Stripes!

 

 I just finished stripes in the most gorgeous house. The homeowners bought it in 2007 and gutted the entire place. (It needed it.) When they put the house they'd been living in for 30+ years on the market in March they figured it would take a few months to sell. You know what's coming. It sold in just a couple of weeks and the new place wasn't ready. They're camping out with very understanding relatives and hope they'll be in by Labor Day.

I got to do the colors for this house, too. Fun! Although the wife could be a decorator if she ever wanted a career change. She's done a great job.

This home has a fabulous view of Commencement Bay and the shipping lanes. It's about a half mile from the old Weyerhaeuser mansion/former University of Puget Sound CBC campus.

So this is a house-in-progress. No decoration yet. And I was shooting into the light that floods this entire house.

In the first picture I cropped out my mess on the table.

There's a beautiful bay window in this area. See the teeny little space between those windows? Yes, there are stripes in there, too.

I cleared my stuff off the table, which actually will move to the back of the house where there is room for the leaves that allow seating for twelve(!). The kitchen is to the right. The homeowners are thinking of using this as a sitting area. It's just to the left as you walk in the door. The living room is to the right as you walk in, the stairs are ahead just to the left. (Better Feng Shui than opposite the door.)

Stripes are a pain to tape off (it took me 7 hours to tape these - the ceiling is NOT straight and I did the top one three times). But so worth it.

The Baggage Carousel

 
Everybody has the same basic black rolling bag I have and it's hard to tell one from another when they're riding the baggage carousel. I did the 'tie a piece of fabric around the handle' thing and that helped, but I decided there had to be a better way.

Enter the stencil. And here is the transformation from basic to identifiable. (Pictures taken in the driveway because luggage in the house upsets the dog.)

The front is a Melanie Royals stencil called Endless Vine. I have three of them (I've used it a lot). One was cut up for corners and smaller spaces and that's the one I used on the front of the bag. See Melanie's wonderful website here.

Here are the cut-up pieces of a very well-used stencil:

The back stencil is from Peggy Ridgeway's Etsy shop, Artistic Stencils. Her shop is here. I saw this stencil on a blog someplace and looked it up - and she is in Seattle! Small world.

I didn't use fabric paint, just used stuff I had lying around. Golden acrylics, Proceed metallic pearl, and to finish it off I sprayed three coats of Deft Clear Wood Finish as a sealer. We'll see how it holds up. It gets its first test next week when I go to Reno for the International Decorative Artists League conference.