filter fun

I've been using a lot of filters lately while creating illustrations for my day planner so I thought it'd be fun to create a couple before-and-afters of photographs. I shot these cows as we were passing through Cloverdale last Friday and I dressed them up a little using these fun filters from Mister Retro and a polaroid frame purchased from iStockPhoto.

before & after

Well, even though we're not quite done (really, we're only a half-day's worth of work away, my contractor assures me!), I've decided it's time to share pictures of how our summer-long home improvement project turned out.

You may recall how our shower leaking turned into a full bath remodel (click here) back in May. Well, what started out as our house needing a paint job turned into a full exterior make-over: new roof, new siding, new window trim, new paint.

The difference is quite dramatic, and I'm just thrilled with our "new" 1939 English Tudor:
BEFORE:
AFTER:Yes, I know, it's a bit bare – we'll tackle the landscaping next spring! And in the meantime, we did add a porch light, house numbers and mail box (all black, of course!)

Other changes that are less visible from the outside are the airy skylights that were added to the upstairs bathroom and bedroom:

We also opened up the upstairs hallway by having a full wall cut down to a half wall:
(and yes, that's the staircase where I'd like to hang the perfectly proportioned modern mobile)

I then got a super strong itch to tear out the gross carpeting and see what's hiding underneath: the original fir floors, yeah! Sadly, they're quite damaged by former owners' remodel projects so bringing these floors back to their original glory will be part of our "phase 2" (timeline yet TBD).

Last, but certainly not least, are the new French doors that replaced a single door leading out into your backyard. Last April I pulled our dining room table into our den for Todd's surprise birthday party; the new arrangement was perfect so we added a set of three Ikea pendants:

Oh, and yes: I painted our fireplace green – just got tired of the bright red:

Now I'm ready to take a break till spring and enjoy my newly feathered nest!

chestnut craft project

I'm always picking up nature's treasures on my walks with the boys (i.e. hubby and dogs), and right now I've got my eye on chestnuts. They're everywhere!

They remind me of taking walks in the Netherlands with my grandfather, who would encourage us to pick up as many chestnuts (kastanjes) as we could fit in our pockets. When we got back home, he'd bring out a box of matches and we'd spend hours creating little critters and people by pushing the match sticks into the chestnuts and assembling bodies, heads, hands, and feet.

When I asked Todd whether he made chestnut critters, he had no idea what the heck I was talking about. Apparently, this is not an American (or even English?) tradition since I didn't find much when Googling it. Once I put in the Dutch keywords, there were pages upon pages of references and instructions.

Here are some photos I came across that give you the idea:

As you can see, these days matches have been replaced by tooth picks. For the source of the photos above and more like it, click here.

Another favorite was to create a spider web: push long skewers all around the diameter of the chestnut, then use wool to weave around the sticks (alternating going above and below the sticks). Fun projects for the kids!

on my next day off...

...I simply must try this fun project I discovered on Cheeky Magpie's blog:


She even lists a complete tutorial so have at it, y'all!