate