Lady Bird

Here's our latest collaborative effort, a children's table created for a local preschool auction.

Today Jen was asking if she was turning into the "crazy bird lady" with all of her bird art.

I lied and said she wasn't, that's what friends are for.

Then later I was thinking about what Sir Paul McCartney once told me (well... OK the whole audience at one of his concerts) about his song Black Bird, and how it is about a black slave woman (in the UK bird is slang for girl) who was finally experiencing her first taste of freedom

The words...

Black bird singing in the dead of night

take these broken wings and learn to fly

all your life

you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Who better to represent birds strong, weak, dead, curious, cute.... free (!) then Jen,

the most resilient bird I know, crazy or not.

(Heather)

Why leave well enough alone?

Like Jen, and I imagine most artists, I see potential in everything. Most of my furnishings are items I've acquired used and I've just tweaked to make them my own. I re-paint as regularly as my styles change. I often have friends dropping off finds from Goodwill, or their garages, in hopes I will breathe new life into them. My husband is less than happy about the "potential projects" that I have stacked in our garage (aka his man cave) but I try to convince him that we must all do our part and make sacrifices to recycle and re-use to reduce the landfills so that our children's children will have a green and healthy planet with polar bears etc... etc... he's buying it for now.

Pictured are a few things I've painted for my daughters. The little kitchen was a basic Target cutesy all pink ditty that bored me so I spiced it up with color and an oil-cloth curtain.

The table I painted for my daughter Stella 6 years ago. It has held up fairly well to regular indoor and outdoor use and now my little Scarlett enjoys her tea parties and colors on it (literally... you can probably see some of her work in the corner).

The small armoire was a bit of a collaboration. I originally painted it for Stella in a whole different color scheme but she went at it with a sharpie one day creating a flower scene on the then light green shabby chic doors. I could not be mad as I found myself liking her now permanent artwork so much that I re-did the whole thing around it and painted in her flowers and grass, leaving them as she originally drew them. It now sits in Scarlett's room and Stella is quite proud of it. You never know where you will find inspiration, I often get it from my children's art.

(Heather)

Garage Sale Find for a Project

I bought this at a garage sale. It was fairly cute--red dresser, a little banged up (in a rustic way), with glass knobs. I created my own decals out of contact paper, placed them on the dresser, painted it white, then removed the decals to reveal the designs as seen.

Voila.

(jen)