This is the first shade which was much too light and had almost a flesh tone to it.

This is the first try and the second shade together, still just a bit too light.

And then we got it right!

y

It is a little darker than I had originally planned, but I am really happy with the way it looks so far. It will need one more coat tomorrow since it is still a bit streaky, but I can't wait to see it all put together. I think it will look really great with the white furniture and some funky bedding.

We have been working a little slow this week since we both have "real" jobs in the middle of it all but tomorrow we are off to Ikea to buy the flooring, so we are hoping that by the end of the weekend the entire room will be finished.  We still have to varnish the window and finish the wardrobe and get rid of this awful light! But at least the hard part is over!   

Time to get a good nights sleep so I can be ready for a full day of work.  I hope to have some fun photos for you by the end of the weekend. 

Happy Friday, be back soon!

I really should have taken a photos before Luigi fixed it because you could actually see the several layers of color underneath, yellow, white, and the green of course.  So this is a layer of plaster over the concrete and now we will have to wait for it to dry before painting over it, but at least it will be fresh! You can also see to the left another section, a bit smaller this time, but another one nonetheless!

And then........I was painting another wall and look what happened here! Great!  This one I actually fixed myself.  After watching Luigi for a while I thought I'd give it a try. Not bad for a first timer.  Let's just hope it stops here and that we don't have any more surprises!

But, since I know these are not the most exciting photos, I wanted to post a couple of photos of some bedding I found on Anthropologie.com my favoriteist store in the entire world! 

Are they to die for or what?!  I absolutely love their home department, these two I especially love for the bedroom.  Think I'll be trying extra hard to fill up that tip jar in the next few months.

I would buy everything in this store if I could! Tomorrow will be a busy day for both of us, so I'm not sure how much work we will get done, but hopefully I will have some new photos to show you. 

Happy Monday! A domani

I painted the shutters white and eventually the window frame will be painted to match

Before and after with bright white, already looking much cleaner

Still a work in progress but we're getting there

and yes, that awful industrial fluorescent light is going!

I'll be back tomorrow with more photos of hopefully a completely painted room! A domani!

But first let me just sum up what has been happening the last few days.....remember that big hole in the wall we found behind the wardrobe? Fixed.  Then we discovered that there we many more holes to be patched up, some major, but mostly minor, nail holes, chipped plaster that sort of thing, but nonetheless they all had to be filled with plaster, dried and sanded.  Its really interesting to actually see my husband at work, I never realized he was such the perfectionist! 

I also had to vigorously clean the window, not only the glass but the frame as well. We're talking years of dirt and dust! Yuck!  So now the room is finally ready for paint! YAY!! This is what I am doing on the walls...

I absolutely love the tan and white together. However, I am thinking of doing only one wall, the one where the bed will be, with the tan and the rest white since the room is long and narrow this will help foreshorten the space. But we will do that wall first and see how we like it and decide from there.  I also really love the neutral color with the addition of the bright orange rug. I'm thinking black and white bedding with orange sheets and throw pillows and maybe an orange rug. 

These fabrics are all from Ikea, but hey really you can't beat their prices.  I will attempt to make the duvet cover, or in the end it could end up to be just some fabric covering the bed! 

I also really like these colors as well and they are feeling a bit more springy to me.  

The good thing about the neutral wall is that we won't be limited to one color palette, ans since we love colorthis is perfect for us.  The floors are going to be done in this wood laminate also from Ikea, cheap and easyto install.  

And then in searching through various interior design blogs, I came across this delicious window treatment on Design Sponge DIY.  I am so very excited about this I want to use it on every room in the apartment, but we will have to see.  You can find the full instructions for this project here.  And since we live in such close quarters this will be the perfect solution. 

Well in order to get to do all this fun creating and decorating I do actually need to go to work!  I mean at my "real job"  So I am off to the Accademia Museum to admire and explain Michelangelo's David, and then I will heading over to paint the room!  I will find that darn USB cable and show the new walls tomorrow! 

Happy Saturday! 

Ciao.

so basically the last set off doors after the mirrors have been chopped off

First we took off all the doors and took apart everything that we could and then took a power saw to it! And then we moved the whole thing away from the wall to check behind and look what we found!! Uhoh! Thats a pretty big hole in the wall!

Always expect the unexpected! Good thing Luigi knows exactly how to fix that! 

Then since the doors were off we figured we would do ahead and paint them since they were a really dull and dirty looking yellow color and wouldn't really go with the color scheme I eventually plan to have in the room. So the entire thing will be a nice bright white in the end. We considered buying a new one entirely, but have you seen the prices of wardrobes these days?  Mamma mia!!  So this is a little money saving trick to salvage what you already have and make it work! I will eventually change the hardware too, I'm thinking some nice black handles to make it look nice and chic.  If I were in the U.S I would be heading right over to Anthropologieto buy some funky door pulls, but that will have to wait! Or who knows, maybe I'll get experimental and try to make some with my clay.....hmmmmmm......!

So here are the doors in process of their makeover and Maestro Luigi hard at work.

We will be giving them a final coat tomorrow, we want to let the first coat dry completely to make them look as perfect as possible. Next was a lot of cleaning and moving things around, finding space in the garage for stuff we don't need and throwing away of old broken pieces. Then my hubby fixed some walls and worked his magic. I keep telling him how hot he is with those tools in his hands! he thinks I'm being sarcastic, but I'm telling you there is something about a man who know how to build things!

please excuse the pants around his butt, he's really not a sagger, they were just falling down! Think he needs to find a belt!

There had already been some dry wall added to the walls but never finished off properly so here he is closing it up and sealing it off, first with cement then with plaster.  Then it was finally time to go and buy the supplies for painting!!  YAY!!! this is the good stuff! However,.........I was surprised to learn that I will apparently be mixing the color on my own.  That's right, by hand, basically we bought a huge tub of white paint and a few small bottles of ultra concentrated color and I will be adding the color to the white to get my own personalized shade. I've never done this for walls before, but I  think it will be great! Wish me luck! Lets hope it comes out ok! 

So after the last coat of paint goes on the closet doors, I will begin painting the room, I think. So, its off to work we go! Day 3 awaits! 

A dopo ragazzi!

Yesterday we began the daunting task of emptying out what will eventually be our bedroom. (see photos below) After years of being used as a warehouse it was piled from floor to ceiling with "stuff" (I would say "junk", but my husband insists that it is NOT "junk") I do have to say however, that we did find a few things that will eventually come in handy, like an old Singer sewing machine table that I would love to paint and turn into our new kitchen table as well as a computer desk.  Can you imagine? Our printer won't have to be wedged in between the T.V. and the armouir (sp?) anymore!  

Its a good thing that the man does this kind of thing for a living so we (well really, he) can do it all ourselves. My creative juices are already flowing and I cannot wait until the fun part of decorating and choosing colors and furniture begins.  I am already deep into the blog world of interior design and have found some really great stuff.

Check out Four Wall and a Roof for some really great design styles and a whole list of other wonderful contemporary design blogs.  Please let me know of any other sites that may be interesting.  We are really all about using what we have and what we find and we love color and comfort.  Needless to say this is going to be quite an adventure! 

So, in other words, my blog updates regarding contemporary art in Florence will be taking a leave of absence while we get this project up and running.  I can't wait to see what happens! 

P.S. I will also apologize for the photo quality here, we forgot our camera and took these with our phone, But I will do more today and show you what we found behind the closet........

I don't have too much information to relay at the moment but you can be sure that I will keep you posted. For now you can find a short article in The Florentine, our local English newspaper. The only observation that I can make so far is that I was quite disappointed to find that all of the 8 artists participating in the exhibit are male. Hmmmmm..............  It seems we still have quite a bit of work to do!  But I suppose its a start.  

I will report back soon, with images and input. (I found these on google images, I hope I'm allowed to do that?) I am quite interested to see how the artists handle the juxtaposition of the old and new and what types of changes occur in the city as a result of this exhibition. 

......Or a least it was!  This weekend in Piazza Santa Croce, the city of Florence held the annual Fiera del Cioccolato artigianale. It was like heaven on earth!  There was more chocolate than one could possibly imagine, (and trust me I can imagine A LOT of chocolate!) I was incredibly impressed with the imagination of the chocolate chefs and the designs they came up with.  If you can think it they made it out of chocolate.  There was everything from delicious truffles in every flavor imaginable to chocolate disguised as mushroom, cheese and even cheeseburgers!  

And then there was my personal favorite........The chocolate Kebab!  Geniale!  A tiny piece of sponge cake with shaved  hazelnut chocolate whip cream and your choice of strawberry, coffee, or mixed berry sauce (we went with the strawberry) And check ou the chef! I would have been smiling too with all the people who were lined up to try it out!

It was complete decadence and deliciousness!  Lets just say that my hubby and I felt it was our duty to try as much chocolate as humanly possible so that we could offer an honest evaluation!  (we were complete gluttons) but hey it only happens once a year and it was the perfect way to warm up on a cold and rainy winter day. In fact those chocolate coconut cookies that they are grabbing here were for us, and that was after the light, dark and white truffles, but before the kebab, and tons of free samples being handed out everywhere.

If you weren't in Florence or didn't get the opportunity to check it out I took lots of photos and I'll let you live vicariously through me for a while!  You can see the full photo gallery by clicking here or on the "photography" page above.  These are just a few of my favorite!  It was totally worth the tummy ache! 

After receiving her B.F.A in studio art from Adrian College in Michigan where she focused on ceramic and porcelain, Joy came to Florence to further her studies at SACI (Studio Art Centers International) where she began experimenting with mixed media and terra cotta, which literally translates to cooked earth and has its beginnings right here in Tuscany. As an extra course Joy took a jewelry class at Art Fuji Studio and immediately fell in love and “knew it was what I wanted to do with my life” 

And speaking of love…….only two weeks after her arrival, Joy met her fiancé Francesco (they are adorable together!) and then as she says, the rest in history!  (it happens to the best of us!)  That was 5 years ago.  From there Joy moved on to become a teacher assistant at Art Fuji Studio, which also allows her to spend time working on her own jewelry designs. 

Joy has set up her shop on Etsy, which she calls A Thousand Joys (such a great name!)  Here you can read a little bit more about Joy in her own words including a wonderful explanation of how she came up with the name for her designs, which is more than meets the eye. (Very clever little Joy!)

“Growing up in Michigan, I spent my summers camping in the U.P., collecting rocks on the beach and seed pods in the woods. I could spend hours examining the things I collected, studying  all the tiny little details. It amazed me how the littlest things in nature could be so beautiful and intricate.  So complex that it makes you realize everything has its purpose.

 Art has always been my life. I cant live without creating with my hands. My passion for art started with clay. I graduated with a B.F.A in sculpture in Michigan, then furthered my studies in New York and Maine. And then I decided to study in Italy where I fell in love with jewelry making.

  Living in Italy for the past 5 years now, my obsession with nature and all its detail makes sense. I live in the heart of the Renaissance where their obsession with the details of nature cover every door, window and ceiling. I love historical ornament because it celebrates the minute beauty of life. I try to capture this in my own work and hope that it reminds you to appreciate the "thousands of joys" that are hidden in nature.”

.........ahhhhh it all makes sense now! 

Here is the link to Joy’s Etsy shop.  You can also become a fan of A Thousand Joys on Facebook. 

All of Joy's pieces are hand crafted using sterling silver.  Her process involves drawing out a design (she says this is ALWAYS her first step) and then she hand cuts and shapes each piece individually, no molds are used and even though some designs are repeated they are never exactly the same making her work unique and of superior hand crafted quality.  

 I have personally known Joy for a few months now and have had the pleasure of participating in a few craft fairs with her and I can say that she truly is a "joy" to be around!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you enjoyed meeting this very talented artist and friend. 

A presto! 

So I was recently asked to create a headpiece for a friends wedding and it took me several tries to get it right (sorry Kel Hope I didn't cause you too much stress!) But in the process I learned so much! (Thanks for the push Kel) through all the experimenting and research I learned how to take components and thoughts of other designs I found and make them my own signature style.  I try never to underestimate the importance of looking at other artists work, I find it fundamental to the evolution of my own! and I now finally realize why all my teachers in were ALWAYS giving me names of others artists to look at that shared the same concepts as me!  Good to know that education is finally paying off!!! 

I am still working out the details of attaching this particular piece, but my thoughts are adding it to a headband covered in satin ribbon somehow.  The two blue flowers are made from ultra-light polymer clay which is literally as light as paper, pretty amazing stuff, and the cream rose is fabric. I then incorporated a few sparkly beads in there too for a little shine and dramatic effect.

I know the photos aren't the greatest, I really didn't intend for them to be used, but I thought what the heck!

So please let me know what you think!  I am looking for advice on attaching them as well as your intial thoughts!  So please leave me your comments below.  I hope to have this piece and many other new items available on my Etsy shop by the end of the week.

Also be sure to check back on Thursday for my featured artist of the week.  Hint, hint, it will be a Joyous occasion!

Thanks for stopping by.

A presto