Tiernan Design

It is Auction time again

 

Hello strangers.  Sorry.  No really.  My work just completed the design of an entire new hospital and jumped onto another project to design a free standing cancer center, so the leisure of blogging has been put on the back burner as well as most of my home projects.  It is that time of year where I get to use my imagination a different way.  My parish's annual auction is coming up and I am doing the decorations again.  Since I was unable to make ZERO auction meetings I had to send my idea via email.  I have attached the sketch I zipped over for review.  I am going to making bright orange organza zinnia looking flowers and back light them with the oh so inexpensive white Christmas lights.  It could go a little Asian or a little fairytale-ish.  I am leaning to the fairytale - thanks to my daughter Stella - so there might be some moss, butterflies added somewhere.  Here are a few of my other auction adventures HERE and HERE.  

Project #2

   

 

After I made my dress (see post below called Finally, My Dress Form), I moved on to something a bit easier, Project #2.  I wanted to make aprons for all my sisters and my mom for Christmas, but I ran out of time.  My mom got one and the one sister I "had" for Christmas got one.  I really enjoyed making the aprons, because you can have fun with colors, patterns, etc.  Aprons should be lighthearted.  The pink-purple one is the one I gave my sister.  I had to ask her to give it back to me so I could photograph it for the blog.  I finished it the night before our Christmas, so I had no time to take a picture of it.  This Christmas came so fast for me, so I felt I was always one step behind.  I actually was buying presents on Christmas Eve the first time ever.  Mental note...........never do that again.......ruins Christmas. 

Finally, My Dress Form

   

 

This took a lot longer than my 5 minute project posted below, but it was worth it.  It took my husband about 1 1/2 hours to "wrap" me and then my about the same amount of time for me to stuff/adjust.  The stand is made out of PVC pipe and an old Christmas tree stand.  I am going to try to make my dress for my company's Christmas party.  Key word here is "try".  I'll post my progress.....maybe.  The total cost for the whole dress form was about $37.  This included the duct tape, stuffing and PVC pipe.   On another note, I really do clean my house.  The mirror is just old, but I love it.  We have the same etched mirrors on all closet and full bath doors in our house (which reminds me I wanted to make a separate category for "My House" details - stay tuned).  The fingerprints on the door?  Yep, I have no excuse for those. 

My 5 Minute Project

   

Old wreath, monkey grass berries, decorative grass plumes.

Smiles All Around

I am not sure why I missed the progression of my daughter Stella's art, but all of a sudden she is drawing things that actually look like things.  The entire house was grinning ear to ear the other night when she came running into the kitchen to show Bob and me her pictures.  Frankie colored "her" shirt....pretty happy about that progress too.

 

Mermaid......

Mermaid No. 2

Like I said, smiles all around.

RoseArt Discovery

Sorry for the very non-creative photo above, but I have wanted to post this thought a while and have not taken a picture of our very worn RoseArt crayons.  The reason they are very worn is that my 21 month old son, Frankie, is going to be our little artist.  He could sit with me and color for 20 minutes if you let him.  For a boy who is "ALL BOY" to sit that long makes me think he will be artistically inclined.  Anyway, I am not one to buy brand names blindly.  So for Christmas I bought some RoseArt crayons.  I don't think I will buy another brand again.  They beat Crayola hands down.  The colors are much more vibrant, clear and fun.  I really enjoyed coloring in the Curious George coloring book 15 times a day during Christmas Break.  I kept finding myself saying "wow this is a great color and wow, another cool color, what is the name of these crayons again?".  I literally got excited.  When I sit to color with Stella and Frankie, I find myself only picking out the RoseArt crayons to use.  Crayons should be full of fun and vibrant colors because kids use them.  If I could use them in my renderings at work, I think I would.

YO YO YO, Merry Christmas

Well, I took on a very little craft project.  I made Yo-Yo's for my daughter's Christmas Shoes.  I found these adorable patent leather, leather soled, Italian-made shoes at our thrift store.......$1.81.  I think everything there is $1.81 or $.61.  It must be a tax thing.  I bought red wool felt to make some flowers or some sort of festive shape to stick on her shoes for Christmas parties.  I tried a couple of flowers and didn't like them.  Things never end up the way I see them in my head.  As a result, nice things come out of my mouth like, "What the hell?", "Nice, Jen", "Yep, that's not going to work", "Why am I doing this?".  Then I had the brilliant idea to look at one of my favorite blogs called Hello My Name is Heather.  See my "Stop By" listing.  She does wonderful sewing, quilting and fun felt work and I new I could get a good idea somewhere among her beautiful pages.  I tried the YO-YO!  I still had my pretty red wool felt left, so I decided to continue to use the felt for the yo-yos.  It was actually pretty easy.  Especially since I was doing it at about 9:00 at night after the house settled down.  I call them my "Yo-Yo's on Roids".  They are a little THICK, but I actually like how they turned out.  I also added a double yo-yo......watch out I'm getting tricky......to a Barret Stella could wear.  Again, her wearing the barret is probably another vision I have in my head that in not going to turn out the way I picture it.  Anyway, I had fun.  It was nice to do a project that had nothing to do with our house or involved filing bills and paperwork.  Oh, I almost forgot.  My mom made the blanket in the background when I was a baby.  How she had time to whip together a blanket, while raising four kids, is beyond me.  And whip together is the perfect way to describe her.  She is crazy like that.  An idea pops in her head one day and the next day it is done....serioiusly.

Buffet of Options

Our Parish Church has a big garage sale every year and I picked up some furniture to transform our sun room into a light filled office.  I had been looking for some desk ideas for a while.  Much to my husband's dismay, I just don't go out and buy a desk from Pottery Barn, etc.  I am always looking for the ultimate bargain as well as something with a little more character.  There is a thrift store just outside our neighborhood and I swear I am going to drive into oncoming traffic one day because I am trying to see what new furniture they have in their window.  There are some great pieces there that can be transformed into beauties.  Anyway, as I was walking through the furniture room of the garage sale, an old buffet caught my eye.  It was really scratched up and needed some work, but it was $30.  Then I saw a desk that looked very similar as far as handles and wood construction etc.  It was $30 too.  Hum decisions, decisions.  I decided that $60 was too much and went back the next day when everything was half off in hopes that no one would had snatched them up.  Score!  I got a desk and a buffet for $30!  It makes me love them even more!  I am such the opposite of what a designer should be.  As you can see from these photos, I have decided to paint the desk.  The color you see is not the final color I decided on. I will post final photos later.  I ended up going with a soft, khaki brown color.  I am going to switch out the old white and brass handles with crystal blue/robin's egg blue glass knobs to go with the robin's egg blue tile on the fountain in the sun room.  I also think it will set off the brown paint nicely.  Yes, we have a functioning built-in fountain in our sun room.  We have not run it yet because it would create a water party hysteria hosted by our kids, but the previous owner said it works.  I will have to post a photo of it too.  I should post a lot of little details about our house because It has a lot of personality.   Especially the north corner of our roof where an old hemlock tree fell on it yesterday and did a nice bang up job!

First Attempt

 

While flying on a plane and paging through the airline supplied magazine, I found a series of black and white photographs of abandoned barns across America.  I fell in love with one image and decided "I would like to paint that."  Having never painted before, but having a mom that has painted many canvases, I gave her a call and asked if she could help me get started.  Let me preface this by saying, this is before kids and a husband.  I have just about enough time to make painting my toenails my artistic outlet.  Painting my fingernails is not even an option.  You actually have to repaint them every week....not going to happen.  So, to make a long story short, I haven't had much time to do any more personal art projects.  Anyway, my mom gave me an old canvas of hers that she had painted white to cover one of her old paintings.  She was going to paint on it one day, but she took up quilting and has not painted since.  I will have to post some of her quilts.  They are true heirlooms.  Anyway, again, she gave me her paints and brushes and gave me a quick lesson and off I went.  It took me about 2 weeks to do.  I worked on it for short periods after work.  This eventually was given to my husband, before he was my husband, as a Christmas gift.  It is now hanging in our breakfast room.  I applaud my husband for wanting to hang it in a prominent part of our home.  He must really like it or must really like me.