Daily Painting

I enjoy scouting around on the internet seeing what other creative types are doing, what motivates them, and how they are honing their skills.  Everything I read indicates that it has less to do with exceptional creative talent or inspiration and more to do with habitual determination and a dedication to doing the work. 

Yesterday I bought myself seven 8" x 10" canvases.  My goal is to paint everyday this week.  I began today by rooting around in the fridge for some inspiration.  I set up a small still life of half a lemon and half a lime. 

I have included a photo of today's result, but I will also begin to post photos of these daily paintings on the "Art Gallery" page of this blog.

Lemon & Lime
8x10 Acrylic on Canvas

Can you find a daily pocket of time to practice your craft?  If  summer affords you a little more flexibility in your schedule, why not "pencil yourself in" for something creative?  You'll be impressed what 30 minutes here and there can result in. 

Thank you for visiting My Turquoise Kettle Life.
Have a creative day!

Sandra

Cheap & Cheery House Reno

There are two things that could make me fall in love with a house, cedar shakes and the colour yellow. I will often see a house and say to my husband, "Oh, look how nice that house is." His normal response is, "Of course you like it, its yellow." or "Does it have anything to do with the cedar shakes?"

He has me all figured out! But it does beg the question, if I really love yellow houses, then why have I been living in a beige house for nearly twenty years?

So this week I painted my house yellow!! Our home is mostly brick (tan coloured), but the front where our verandah is, has vertical wood siding and for the past two decades it’s been painted various shades of beige. Now it is the cheeriest yellow and I LOVE it! The colour is Martha Stewart "Cornbread". It is perfect.

Not only did I paint all the wood yellow, I repainted all of the white trim (windows and verandah), painted a new number plaque, repainted my mailbox, removed the old (red) shutters and instead added a decorative wood trim along the bottom of the windows, installed a new light over the door way (actually my husband did that installation), installed a new thermometer (I dropped and broke the old while removing it) I spray painted my old aluminum storm doors white, and repainted my front door white. In addition I recovered all of the cushions on the wicker furniture to co-ordinate with the new house colour.

I love the look! And I love the cost, a mere $100! Here's how I did it.

4 litres of white paint                    $32

4 litres of yellow paint                  $32
minus mail-in rebate on 2nd can $32
wood trim for windows                $18
light fixture                                   $18
replacement thermometer              $ 6
spray paint for aluminum doors    $26

Total cost before taxes $100.

 I reupholstered with fabric that I had on hand.

 Here are some photos:

number plaque in progress

While I was working on the mail box I did a lot of potential sketches. I was scavenging through my art supply drawers looking for an eraser and found some small plastic farm animals. I sat them on the mailbox and they made me smile. Oh that is just too silly. I put them away. But I found myself going back to the farm animal idea; maybe it is just silly enough.

There's already plenty of boring and predictable in the world, so why not do something silly if it makes you smile? I don't suggest doing something big and silly that might anger the neighbours and bring down the value of all the homes on your street. But having a little fun with your mail box won't bother anyone and it might give the letter carrier a daily smile too.

mailbox with plastic farm animals

What I love about the work I did this week is that I was able to give our home a fresh new look without changing my doors or windows or tearing off the old (perfectly good) siding and replacing it. A lot of people in my neighbourhood have traded in wooden front doors and their screen door for new steel doors. Don't they miss their screen doors? There's something so wonderful and summery about having the wooden door open and the screen door letting in the breeze and the sounds and when people come to the door they don't feel they need to ring the bell, they can just call out, "Hello!".

We tend to do that don't we? I mean, we tend to think we ought to upgrade, even when the "improvement" means we have to sacrifice some of the things we love in order to have the new item.

Those marketing and advertising types are so clever!

For now at least, I may have outsmarted them. You see, I think that if the home renovation advertising executives come knocking on my (screen) door, they will take one look at those farm animals on the mailbox and assume, "These people are not buying what we're selling." .....  And they'd be correct!

Thank you for taking the time to visit My Turquoise Kettle Life today.

Have cheap and cheery day,

Sandra

Sticks and Stones: Creativity for the Garden

Its been a gorgeous week, full of sunshine and sticky-hot temperatures.  I spent most of this past week working in my back-yard garden: thinning out plants, transplanting, weeding, edging, raking-up and general discarding of items.  It wasn't long before I had a heap of stuff ready for the garbage man: old branches, bags of weeds, a large enamel basin (an old curb-side rescue), a broken terracotta pot, among other things. 

It was on one of my trips past that garbage heap that I got to thinking.... maybe I could make something out of those old branches.....

I selected the longest and straightest of them.

Using very small finishing nails I created an "A" shaped  frame.

Then I made a second "A" frame, trying to keep it the same size as the first.

Using more sticks, nails and some wire I managed to make a 3-D tower of sorts.

Which I joined at the top with wire and decorated with some vines that I found.

The result?  A folksy whimsical trellis for my garden.

Below is a simplified version using only one "A" frame. 

That's the sticks... now for the stones....

Several years ago I inherited a collection of rocks from an elderly woman.  I mean it, when this woman passed away I was the recipient of a life time of rock collecting - not just from her travels but the travels of many of her friends and relatives.  In hind-sight one needs to be cautious in what one is willing to accept as an inheritance because, well, as you can imagine a rock collection is not nearly as convenient to use and store as say... you know... a diamond ring or a gold watch or even a canary. 

Anyhow, these rocks have been in my yard for years and I was pondering the situation, I don't have any real sentimental attachment to the rocks, yet they are not easy to dispose of either.  I guess you could say, I found myself between a rock and a hard place.  That is, until I noticed that enamel basin in the heap destined for the trash...hum I wonder...

Yes! 
The basin was large enough to hold nearly the entire collection.  Situating the basin below the garden hose allows them to get wet and rocks are always prettier when they are wet and shiny.

I placed an extra few stones along the extension of our down-spout which almost transforms this utilitarian area into an attractive feature.

Now that the work is done, it's time to find a tranquil spot in the corner of the garden to just sit and listen to the sounds and soak in the beauty of nature that is ours to enjoy.

Thank you for taking time today to visit My Turquoise Kettle Life.

Have a tranquil day,

Sandra

Garbage Picking and Creativity

I used to be really, really embarrassed about finding something in someone’s garbage and bringing it home.  Now I’m only a little self-conscious about it.  In part, the reuse, repair, recycle movement has had a lot to do with my renewed attitude.  It just makes sense … your trash… my treasure.  Perhaps I could go so far as to consider myself a rescuer of sorts!

Before my renewal I would agonize over how to take the coveted curb-side cast-off.  By the light of day, and if the owners appeared to be home, I’d ring the door bell and ask permission, which I feel to be the ultimate in garbage picking etiquette.  Other times I’d recruit a bolder and more experienced garbage picking friend (thanks Sam & Rob!) and sometimes under the cover of night I would simply make- off with the goods like a bandit!

What I love about “found objects” (as they refer to them in the art world) is not that they are free (although that helps) but that you get to make something out of what was formerly written-off as nothing.   Could this be written into our DNA by the Master Creator who made the entire universe out of nothing?  I digress.

I’m currently working on a very fun and easy project that began as a rescue.  Our next door neighbour had discarded a 34” (86cm) in diameter circle of plywood, perfect for a terrace sized table, ideal for my front verandah where we love to relax and dine during the summer!  My plan all along was to make the top of the table a mosaic but I had trouble finding tiles that were really thin and therefore easy to work with. 

Last weekend at Home Depot I found an opened box of thin white wall tiles on the liquidation table .  There were 60, 4”x4” (10cm x10cm) tiles for $3.00!! Yay! Then I noticed a big box of navy blue grout with a little hole in the bag, it was reduced to $5.00. Perfect! 

Here are some preliminary pictures of my progress. I say my progress but my daughter Sam, began working on one half of the tabletop while I worked on the other.

I find the cutting and placing of the tile fragments to be relaxing and soothing; a perfect way to spend a summer afternoon. 

Mosaic work may be the perfect way for you to: refurbish tabletops, terracotta pots, mirror frames, or make stepping stones for your garden.  If you would like basic instructions on how to complete this project or something similar, please e-mail me at sandra.myturquoisekettlelife@gmail.com and I will gladly send them to you.

Thank you for visiting My Turquoise Kettle Life today.

Have a really great day!

Sandra

Rural Inspiration

In my last post I mentioned how, when I'm longing for change, I sometimes allow myself to indulge in the guilty pleasure of browsing the MLS real estate site and dreaming of the perfect house in a country setting. Such was the impetus for a beautiful drive in the country this past Friday (Canada Day).

We left early in the morning and meandered along tranquil back roads allowing ourselves to stop and take photos, admire quaint villages, century old farmhouses and breathtaking scenery. We imagined our lives cut and pasted into various country homes with huge wrap-around verandahs or living in the converted school house we saw which sits atop a hill overlooking a neighbouring farm with horses. Perhaps this is my grown-up version of make-believe. It's free, fun and allows my imagination to soar.


I noticed yet another (!) funny thing about myself. There was a home that we'd seen listed on the MLS that we wanted to check out. I was actually quite excited to see what it looked like, having been very impressed with the on-line photos. When we arrived we noticed that it had recently been sold. I also knew immediately that this wasn't a house that would have interested me at all. It sat at a busy intersection, it was too close to the road, there was no privacy on the property and it was in need of more TLC than I would want to give. Yet, (and here is where I begin to wonder about myself) I felt disappointed. Why? My best guess is that it was fun to pretend and play "what if" but the fact that it wasn't available brought my game of make-believe to a grinding halt.

Former Milk House

We continued on through Ormstown and came upon a small bridge barricaded to traffic. We parked and walked over it, stopping to watch the water gushing below. Continuing down the road we noticed one of the most beautiful properties we've ever seen, a large two-storey stone house overlooking the river. The grounds were beautifully kept and several small out-buildings sat on the sprawling property. The owners happened to be working outside and they very graciously gave us a mini-tour of the grounds, the old stone milk-house, a log cabin, the oldest silo in Quebec (!) plus an impressive array of gardens and stone walkways leading down to the river. The setting was simply beautiful and completely inspiring. The couple themselves, Lindsay and  Jean, seemed so well matched to this elegant country home: attractive, gracious, easy to chat with. What I found completely fascinating was that Lindsay had long wanted to live in this exact house and when it became available, they were able to purchase it. Walking back over the bridge to our car, I felt quietly content or comforted somehow that this lovely couple had actualized their dream of country living.

Oldest Silo in Quebec

Manicured Grounds Overlooking the River

Old Log House (logs are visible on the interior)

This week I find myself returning to thoughts of how people design lives that are authentic, turn day dreams into reality and achieve goals that are meaningful to them. That's fodder for another post. My closing thought for today is to encourage you to find yourself a little bit of country road to explore and by all means stop and say hello to those whom you meet along the way, you too may find some rural inspiration!

Thank you for taking time today to visit My Turquoise Kettle Life.

Have an inspiring day,

Sandra