close your eyes

the amazing twine photo frame i made the other day came from a mirror, which was held by this thin piece of wood/corkboard. i had it over at the house i am house sitting at and was feeling bored, so i started painting it a bit. then i had an idea to take all these poems i love.



so i printed up my fave poems: one art, love after love, jerusalem 1967, personal, and the day lady died. i had grand plans of painting the board and collaging all the poems on to it. but i started to do that and it looked like an epic fail


feeling dismayed i started painting the board grey because i find painting soothing and i had a huge bottle of grey paint. whilst painting, drinking a glass of red wine, and listening to the pandora station i like to call "i was born in the wrong decade", inspiration struck! james taylor came on and suddenly i was reminded of the song my dad used to sing me to sleep every night, "you can close your eyes." the part i always loved the most was the line, "well the sun is surely sinking down, but the moon is slowly rising." and i decided it would be a cute idea to try and make one of those big, block print wall pieces.

so i experimented on paper with different layouts and then realized i would need to settle down and not do the painting that night. i have a tendency to get very overexcited and want everything to do everything right away. so i contemplated on the different layouts.


the next morning i decided which layout to go with, and realized i would need stencils, so after scouring my mom's art room and finding no stencils in a font i liked, i went on a trip to michael's and bought $6 stencils.

given my need to practice patience and taking the time to do something well rather than just do it quickly, i stenciled all the lines out on paper, and then placed them on the board to make sure it would fit.


then i took a ruler and a pencil and measured out all of the spacing, then traced all the letters in pencil. finally, i got to the fun part and went to town with the paint, trying very hard to stay inside the lines :)

i wasn't sure what colors to do the words "sun" and "moon" in, so i decided to save those for last. eventually though, i decided on a burnt golden yellow for the word "sun", and a pale, dusty blue for the word "moon."

i can't get the silly photo to rotate, but i love the way the colors turned out and have it hanging over my bed in ann arbor, which i will take a picture of on monday!



and here is the moment you've been waiting for, a video of james taylor singing "you can close your eyes." and you lucky ducks, i was able to find an old school, long-haired james taylor crooning away. if i were carly simon, i would have fallen for him too!

what to do with a laundry line?

in israel, and in most place that aren't america, everyone hangs their laundry out their windows on clothing lines.

so when i saw this photo on pinterest, i was immediately smitten with both its adorableness and the shout out to the many countries in which i've grumbled as i've hauled my clothes out of the washing machine and taken the time to hang each item of clothing over a line and pin it well enough that it doesn't fall tumbling down to the streets below, as happened to my pillowcases in tel aviv! despite my grumbling though, i learned to find meditation in the task of taking each piece of clothing out, straightening it, and smoothing it over the rough edges of the laundry line.






so, on one of my drive around lansing from goodwill to salvation army tours, i stumbled upon a mirror that came in this frame.


originally it was $10 but it was half off day so it was only $5!

the frame felt too bright and shiny to me, so i decided to paint it. but as i sanded it down, i loved the way it the bright burnt red turned a little softer and rugged looking. i took the gold off the edges.

then began the process of deciding what photos to choose! i spent hours going through all the photos i have on my computer and finally landed on the ones below. in iphoto i used the antique effect to make them look a little more aged. every store i went to could only print 4 x 6, not 3 x 5, so i had to cut down on the photos i had chosen even more! but now i can rotate ones in and out which is nice!

i found twine at my parents' house, and bought mini brass paper clips and clothes pins at meijer while i waited for my photos to print (which, by the way, took an hour. isn't technology supposed to make everything immediate now?)

first i tried the photos with just the brass pins, which looks like this:


then i added the clothespins. they were too clean looking so i painted them a dirty sand color (sounds gross, but it gave them an aged look).


i spent a few days looking at it and couldn't figure out what was wrong. finally i realized i had the photos pinned right on the twine, instead of allowing a little space between the photos and the twine. so i did that and then took it to ann arbor and hung it on my wall, opposite my bed, so it will be the first thing i look at when i wake up every morning! feng shui says you are supposed to wake up and look at something that inspires you, and i think waking up to see my family and friends smiling back at me will be the perfect thing!

but, silly me i was so excited about decorating in ann arbor, that i forgot to take pictures! i'll be back in a2 on monday and will take a photo of it hanging on the wall!