easy industrial stencil art

Somewhere along the line, my rustic shabby country farmhouse has turned a bit industrial. I mean with the poles in the middle of the living room there weren't many places to go...

So I embraced the poles (not literally, though there was that one night when I thought I'd try pole dancing... best forgotten. Forget I mentioned it...) and built a TV unit/room divider between them.

Now I have a proper separation between the 'work' and 'entertaiment' areas of the living room. Instead of trying to hide the poles (ever tried to blend in poles in the middle of a room? impossible) I painted them black and made them a feature.

This resulted in a slightly more industrial feel to the decor.

Plywood and poles will do that.

I also bought a new leather couch and ended up with a scandanavian style instead of the old gentleman's club style that I thought I wanted. The colour and style really suits the new rustic industrial farmhouse decor.

Here's a preview of the new couch in place, including the mess all around it...

Anyway, I decided it was time to up the industrial aspect of the living room with some original recycled artwork.

Plus, it was time to take the christmas tree down!

These stencils are all real, factory shipping label stencils, some have even been used. Many times. Others are just plain old. They were given to me by a great friend and soon as I saw them I knew I wanted to make this artwork.

I recycled an old frame I got from the tip shop. I had originally put fabric in it to match some cushion covers and hung it over the bed in my house in Fentonbury when I was selling it.

Since then its been in our bedroom, just sitting there.

Waiting.

Till yesterday.



Yesterday I took it down to the casita, took out the fabric, laid out the stencils in a way that pleased me, used a ton of glue to hold them in place (there's no glass on this) and then decided the frame looked wrong in distressed white.

So I taped off the inner rustic timber 'mount' and sprayed it gloss black. Then, after it was dry but before it had cured completely, I used a paint scraper to scrape a bit off here and there to show some white through.

Much better.

I especially love the splashes of blue!

It kinda looks good there now. It goes with the black poles and the little record side table. Which I haven't shared yet... oops.

We're getting there.

All I need to do now is paint the living room white. Or a grey that isn't blue. Get rid of the carpet and put down some kind of floor that's easy to clean and doesn't make me gag. Finish the TV unit. Get a bigger rug. Find a solution to the world garbage problem.

I'll get right on to it.

Easy.

z

Shared at:

Talk of the Town Link Party

saddle storage in the workshop

Sharing another project I did before the eye/cataract saga. Back when I could lift things and bend over without fear of detaching a retina...

Eh. Its only a temporary setback.

You may or may not remember that we've been storing the saddles and other tack in the workshop area of the casita. 

My workshop.

Where I keep my tools and do messy things with paint and sawdust.

Anyway, we can't store them in the feed room for obvious reasons so its basically that or move them to another shed which is out of the way and we have to carry things when we want to use them....... though, with the amount of riding we do lately, would that be such a bad thing....?

Hm...

Must think about that...

Meanwhile, it doesn't matter cause I've finally sorted out saddle storage in a way that takes up less space, is safe for us (ie no saddles falling on heads) and is safe for the saddles (ie no saddles falling on heads).

It was easy. Basically. It just took a long time to do from inception to completion. And I used only things I had on hand.

I have a fence in the middle of the workshop area of the casita. It was there cause the shed was being used as a shearing shed when we bought here. When we cleaned the place up and put in a new floor, we didn't worry about removing the entire fence. Its been handy for tossing horse rugs and even hanging saddles off.

The problem of putting saddles over the fence, however, was that they took up space on both sides of the fence, thus limiting what I could do on the other side. So what I did was basically make a kind of saddle 'tree' to hang them off, thus limiting the spread...

I began by attaching a long piece of hardwood to the fence in several places and up onto an exposed beam in the ceiling so it was secure. This became the 'trunk'. I then made three triangles out of timber and attached them to the trunk, each one a 'branch' for one saddle. The bottom branch holds Wayne's western saddle (very heavy) so that got an upright support as well.

To finish it off, I used an old piece of pipe I had, cut to length, to create a rounded rest for the protection of the saddle upholstery. Mind you, I also put saddle blankets over the pipe and over the saddles for added protection.

The other side - minus saddles hanging over, taking up space. I'm can now push cabinets and other things up against the fence and have more room to work.

While sprucing the place up, I even sprayed the side of this old locker gold for a bit of class...

Looking good, in a messy/creative/working kind of way.

Of course, there's always more to do. But the saddles have a home now, so cross that one off the list.

z

rustic tea light holder

This is one of those projects I had lying around for ages. Its probably from some kind of gun safe, two bits of old timber with holes, just waiting for a makeover. I had it for so long I can't remember where it came from.

I started making into a tea light holder a couple of years ago but then just left it in the shed till it got buried under piles of other projects 'to do'.

Then one day I just sort of got inspired to finish it with some nuts and a rusty hinge.

It might not be exactly fire safe as far as tea light holders go.... but hey! You can put LED tea lights in it!

And its rustic and cute.

Those things count for a lot in my world.

I took it to a local shop and it sold straight away.

So there you go. Rustic and cute won out over fire safe for someone other than me!

Meanwhile I know its been a long time since I posted last. The cataract surgery in my right eye was not easy to get over. For the last month I've had tired eyes, dry eye, blurry vision and I've just been too tired to do anything online or any craft at all.

Luckily, my left eye, which was done 2 days ago, has been the total opposite. Its been a success from day one. Almost no pain after surgery, very little blurry vision or discomfort. Thank goodness as I was getting pretty depressed about the whole thing.

Both eyes are much better now and I can see well... except now my near vision is worse than it was before and I need to wear glasses (at least those magnifying ones from the chemist) in order to do any close up work. That means that sewing or fine craft work means glasses. Since I can't get used to wearing glasses and looking up OVER them rather than through them, I get awful dizzy spells when I wear them. I'm sure I'll get used to it.

The good news is that apparently my eyesight won't get any worse from this point on so I'll have plenty of time to get used to the new eyes.

z

horses in the garden

Long ago I said that I'd never have a nice garden cause we kept letting the horses into the yard. I loved having them in there and they loved the time with us.

Then I put in garden beds cause I wanted flowers and pretty stuff, and I banished the horses.

Well, the other day the horses were back.

First time it was an accident. Wayne drove ol' Blue from the paddock into the yard and the horses followed him. Opportunists that they are.

They'd been eyeing off the greener grass on our side of the fence for ages and there was no way they were letting that opportunity go by without grasping it.

Yeah. Its not that green. But take a look at the paddock beyond them. That'll give you an idea. At least in the yard there were clumps of clover and tufts of that grass that isn't lawn.

We had to keep an eye on them of course. Every time one of them so much as looked at a flower sideways, expletives would rain down on them from two directions. Luckily, the green clumps and clover were more than enough for them and no flowers were lost in the visit.

There's something so lovely about having horses in the yard. I love giving them a pat as they wander past and watching the dust poof off them. I love the sound of them chewing. I also rather like their help with "mowing".

And I love horse butts. So strong and round.

Almost as good as cow butts.

Taken at the Hamilton Show yesterday. I got to pat a lot of cows and a lot of beautiful horses.

Life in the country is good!

z