Inspiring!

Inspiration That Started It All




Good morning friends! I know most of you enjoy decorating your homes and making them a reflection of you. I may have gone just a "step" too far in that area. I'll let you be the judge. I've always wanted to paint a wall in a way that would personalize it. I faux finished a foyer once and was very please with that, but that wasn't the whimsical type of painting I had seen in pictures and always envisioned having in a room of my house. Since the children are all grown there were no "children's" rooms to get creative in I had to look for another room and an inspiration piece. I was unwrapping a special going away gift from one of my "Doodles" (I'll introduce you to them later) and voila, there was the inspiration I'd been looking for. A colorful wooden flip flop dangling from a hand-painted sign that said "Life Is Good At The Beach"!! What could be more perfect, flip flops (one of my very favorite things), the beach and all my favorite colors. Now, where to hang this inspiration piece and what to paint. Since my decor is pretty traditional with a little country French, the beachy, tropical colored flip flop didn't really fit in anywhere, but there was one place it might just work. My laundry room! What better way to make laundry day enjoyable than to be surrounded by cheerful colors and your favorite things. The first thing I needed was paint so off I went to the craft store and bought multiple bottles of acrylic craft paint a rainbow of colors. I already had brushes of all shapes and sizes so now all I needed was a pattern and a ladder. Making a flip flop pattern was fairly simple. It was basically drawing a figure eight. Once I had my necessary tools it was time for the fun to begin. I decided I would paint a border of flip flops around my laundry room ceiling. Step one was to trace the pattern at equal increments all around the room. Step one wasn't too bad, now for step two, step three, step four, step five............... are you getting the picture? It was one of those projects you start and shortly into the process you begin to think, "WHAT WAS I THINKING"?!!! I wanted every one to be different and have multiple colors and dimension I forget you have to wait for every color to dry before you can apply another one and some colors take more than one coat. Days later when the last embellishment was complete I stepped off the ladder and took a look at my handiwork (or insanity) and was very pleased with the results. I also added my favorite verse (which I want to re-paint with a finer line- one of these days). Would I do it again? Yes, absolutely! Not only does it make me smile while I'm doing laundry it's become sort of a novelty to my friends and family. Everyone likes to pick their favorite flip flop. So let me encourage you to be adventurous, grab a brush and some paint and go for it! You might just be glad you did.

****Enter To Win******BONUS*******FREE******It's You're Lucky Day**********

Now that I have your attention I want to give you the opportunity to be included in an exciting "Pay-It-Forward" challenge that I discovered on my friend Judy's blog at Just A Little Something For You. If you've never visited her blog you simply must stop by and get to know her. She has so many creative ideas I know you will love in addition to her always inspirational posts. It's been a pleasure meeting her and I know you will feel the same way. I was so excited to learn I was the first to leave a comment on her paying-it-forward post and can hardly wait to to see what I'll be receiving! I know it will be wonderful whatever it is. I can't wait to see who will be the first to leave a comment on this post and who I'll be paying-it-forward to.


Here’s how this works…. the first 3 bloggers to leave a comment on this post will receive a hand-made item from me. Those 3 bloggers promise to post this challenge on their blog (meaning they too will ‘pay-it-forward’, creating a handmade gift for the first 3 bloggers that leave a comment on their blog!!) That's a lot of hand-made love being passed around! :~) Here's the part I got really excited about...the gift can be anything you choose and any price range and you have 365 days to make & ship your item. Good luck and have fun creating!!