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From the Art Studio | Watercolor Painting | 1 Apple and 4 Chicks

March 26, 2018 By Laura 6 Comments

I’m so glad you are paying a visit today to one of my favorite places in the world to be:  my art studio.  
I’m going to chat a bit about watercolor painting, and show you some fun pieces I did.
  

Not too long ago, I invested in more art supplies, some of which are shown above.  Supplies such as professional-grade watercolor paints, some high-quality brushes, and some blocks of top-notch watercolor paper. 

I promised myself that this year (2018) I would start spending very regular time working (creating) in my art studio again, for me, much like I did when I was in my 20’s.  I’ve had the same intentions before, but I never managed to balance my time and other obligations, to really get up there very consistantly. Even though inside, I had badly felt the need to. 

Well, this year I have really been really doing it! I go up and work up there almost every day, even if I only have a little bit of time.
And I’ll tell you what . . . . it fills that ‘thing’ in me, that needs filling.  Almost as much as my faith does for me.  It settles my soul, fills my heart, and sometimes even gets my head straight. Well, the last one is a little trickier, it seems. But, I try to think of nothing else but whatever it is I am working on. Because I’ll tell you what . . . . I have one of those brains that never stops, and it could really use the rest, anytime I can get it.  I have to say that many times I pray while I work, too. If I’m not singing along with Pandora, that is. (Which is usually the case.) But neither of those things are the kind of thinking I can’t shut off, and the kind that I get so darn tired of doing.

So anyway, one medium I have always loved working in, and I have been dying to get back to, is watercolor painting. Thus, new supplies. Because I intend to really develop my skills in watercolor, over the many coming years. (Provided I live many coming years.)  I have much to work on. I do clearly see myself in the future, as an old lady, drawing and painting in her art studio. So hopefully that is a good sign, eh? Anyway, while I am working on my watercolor skills, I decided I will just do small paintings for awhile.  When I am feeling a lot more confident, and I’ve mastered some things, I’ll go bigger.

The blocks of watercolor paper I bought are 9″ x 12″, because I felt that was a good size to start working again with.  No larger than that, anyway.
Arches, 300#, cold-press.

Ok, I’m ready to share with you a couple of my watercolor paintings.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Crafts & Creations, Home Page, Seasonal Crafts and Creations, SPRING Crafts and Creations, Watercolor Paintings Tagged With: apple, art, art-studio, chicks, watercolor, watercolor painting, watercolor-chicks, watercolor-split-apple, watercoloring

A Few Handmade Farmhouse Signs for Our Home

January 22, 2018 By Laura 4 Comments

I really enjoy laying out designs for signs and making them myself. I’ve thought much about starting a small business of custom made farmhouse signs, but just haven’t. Yet. However, sometime early last Fall, I did make a few handmade farmhouse signs I had in mind for our own home.  And today, I am getting around to sharing them with you.  They are super simple and rustic in design, which is pretty much my style, and fitting for our home, where much of everything is made by us, in just that fashion. 

I hope you enjoy checking out these farmhouse signs.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Crafts & Creations, Home Decor, Home Page, Signs, The Homestead Tagged With: country-home-decor, farmhouse-decor, handmade-signs, signs. farmhouse-signs

Sewing Easy Pillow Shams – Tutorial

November 8, 2017 By Laura 4 Comments

“Someday, I’m going to learn how to do that.”
I’ve got a list of things I’ve said that about. Doesn’t everybody? Do you? As for me, some of those things I’m actually working on now and then, and some are still sitting on the mental ‘someday list’, completely untouched. But learning how to sew, and run a sewing machine, is something I’ve actually gotten to! Oh, there is always more to learn, and I will. But my main motivation was simple:  Pillow shams.

This girl loves throw pillows, as part of our home decor accents, as well as comfort. That include seasonal and holiday throw pillows. But seriously, I’m sure you could agree that there is only so much storage room available, for gads of interchangeable throw pillows. And the perfect solution to that, as far as I could figure, is pillow shams. I could just change up the shams on the pillows with the seasons and holidays!  They would take up virtually no space at all, just folded nicely in a pile somewhere.

But first, of course, I needed to learn how to sew.

Old Simger sewing machine
And I really wanted to learn how, using my mother’s Singer Fashion Mate (Model 237).  It’s old, it’s ugly, and I’m pretty sure [Read more…]

Filed Under: Crafts & Creations, Holiday Crafts, Home Decor, Homemade/Handmade Gift Ideas, Seasonal Crafts and Creations, Seasonal Home decor, Sewing, The Homestead, Tutorial Tagged With: easy-pillow-shams, home decor, home-accents, homemade-gift-ideas, how-to-sew-pillow-shams, pillow-shams-easy-tutorial, sewing, sewing-pillow-shams, sewing-pillows, sewing-projects, sewing-tutorials

Details About the New House of Joyful Noise Rooster

March 19, 2017 By Laura 2 Comments

Just a quick post today, to share with you all a few details about the new House of Joyful Noise rooster, since we mentioned we would tell you a little more about it in this come-back post.

When I got to thinking about freshening up our blog and giving it a bit of a new look, for some reason the idea of incorporating a rooster with a fancy tail, popped into my head. And once it did, I couldn’t let it go! We love roosters, and their big fancy tails anyway, and it felt like it fit well, because they are certainly farm-ish enough. We do keep chickens, and have certainly dealt with our share of roosters. We had a big and beautiful rooster with a fancy tail for awhile, until he died unexpectedly. We miss him on the one hand, and he took real good care of his hen girls.  But on the other hand, he was getting [Read more…]

Filed Under: Crafts & Creations, Faith, Faith/ Catholic, Home Page, Life In General, The Big Picture Tagged With: Cursillo, Karla-Dornacher, rooster-art, rooster-paintings

Old Junk – A Big Old Rusty Clock Makeover & An Old Cabinet

April 7, 2016 By Laura 3 Comments

Are you an ‘old junk’ lover? Do you love going looking for old junk, and get butterflies at the opportunity to bring some of it home? That’s ME to a T! Sometimes, I don’t even have a clue what I’m going to do with the old junk I’m bringing home. But I know I’ll think of something! (That’s the other part of the fun! Right?!).

Well, previously I shared in a post on our Facebook Page, a few photos of some old junk I picked up the weekend prior, of a big old rusty clock, an old cabinet, and a little bird bath/feeder dish. I promised I’d let you know what I did with them.

Here I am, keeping my promise, with a post on it! (Well, 2/3 of the promise, anyway.)
Since I have the most to say about it, we’ll start with . . . . . .

The Big Old Rusty Clock


Here is the clock, the way I bought it. Now, knowing photos tend to really confuse actual scale of objects, I want you to realize that this clock is actually a foot tall! So it’s bigger than it may appear, if you imagined it to be a close-up of the size of a regular alarm clock this style.

I actually ‘settled’ for this clock, in the antique store. The first one I saw was that old-style 50’s turquoise-blue-teal (you know the one?), but extremely chipped, worn, with rust coming through everywhere. I loved the look of that one, more than this unpainted one. The problem was, it just went out the door, in someone else’s hand! Ha haha! So, we bought this one instead, with the plan that I could create the same look as the one I originally wanted, with a little creativity. Somehow. As soon as I figured out how. Because the thing was, I just didn’t care for the ‘finish’ of this one, which to me, really looks like it was almost manufactured to appear rusty. The rust is far too….uniform, to be convincing. So, my plan was to try and fix that.

It did end up being one of those projects where, as soon as I got started and past that moment of ‘too late to go back now’, I got that sinking feeling like, ‘Oh no, what did I just do? What am I doing? I’m ruining it!“. But in the end, I was happy with it.

But quickly, here was my thought process, getting to the happy point.

I got thinking about where it would ultimately be put, and, I realized that old teal color wasn’t the ideal color. I mean, I did have a choice at this point! I didn’t have to make it the same color as the one I originally saw. Considering where I knew I wanted to put it, the most ideal color would be a cream. I did the best I could to replicate the texture of the look of the original clock I saw.

And here is how it came out . . . . . . [Read more…]

Filed Under: Home Decor, Home Page, Refinishing, The Homestead Tagged With: antiques, home decor, junk-makeovers, old-cabinets, old-clocks, old-junk, refinishing

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