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Glorious Fall Blooms in a Carpenter’s Box

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11-Hydrangeas in tool box 054What a wild mix of colors in these Glorious Fall Blooms, freshly picked from my garden.

02-Hydrangeas in tool box 020Blooms that started out in softer Summer hues have aged to the deeper, richer colors of Autumn. 

01-Hydrangeas in tool box 010My hydrangeas, which first bloomed pale blue have changed to a deeper blue, green, and even purple in tone. 

The Seedum ‘Autumn Joy’ from light pink to a deep, rich burgandy.

04-Hydrangeas in tool box 041Last Spring, when we took our trip to the Long Beach Peninsula, I found this weathered carpenter’s box while out junking.  I replaced the handle with a piece of gnarled driftwood that I picked up on the beach, and I’ve been waiting for the perfect time to use it in an arrangement on my kitchen counter.

15-Hydrangeas in tool box 064You can still see the word “tools” that the builder of this box nailed into it’s side. It makes me wonder at the history.  Just like the flowers, the weathered wood and the imperfections make it more interesting than something that is brand new.

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10-Hydrangeas in tool box 051The colors of my flowers are more intense this year than in years past.   Our long, dry summer contributed to the difference.

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10-Hydrangeas in tool box 05105-Hydrangeas in tool box 042

This arrangement isn’t in the usual oranges and browns of Fall but I actually prefer the cooler tones for my living space.

16-Hydrangeas in tool box 071Like little jewels, they make me feel so happy.

03-Hydrangeas in tool box 021Though my flower’s first blooms were clear in color, absent of spots or discoloration,  I think they’ve become more beautiful with the imperfections of age.  We talk of faded blooms but there is nothing faded about these beauties!  My friend Yvonne over at Stone Gable inspired me with pictures of her hydrangeas in the post, PATINA . . . Becoming More Beautiful With Age.  She writes about our narrow definition of beauty and how we could learn from the flowers to wear the patina of age gloriously.  I really want to learn to do that, and to do it well.  If you’ve never visited Yvonne I hope you will.  Her posts are always so inspiring and her blog is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen.

This week, my prayer for you is that you’d enjoy and embrace your own season of life.  They are all a gift from God.

Blessings,

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Hand Painted Wallpaper

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We have been having the most wonderful weather this past couple of weeks and it has me wondering if this is a trick or if this might be the beginning of an early summer.  One never knows in the Pacific N.W. but I’d be happy to leave the drizzle behind for a few months!
Today I’m sharing my latest completed project: Painted Wallpaper
The main floor of my home is open concept but laid out a little oddly with jogs in the walls.  I guess this was done to define the different areas of the room.  I think it is annoying when trying to place furniture!  Anyway, the area I painted is a little sitting area that sits directly behind the kitchen island. To the left of this the wall jogs and becomes the living room. To the right the wall jogs into the dining room.  When we moved into our house the walls were white and, since I wanted to warm things up to offset the many cloudy days we have here, I painted the walls with Valspar’s Weathered Sandstone. When we recently redid the kitchen (future post) I painted the kitchen and dining room in Valspar’s Field of Pines.  This color is not one I would’ve ended up with if one of my friends hadn’t asked me why I didn’t choose a color for my walls that I also like to wear.  So I gave it a try and I absolutely love it!
The only thing that kept nagging at me, with it being so open, was the abrupt change of color from one room to another.  I kept thinking about what I could do to make it feel right until one day, when I was watching The Nate Berkus Show, someone asked Nate about transitioning colors from room to room. His answer was to paint stripes in the two colors to tie the areas together.  When I thought about this a bit more I remembered a painted wallpaper tutorial that I saw at Jones Design Company and decided that it would be perfect with my style. 
So here is my sitting area before:
And this is my sitting area after!  Awhile back I did a blog post about garden houses. This wall treatment makes me think of lattice work . . . which reminds of a garden room . . . which makes me feel happy.  My mother’s antique chairs provide a perfect place to chat over a cup of tea!
I’ve also been talking about adding crown molding to our main living area for a long time and Mr. OTN surprised me by saying,”Let’s do it!”  This was something we decided to have help with since it was in our real house (not the guest cottage) and more important to have done really well!  To save on cost I painted it,
our great friend Rob cut and installed it (anyone need a good Contractor?),
and Mr. OTN helped a little by holding up some wood for a picture!
That was really all he HAD to do as he scored major points with me by giving up one of the projects he has been wanting to do for something that I wanted!
So back to my painted wallpaper: I printed off the Jones Design Company template and transferred it onto cardboard. Then I traced the pattern onto the wall in pencil using a level to keep things from going wonky! The template can be downloaded HERE.
 Since I wanted my pattern to be centered in the corner of the two walls, I made an extra template and cut it in half.
I also cut a template to go across the top of the walls.
I didn’t do a perfect tracing job but I kept a soft eraser on hand for removing smudges and any big errors!  The imperfections are hardly noticeable at all once you apply the paint.
See what I mean? Looks pretty good doesn’t it? I used a 1/4″ paintbrush and painted on the inside of all the lines that I drew.  I found that I needed to clean the paintbrush often so it didn’t build up paint and make my line too wide.
To get the double line look I traced the template, then moved it down and about 1/2″ away from the first traced outline, and traced it again. Jones Design Company has excellent and very detailed instructions on how to do this HERE.
Since I finished my walls I’ve had several people point out to me that they match my candles. The candles came first!  It is a pretty popular print right now.
It also matches the pattern in my living room rug.  This is the same rug that my parents had in the house I grew up in.  I guess it has been a popular pattern for ages!
It is pretty hard to see with the window glare (does anyone know how to fix that in photos?) but I also painted the inside of the window jams the blue green color to tie things together and frame the view of the lake.
The picture below shows where the two wall colors come together.
 I’m happy with the transition of colors and I’m really happy with the beautiful crown molding. Thank you Mr. OTN.  
We also had our doors wrapped and wider baseboard molding installed so I still have the painting of doors and windowsills ahead of me.
If you are considering a wall treatment, this application is a lot less expensive than wallpaper and it is a lot of fun to be able to say that it is hand painted!  It was very time consuming but I think it was worth it.
 What do you think? 
Have you ever used a template to paint walls or furniture? I’ve used stencils before but they tended to bleed through. Hand painting with a template makes a really nice sharp line.
 The picture below is looking directly out from my kitchen.
 So now that I’ve made my little sitting area into a mini “garden room” I had to invite a couple of my special friends over for a spot of tea 🙂
 Isn’t this tea set beautiful?  Sigh . . .It doesn’t belong to me.
A bone china teapot is definitely on my thrift store radar though!
 And here are my two beautiful friends being good sports while I take pictures for this post! 
Yesterday began with a little marine air fog but turned into a beautiful sunny day as we shared some tea, got a little crafty, went out for lunch, a little shopping, shared a few tears (that is what good friends do) and a lot of laughter!
   Blessings,
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