Slacker

The past few weeks' blog posts have been a bit thin, and I do apologize.  I did consider doing one on my home-away-from-home, a.k.a. the Boise Airport yesterday, as I got bumped off of one stand-by flight after another, for one unusual reason after another.  However, since I don't carry a laptop, there wasn't any way I could share with you the photos of my nest in a big sectional sofa in the lounge, or the myriad brightly colored kitchens that surrounded me with "almost-food" of every possible variety.  It woulda just sounded whiny, anyway.  Thus, September goes out with a bit of a whimper here on the blog.  I'll try to get back on track in October.  There are lots of nice jobs on my calendar, and lots of my own pretty projects to fill my "free" time too, so plenty to photo and write about here.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and I'll catch you Monday night.

Happy Birthday, Mamacita!

I'm taking a week's vacation to spend some time with my folks, and in fact we're celebrating my mama's birthday today.  So far on this trip, I've attended a Salt Lick Art Auction, where the used salt licks are auctioned for big bucks to support research on Parkinson's Disease, eaten fabulous food at my cousin's restaurant, made and canned pear sauce and pear nectar, and I am supposed to be picking raspberries right now, but like any kid, I've of course snuck back in, and am fooling around on the computer.  :)  I'll tell you all about it Friday morning.  For now, if you wanna know where I get my goofball sense of humor, cooking skills, and d-i-y fearlessness, meet my folks:

Inspiration: Ramon and Carolyn Lara 
 (click here)

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

After what must be one of the longest drum rolls in Minnesota history...

TA-DA!!!

I present you with:

365 Being,

Savoring a Life of Abundance, Joy and Beauty

"Three sixty-five Being" is a quarterly bookazine published by myself and Cathy Isles.  I could write more here, but we explain it all on the website  365being.com (designed by the insanely talented Shannon Barnes, featured on this blog sometime very soon).  Pop on over there, where you can read all about it, and how to get your copy of our premier "sampler" issue, a thinner version of the overflowing bookazines to come.

I am so incredibly grateful to Cat for tending to all the business of this.  She is deferring all the credit for the beauty of this first issue to me, but half the credit is hers.  Yes, I did much of the layout and a lot of the writing, but without her to run the business part of things this would still be one of those delicious ideas I daydream about in the shower.  Thanks to her, I'm too busy living the dream these days to run my water bill up that way.

I'm also incredibly grateful to all of you who read this blog.  Your comments and emails gave me the confidence to pursue this writing thing, so you're a big part of this adventure too.  The journey thus far has been slow and steady, but now comes the commitment to publish not just one book, but four. 

Every year. 

Starting NOW! 

(talk about acceleration)

Grab your hats, Dearhearts!  We're off!

Back to the drawing board...

Good old fashioned tech support.

Well, it's 11:00 p.m., and after an evening of wrestling with reducing photo files for pdf downloads, I'm just standing here at the computer, getting ready to type this blog post.  Standing?  Yup.  All this blogging, on top of all the writing, editing, designing and general business of the new Bookazine (which I think will finally debut this Friday), has been killing my ankle.  I'm not exactly sure why, but I have one ankle that, when forced to sit still at this computer for long stretches, gets puffy and tender.  All day up and down ladders, no problem, but 45 minutes on my butt, and the beastly little joint is screaming.  All day yesterday, up and down the stairs with large chunks of heavy furniture, and my ankle is quite happy...even if my back isn't.

There's been a good bit of press about the health risks of spending too much time sitting down all day at work.  Beyond the pain in the ankle and the flattening of my butt, apparently I'm supposed to be concerned that it's bad for my heart.  I don't think they are referring to the lack of love transpiring between myself and this cranky old computer, either.  Scientists say even office workers need to work standing up, and they've invented fancy new ergonomically correct desks and lifts, just for that purpose.  Of course, I had my own slightly more economical solution, and no, nothing cobbled from salvaged bedposts and upside down end tables, either, for a change.

I've been using my antique drafting table in the art studio just as a flat work surface, at standard height.  Not only was it not being used for its tilting or adjustable height features, it was eating up a lot of real estate, since nothing could be stored below it.  But it was too lovely a thing to let go of, so I made it work.  Until I needed my computer keyboard at waist height.  Of course, moving one table started a sort-of domino effect, and thus began the semi-annual upstairs/downstairs/way downstairs (thank God I don't store furniture in the attic!) rotation of large and unwieldy objects.

Aside from a slightly tender back, I now have a waist high drafting table in my office, holding computer, keyboard and phone rather than t-square and triangles.  I have a displaced chaise lounge blocking the hallway, awaiting it's place in a corner of the dance studio, which is currently occupied by a pretty but non-functional antique settee that I can't bear to part with.  I have a new work surface in the art studio twice the size of the drafting table, supported by a pair of bookshelves, and with room for even more storage.  And best of all, as I stand here typing, I have one very happy little ankle, giving me no trouble at all.  I'm sure my heart is safer, too, since I'm in love with the new arrangement.

Good thing it's all mostly back in place, 'cause I have a whole buncha projects and samples to be doing on the new and bigger art table, and though the Friday debut of 365 Being cannot be absolutely guaranteed, one thing is certain:  Time to get back to the drawing board, and start putting together the second issue!  :)))

Check back Friday, when HOPEFULLY we'll be launching!

A lovely Scottish dish...

Last Saturday, to celebrate completion of the first issue of 365 Being, and my first day off since I don't know when, I went to the Renaissance Festival.  I had especially wanted to go for this particular weekend, because it was Highland Games weekend, complete with kilt competition.  Being a Lewis descendant, I take my kilt inspecting duties seriously.  While an adorable tow-headed toddler in Royal Stewart stole the show, several others made a fair showing for themselves, these two among them...

Who won the vote by applause?  Modern cool or the whole nine yards?  Funny enough,the lovely laddie on the left won a t-shirt for third place, but top honors went to a woman in traditional dress who danced, and a ten year old boy in black watch.  Take heed advertisers, your public is not as dumb as you think.  Of course, we see who's picture I got. 

Most of the week has been taken up with trips back and forth to the printer, or to Cat's computer to fix minor flaws with the bookazine.  We also planned most of the winter issue, and I can't wait to get started on that.  Starting is always fun.  Can't say I'm as excited about the finishing part that follows, but I'm sure it will be easier than this first issue...right?

I do actually still decorate homes for a living, despite not showing an awful lot of that on here, lately.  I even spent much of today working on small studio projects and samples for upcoming jobs, but nothing nearly so photogenic as tartans, so I'll not even bore you with snapshots.  If you're going to eat dessert first, why spoil the decadence by following up with dinner?

My grandma knew what she was doing.

I'm kind of an old-fashioned gal.  Not in a fussy, prim or prude sense.  Certainly not in a women belong at home ironing their husbands' hankies sense.  But in a sensible, practical, creative, hand-made life sense.  These days it's referred to as being green, eco-aware, or crunchy (as in granola).  In my grandmother's day, it was called thrifty, wise, and just how things are done.  Here are some of my favorite old-fashioned things:

Kitchen essentials at Belle Ami. 

Cloth napkins.  Always, but especially nice if you are serving rotisserie chicken without forks.  On laundry day, I have to check my van for the ones that went out the door wrapped around my usual peanut butter and honey sandwich, eaten on the fly.  Cat, my partner in the bookazine, loves to fold them, so I try to leave this for her to do, when we meet at my house.  Nice of me, huh?

Pocket door tracks do double duty around here!

Hanging my laundry to dry.  Always.  Best thing to happen to my gas bill was for the dryer belt to break when my money was tied up and not available for calling in the repair service.  No outside line?  Me neither, since a neighboring business creates too much grain dust.  If the basement is smelling too damp to hang things on lines down there, I put everything on hangers and hang those in the track of my pocket doors, before I go to bed.  If I didn't have pocket doors, I'd put dowel rods in a few less-used doorways.  It takes a few minutes more, but I figure it balances out to about $20/hour, with the savings I pocket.

Vintage charm:  1940's wall paper still lines the cupboard behind 60's and 70's glass cocktail plates.

China or glass plates and real silver for parties.  Never disposable anything.  Glass cocktail plates can be picked up for a song at yard sales, and just a little more at thrift stores.  They look great in any season, and paired with mismatched vintage silver from the same sources, they're far more charming, not to mention sturdy, than paper plates and plastic forks.  If you like tea cups and flowers, collect mismatched china instead.  Or, if you don't mind having only one cupboard for food, collect both...in quantity.  Yes, Papa, I do believe food does taste better on a color-coordinated plate.

Not only does it house napkins, rolling pin and floral arranging supplies, this multi-purpose dresser holds a tray to catch keys and pocket clutter, keeping them off of the table.

Dressers in every room.  Antique and vintage ones, made from real wood.  Need a place to store those cloth napkins?  A shallow dresser in the walkway leading to the kitchen holds 'em.  Someplace to put croquet mallets and badminton rackets and the extra dog dishes?  Stow them in a brightly painted dresser on the porch.  Office supplies?  Board games?  Art materials?  More art materials?  The other art materials?  You get the idea.  The only place I don't use one?  My bedroom.  I built custom shelving in the closet that works better for clothes.



Fairly-fast food.  Homemade soup can happen in little more than thirty minutes.

 Homemade soup.  Tonight's started with a surplus of tomatoes and zucchini, simmered with some miso, onion, garlic, bell pepper, olives, butter beans, diced potato, and all the slightly limp celery from accidentally turning the fridge too cold.  A handful of basil, and the left-over pasta sauce, and it's Italian veggie soup.  Next week, pork and sweet potato.  Fast, easy, and sooooo good.

Sure, being an old-fashioned gal sometimes takes a little more time and effort, but I think it's a trade-off.  I don't spend my time rushing to the store to buy convenience items.  I don't need to shave minutes from my schedule by eating packaged food so that I can race to the gym right after picking up a prescription for digestive aids.  I'm not working extra hours to pay for utilities to fuel my conveniences, or for furniture that will fall apart before it's paid off.  Such old fashioned ideas might not be right for everyone, but the charm factor they add to Belle Ami is appreciated by the friends who gravitate here, and I know most of them are making similar changes to their own lifestyles. 

Eco-chic.  Gran was ahead of her time.

Well, alrighty then...

It's Friday morning, and as I was logging on to check all things online, I realized something.  Yesterday was Thursday.

I blog on Thursdays.  Have done every Thursday for a couple of years. 

Except last night.

Oops.

Apparently after a solid month of computer work - editing, proofing, and fixing magazine pages - on top of my regularly scheduled wall work, I am in need of a few days off.  My soul knows it, even if my brain is chattering away, organizing, planning, designing, listing, re-listing, re-listing, re-listing, re-listing...

Apparently, my soul knows where the override switch is.

I'll be back Monday, splashin' happy on something.  Have a great weekend!

Crazy Good

Way back in March, my friend Cat Isles and I decided to turn a series of books that we were shopping to publishers into a self-published magazine, instead.  It seemed a good idea at the time.  Many months, and many, many, many hours of writing and design later (not to mention all of Cat's additional work on the business end of things), the idea seems...
insane? Nope.  Well, okay, that depends on perspective.
grandiose? So?
impossible? Hardly
unwise? See grandiose.
too big? too hard? too expensive? too...

much fun for words!!!
 (and kinda exhausting, but in a good way)

I promised you a preview tonight, and I'm doing my best to keep my word, but there's a small glitch with that.  I can't load a newer graphics program onto my old computer, so I've done all the final design on Cat's.  I do save everything to a handy little gadget that I'm fairly certain is called a flash drive (yes, this from the person in charge of graphic design [insert sheepish smiley face here]), but the gadget is not in my pocket.  I know, because I just ran down and pulled my jeans back out of the washer in mid-cycle, and it's definitely not there.
 
Whew!

This means my auxiliary brain is stuck to Cat's computer.  My actual brain seems to have been left there, too.  No matter.  It will all be there in the morning, when I go back to do a final proof.  Nope, didn't quite get it out on the blue moon as hoped (sigh).  I do have most of the photos on my computer, however, so here's a shot of the cover in progress:



365 Being cover in the raw.  Can't wait to show you the final lettered version!


The original plan was to use a watercolor-tinted pen and ink drawing, and I had nearly finished that when I realized it really didn't coordinate with how the inside of the bookazine had come together.  I needed the heron to be painted more in the style of my murals.  Frighteningly, I actually considered painting it as a mural, just for this shot. 

Yes, two weeks past our target date for completion, and a week before our self-imposed absolute deadline for delivering to the printer, and I was planning to spend a night painting a mural.  This is what deadline pressure does to my artist brain.  Turns me into a raving perfectionistic lunatic.  Fortunately, my inner 3-year-old kicked up a fuss at the thought of losing a full night of sleep, so sanity prevailed, and I got out a nice piece of poster board.

It's been a minefield around Belle Ami lately!  Shooting many of the backgrounds for the pages involved creating temporary collages atop sample boards, laid on the floor in the best lit locations.  In my home, those are the doorways between rooms.  of course, I didn't want to move anything until I tested the photos with the words.  Obviously, no pets or kids in this house!

As a bookazine, 365 Being doesn't look like a regular magazine.  Aside from the lack of advertising, there's also a lack of white pages.  You see, each issue will be done in a style inspired by the artists featured within.  This time, we kept it simple, and used my art (our other featured artists in this issue are British filmmakers, so it was a little hard to use their style), and in case you don't know this about me (you're new here, huh?), I don't paint white walls.  The page backgrounds are all shot from my samples, or from actual walls I've done, layered up with bits and trinkets to illustrate the stories.  I'm kinda waiting to hear if the printers up the price when they see how much ink they're going to be using!

Our website should go live any day, and as soon as it does, single issues and subscriptions will be available.   As a lover of real books, of course I think it is worth buying the print version, but it will be available in PDF as well.  So, just how nuts are we?  Buy the bookazine and find out! ;)

You can actually contact Cat or myself to purchase a regular subscription now, if you plan to pay by check.  We do have a special offer for early birds, especially because we know our earliest birds will be our loyal friends and readers.  Thank you all so much for your encouragement, and special thanks to one of our heroes, artist and author Maureen Carlson, who called dibs on the first subscription months ago.  We may be crazy, but we're also blessed, and we know it.

You can contact me, as always, about this or any decorating and painting questions, in the comments below, or by email at dawnmariedelara@gmail.com.

Every once in a...

Every once in a blue moon (well actually, just a little more often than a full moon lands twice in one month), I have to beg off from writing my blog post.  Tonight is one of those nights.  I'm finishing the last of the pages for our new Bookazine, 365 Being, Savoring a Life of Abundance, Joy and Beauty, and if I stay on it, I just might get the pages numbered and off to the printer before they close tomorrow.  They won't do a thing with them until Monday, but finishing on the blue moon seems too fun to miss.  Check back Monday night, for the first peek at the finished product!

(note, we were playing with the scanner, to see what it would do with dimensional objects, for the winter issue.  Office Monster's scanner will catch lettering that isn't against the glass.  So far, we haven't quite got it, thus the blur on the fairy's wings.  Seemed too cute to not post, anyway.  We'll get 'er figured out before the next issue, or drive the kids behind the counter at Office Monster nuts.  Either one works!)

Zin City

Zinnias are like fireworks, very, very quiet fireworks...or fireworks are like zinnias.

When you have a house in the middle of downtown, you kinda want to keep the yard looking nice, right?  Me too.  Unfortunately for the townsfolk, my best intentions don't quite meet my reality.  I do try.

 I have schoolkids who show up occasionally to mow (usually the day before a rainstorm/heatwave combo that sends my grass shooting right back skyward so fast you can see it grow, so it's terminally shaggy), and I did dig up a lot of new flower beds (and even planted most of the area I dug up).  I even (uuuuugh) weeded...some...sort of...before I got really busy with putting together the magazine, in addition to a full schedule of wall work, so the crabgrass is filling in the bare spots in the flower beds quite nicely.  Still, I have one good trick up my sleeve:  Zinnias!

This is about the only plant combination I seem to have mastered.  The marigolds reseeded from last year, and the zins grow from seed, even when planted late in June.  Neither is fussy about going thirsty.  Easiest splash of happy ever!

I have discovered that a patch of these brilliant beauties, with some marigolds at their ankles, draws peoples eyes away from all the untended garden, and even the listing mail box, and peeling trim on Belle Ami's balcony. Even if they do notice it, apparently I am absolved of my sins of neglect, by the outrageously unrelenting cheerfulness of this little patch, in the front corner of my yard. I figure that if I don't get the hang of balancing this new magazine business, living life, not just writing about it, by next summer, I'll just plant the whole yard in zinnias. The house might stlill need a dab of paint, and I may look pale as Gollum by then, but nobody will be looking at anything but these brazen beauties. Ha! A plan as brilliant as they are!   

Pinkalicious!  No, that's not the variety, just a comment.  These seeds have been passed down through a couple of generations of a family related to Belle Ami's last owners.  I usually forget to save the seeds, but I get a new batch every spring at the garden club plant exchange.  Easy and  beyond cheap.... Zinfully good!

What keeps me too busy for a proper garden?  Producing a new magazine, 365 Being, Savoring a Life of Abundance, Joy and Beauty, which will debut VERY soon.  Oh, and there is my day job, painting beautiful walls for nice folks, just like you.  You can check out my portfolio at theartofthehome.com.

Got a question?  Did google send you here, but you don't see what you're looking for?  Sometimes I see the search question in my stats, and think "Oh, I could answer that, even though it's not on this blog!", but of course, I can't contact whoever was searching...unless you email me or leave a comment below.  dawnmariedelara@gmail.com

Jean's villa in...Lakeville, Minnesota?

A close up showing the faux stone.  I didn't tape the wall, as wallpaper will be installed against the "stone", and bleeding the paint helps the paper hanger get a better looking edge.

As promised last week, here's the rest of the story of the doorway to Italy.  I love it when a job goes exactly as planned, especially when we made major changes midway through, dropping the iron gate, and creating the dimensional stone surround.  The biggest challenge was getting the stones to match the darkest tile colors, and also play nice with the darkest tone in the wallpaper.  I glazed them to match the stone first, then came back over with a hint of a slightly greener brown, rubbed in here and there.  The difference wouldn't be spotted  in a dye lot of cultured stone, but it creates an imperceptible bridge between the apricot tan of the wall tile and the burlap tan of the wallpaper.

The stone, made from roughly trowelled joint compound, is base coated, then glazed with artist acrylics thinned with glaze.

I rarely get to work in a totally bare bathroom, so this was a treat, not trying to straddle the stool for four days.  On the other hand, it doesn't make for the prettiest final shot, just yet.  The crown molding arrived yesterday morning, and the wallpaper gets hung tomorrow, so by the time I go back in a few weeks for the dining room glaze, this room should be put together.  I'll show you what other gorgeousness Jean's designer loads into this tiny space then.

Care to go for a stroll across Italy?

Bookazine update:  Aaaaaallllllllmooooooossssssst ready.  Website nearly up, too.  Thank goodness we have a web designer for that one, 'cause just learning page layout in "modern" programs is stretching my poor old brain quite enough.  I do have some computer design experience, but yes, boys and girls, there was a day when it was done manually, on light tables, with strips of type, photos, Xacto knives, and tissue overlays with directions for the guys downstairs, and yes, I'm old enough to remember it (but, on the bright side, not old enough to have forgotten it).  365 Being, coming soon...

When I'm not struggling with bookazine pages, I do still paint murals like these, for people like you.  More ideas, and how to hire me at theartofthehome.com.

DIY questions?  Ask in the comments, or email me at dawnmariedelara@gmail.com.

Savory and sweet, to start the week...

Oh, yum!  My friend Mary 2 (there are three Marys with the same last name, here in Belle Plaine, and all three are friends of mine, thus the number) brought me bags of fresh herbs from her garden, last week... a few different basils, rosemary, sage, dill, and lemon balm.  She grew masses of them, but aside from the typical basil-in-pasta-sauce kinds of recipes, she didn't know how to use them.  I suggested she try them in salads, using them just like greens, if she had that many. 

I really do mean use them generously.  Don't be shy.  Pile them on!  I love big fat basil leaves shredded in a salad, or tossed with balsamic vinegar and heirloom tomatoes, or piled on a roast beef or cheese sandwich, in place of lettuce.  Mint and melon are incredibly fresh together, and lemon balm and rosemary with berries, this week's discovery, are amazing!

Sliced strawberries and plump blueberries were mixed with shredded lemon balm leaves, and finely chopped fresh rosemary, then topped with a splash of balsamic vinegar and a drizzle of honey.  I let that sit for about an hour, then served it over greens.  It was fine with spinach, but a dark leafy lettuce would have been better.  This is my new favorite fruit salad, and I'm definitely growing lemon balm next year! 

After spending most of the past five days working on magazine pages, tough work that involved photographing a lot of yummy food (somebody has to eat the props, no?), it was fun to take a break and teach an art class.  Faithie is my only Artgirl these days, as my work schedule is now too full to take on new students, but that's okay.  She makes my Mondays sparkle all on her own!  We're starting a unit on weaving.

We made the pin board from a piece of bulletin board, covered with cotton batting and muslin.  Faith chose several ribbons from my stash, and decided to create an embellishment for a T-shirt, as a gift for her little sister.

We cut a square of fusible interfacing a little bigger than her heart motif, and laid it face UP on the pin board.  Faith ran a series of parallel (warp) ribbons over this, pinning them on only ONE end.  It's faster to weave across them, if one end is loose, and you flip these up, rather than trying to slip the weft ribbons up and down between them. Faith pinned down each weft ribbon at the starting end, wove it through, then pinned it in place on the other end.  Once her square was finished, and with the pins in place, we pressed it with an iron, using a press cloth, to bond the interfacing to the back.  (choose ribbons that can take the heat!)

Here you see Faith cutting around her heart template.  We saved the scrap for another project, of course.

Faith sewed the heart onto a T-shirt, using a wide zig-zag stitch, then embellished the point with a bead dangle, which not only looks sweet and sparkly, but hides a little pucker at the point.  There's not much that can't be fixed with a little bit of fancy!

This was the first of a series of weaving projects we're doing, exploring how this technique is used for everything from fine silk fabric, to the wire fencing that will keep Bucko Bunny out of my herb bed, and all sorts of glorious art things in between.  Of course we'll share our adventures, and we would love any suggestions for favorite materials or projects.

For the rest of the week, when not ever-so-slowly (but happily) building pages for the bookazine, I'll be finishing last week's Tuscany mural, in time for Thursday night's blog post.  Check back Friday morning, if you're waiting to see how that comes out.  Other murals can be seen on my website, theartofthehome.com.

If you have questions about any of the techniques featured here, please feel welcome to ask.  I'll be glad to share any secrets I know!  Leave a message by commenting below, or email me at dawnmariedelara@gmail.com.  

Just a quick little mural job...

So, in Monday's post, I mentioned I had a sweet little mural job to paint this week, and promised to have pictures on here tonight. And I did work on a sweet little mural job this week, and I do have pictures to share. I just didn't exactly finish the sweet little mural job. But I can explain! See, it went like this...

My client, Jean, decided to gut her guest bath, which included blue fixtures, and do a complete redesign.  The new design includes a niche, in which her designer friend Thomas (last name in a future post), wanted me to paint a mural of Tuscany.  Maybe with a wrought iron gate.  I masked the area, and got started.

Working from several sample photos, I created a scene with the ratio of sky to land that Thomas wanted, and was pretty much ready to paint leaves on the foreground branches, when I decided to show them a sample of a trompe l'oeil (fool the eye) stone surround I could paint, rather than the wallpaper in their original plan.  Jean and Thomas both loved that, but when I explained I could go one step better and create actual dimension, Jean got positively giddy.  I love giddy clients!

So, out came the tape, and you guessed it...the joint compound.  I marked off the "stones" with chalk, cut tape into about 1/4 inch strips, masked it, and started trowelling on the mud.

The trick here is to take advantage of the air they whip into pre-mix mud, which creates lovely little pock marks in your stones.  The other trick is to remove the tape while the mud is wet, or you will be very sad...or very frustrated.

So, that's as far as I got.  Most of the mural is painted (the wrought iron gate was nixed, in favor of the focus being the scene, not the architecture), and the "stones" are drying.  Not sure what you'll find here Monday night, but do check in, and then if you want to see how this turns out, check back next Thursday, when I'm pretty sure this will be all done.  It's a small space, so there's only so much a client can add, right?

You'll find more samples of plaster and mural artistry on my website, theartofthehome.com, along with all the information on how to hire me to create something special, just for you.

If you want to try this yourself, but need more detail than I included here, don't be shy about asking.  You can leave questions in the comments below, or email me at dawnmariedelara@gmail.com.   

It's a dirty job...

Sometimes, my job is extra tough, like this morning, when, in lieu of breakfast, I had to perfect the recipe for Dirty Devils, which will be included in the autumn issue of 365 Being, Savoring a Life of Abundance, Joy and Beauty.  I've (almost) never been tempted to cook professionally, as in chef-in-a-restaurant sort of cooking, but this is fun.  This is the creative part, without the endless repetition.  Not that I don't have to retest the same recipe numerous times, but after about 14 retakes of devilled egg filling, it all starts to taste like pickle drenched sulphur, so I may as well call it as good as it gets, and get on with perfecting something else.

Dirty Devils on a bed of salad greens.  A swanky appetizer any time of the year!

If you can't wait for the bookazine to try these, I'll give you a couple of hints: If you aren't a martini drinker, you may not have caught the dirty reference, which denotes heavy on the olives, in this case both kinds. And, you want these "dry", as in "not sweet", so use dill pickle juice. You can probably figure it out in fewer than 14 tries, but if not, the recipe will be out soon!

When not overindulging in green olives, I do actually decorate homes for a living. I should be back here Thursday night with a sweet little landscape of Italy, painted in an arched niche, which is my day job this week. If you don't already know me, and what I do, you can check out my portfolio of possibilities at theartofthehome.com.

Reporting oh, so live...

Drafts of some of the pages of the soon-to-debut quarterly bookazine, 365 Being, Savoring a Life of Abundance, Joy, and Beauty.

What a great week, so far!  We're finally starting to put together pages for 365 Being, and it's looking good! This involves learning to use a computer program I last dabbled in about 17 years ago, when I was forced, kicking and screaming, to integrate technology into my business as a sign painter.  Corel Draw has changed a lot.  My computer hasn't.  Thus, I'm having to learn all about new computers, too.  In fact, I'm learning lots of things this week...tax ramifications and liability concerns for partnerships vs. S-corps...what all those other settings on my camera are for...to remember to measure ingredients for recipes I am creating for this issue...and how patient my business partner really is. 



Do you know how many times one tests a recipe before it is perfect enough to publish?  As many times as it takes to translate my usual "toss in about..." to "add one half cup..." 

I also had a really precious afternoon, yesterday.  One of my dearest friends from childhood, one I haven't seen since I was about eleven, and only recently reconnected with on facebook, had a long layover in Minneapolis, so I drove up to spend a few hours with her.  For all the years lost, the bond was still there, and why we loved each other was still obvious. 

We poured out 35 years of life stories in two and a half hours (she's a journalist, if that helps explain how we could get through that much life, that fast).  It was a bit like skipping stones over the surface of a pond, but every now and then, one would sink down into the deeper waters.  We are a year apart in age, but share a birthday. Un-twins. Although we looked similar as kids, we don't mirror each other, so much as we each have something the other has less of. Two sides of the same coin? Puzzle pieces that interlock?  Something like that.  Something too precious to let slip away again. 

The managerial staff at 365 Being had a tough job, as usual, today.  Cat's furballs are such task masters!

I have to admit I went kicking and screaming onto facebook, a few years ago, and I carry a cell phone so rarely that the last time it rang while I was driving, I thought my radio had mysteriously turned itself on!  If it wasn't for this new magazine (and of course this blog), I could live quite easily without technology and social media.  Watching Teri panic over a laptop that wouldn't charge (eyeliner pencil in the power cable port, a hazard male reporters rarely face, I'm told), I thought how glad I am that I don't rely on it (technology, not eyeliner pencil, tho...oh, never mind).  Then, a couple of hours later, watching her go through security to board her next flight, I found myself thinking how incredibly grateful I am for this amazing technology that has reconnected so many long-lost friends.

365 Being, Savoring a Life of Abundance, Joy and Beauty, is a bookazine all about living from the heart, and although it is mostly about life unplugged, I think I'll be very careful not to bash technology and social media.  Not only do I owe yesterday's reconnection to it, but I'd hate to tempt the fates, and find my career nearly derailed by an eyeliner pencil in my power port.  This lifetime is finite.  Don't miss your connections.

I adore this color...

This great room was painted earlier this summer, using two shades of moss green, and a Woolie tool.  The clients, Mike and Lois, were not at all concerned about leaping from off-white to saturated green.  The windows allow in a lot of light, which really bounces off of the floor and ceiling, keeping the space from becoming cave-like.

I have lots of favorite colors.  In fact I like almost every color, in some context.  Well, maybe not fluorescent orange.  It's quite effective on traffic cones, but I don't guess I could claim to actually like it.  I do like the assuredness of apricot, and the juicy hues of sunsets, though.  Especially when the grenadine fades out into velvety purplish blue.  I'm not a huge fan of pure blue, but lean it in either direction, toward periwinkle or robin's egg, and you'll find it on my walls, ceilings, cabinets, a door, a floor, and some of my furniture. 

Hopefully this close-up makes it to your monitor still showing the lovely dappled blend.

Yellow?  Yellow isn't a personal favorite, in most cases, but through no fault of it's own.  My bedroom got painted yellow when I was about four, without consulting me, and I got in a spot of trouble for embellishing it.  We've never fully reconciled, yellow and I.  Still, a bowl of lemons, or a patch of black-eyed Susans makes me smile every time.  (Fortunately, Mama and I have reconciled, though I do occasionally needle her with a reminder that people now pay me to color on their walls.)

This view shows how well moss green anchors the massive brick fireplace and the family-sized sectional.

Pink is my color for happiness, as well as Divinity (both the candy, and the Great Creator).  I don't know if I could ever explain this, but I think in shades of pink, so yes, I do see the world through rose-colored glasses.  Purple is a deeper shade of divine, and is one of my favorite colors for garden flowers, and for all things rich and regal.  Purple damask, plum velvet, lavender silk, all can be found in my main living areas, including the art studio. 

One of the concerns when helping these clients choose a color, was that it had to look good with the family room furniture, the kitchen cabinets and new granite counters, the burgundy dining room that adjoins this space, and the view outside the windows, which changes with the seasons.  Can you think of another color this flexible?

But while my love of certain colors ebbs and flows, and each has it's place in my life, there is one constant.  Moss green.  Not one shade, by a certain manufacturer, but the whole range of slightly brownish greens, ranging from deep pinon, to turtle shell, to pale olive, and preferably several shades, at once. 

There isn't a color I like that moss green won't play nice with.  It's diplomatic, cozy, traditional, and timeless.  It is supportive of boisterous young colors, and soothing with old dusty ones.  It can hold it's own against the strongest of personalities, from screaming fuchsia to rebel red. On the other hand, it can fill a room, and still not overpower a conversation between the most delicate tints of rose and thistle.  If I decide to recommend moss green to a client, I am never worried it will let them down.

The lovely thing about blending more than one shade of green is that the wall color has the same organic feel as the wood and stone.  Nature rarely displays huge expanses of flat color, so a blended finish can feel more natural, if that's your desire.

Like Mr. Darcy, or even James Bond (or perhaps more appropriately, Kermit the Frog), moss green is also pretty trend-proof.  It comes strongly into fashion every now and again, but it never goes out of style.  Both elegant and casual, fresh yet constant, energetic by day, romantic by candlelight, strong but gentle...what more could one want in a color?

You'll find a whole rainbow of colors in my portfolio, at theartofthehome.com.

Have any passionate attractions to a particular color?  Tell us all about it, by clicking on the word "comments" just below this post.  Blogger allows you to post anonymously, if your affair with something other than beige is not yet public knowledge. ;)))

Just faux fun...

My week has been full of fun, so far, which is good, because in a few hours I am going to be forced to do a serious mountain of bookkeeping, which will only be made bearable by the fact that my friend, Cat Isles, is going to hold my hand the whole time. Actually, she is going to do the data entry part, while I hold the check register and read off the amounts and categories. Actually, I can't whine too much, 'cause she spent most of yesterday sorting my receipts. Really.  She thinks this kind of stuff is fun. I think she might be nuts, but she thinks the same of me, so we're in good company, at least.  Whatever.  Back to the real fun... 

Remember Jean from last week, with the vanity and curio cabinet? This week, I got to meet with her designer to plan the next mural in her house,  That will be a Tuscan landscape viewed through a wrought iron gate, to be painted in a couple of weeks, in her powder room.  Once those plans were ironed out, I got busy painting stuff down in her family room.  Remember the columns? Here's what I painted on top of them, this week:



Reclaimed barnwood half-column, topped by trompe l'oeil urn of flowers, fruit and twigs.

Inspiration for the style and composition came from this clipping, from an old issue of Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion.  I sure miss that magazine.



Here's the full shot.  While I go paint other projects, and work on getting a magazine to press, dark brown carpet is going in, and the accessories will be placed, so they won't look so lonesome, when the room is finished.



 And now, I can stall no longer.  I'm off to endure torture by numbers.  Maybe Cat will feed me chocolate after.  That would make me almost as happy as being paid to color on people's walls!

If you have questions or comments, please leave them below, or you can email me at

dawnmariedelara@gmail.com.

Can I color on your walls?  My portfolio and all the info on how to hire me can be seen at theartofthehome.com. 

All in good fun...

How was your weekend?  Did you work?  Do anything fun?  Take care of your soul?  All three?  Gold star for you!  I guess I get a gold star, too...

On Friday, I did a little more work on the (apparently) never-ending mural at Unity of the Valley:

Baby bear looks to see what mama's watching

From way over in the forest, they're observing the race between the tortoise and the hare.  (Scroll through older posts, if you want to see more of this ongoing mural project)



A mural full of playful animals wouldn't be complete without otters!



These two hang out with a pair of playful dolphins.  I think a squid is next.

On Saturday, I went to a mini spiritual retreat.  It was held at a private home about a half an hour from here, and most of our day was spent within a few feet of this gorgeous pool:

Walking out to the pool, I looked to the right, to see this beautifully designed waterfall, which levels out for a few feet before the pool, creating a birdbath easily viewed from the screen porch.

My inner three year old went straight for the big rocks, placed at the perfect distance for hopping across the pool.  To my surprise, I realized there were stairs down into the water to my left!  This could only mean...

It's a swimming pool!!!  This view is from the bottom end looking back toward the steps, and the waterfall, which is partly obscured by the screen porch.  Yes, the maintenance is a bit more involved than a regular pool, and yes, there are other things my darling home needs first, and no, I don't have a sloped property for siting a waterfall, but I WANT THIS!!!

On Sunday, I meant to work on the cover art for 365 Being, but I had new colored pencils to test, and oil pastels to try, neither of which I have used since high school, so mostly I ignored both work and housekeeping, and just had fun:

I never liked working with colored pencils in school.  When a friend brought Prisma Colors to an open studio gathering, and I saw how rich the colors were, I knew I had to try them.  This may be my new favorite medium!  These are the soft ones.  They may make several varieties, but the selections at my nearest supplier were soft, hard and water soluble.  If all you ever tried were hard, and you didn't like them, try the soft ones! 

I'm not sure I've ever really drawn anything with oil pastels.  I did buy a very inexpensive set (the whole array cost less than three Prisma Color pencils), so I probably haven't given them a fair shake.  I don't dislike them, but I don't know if Ill use them much, mostly because they tend to smudge and smear, and I'm not really good at keeping things tidy when I'm playing.  Still, for less than five bucks, they were waaay more fun than my childhood crayons!  If you like to color, you might want to try these!

So that was my weekend: some work, some play, some spirit time.  The best part?  You might have noticed...they're all pretty much the same.  Do I know how amazingly fortunate I am?  You betcha!  Do I wish this kind of contentment for every one of you?  To the bottom of my bottomless heart, I do!

If you have questions or comments, you can leave them below by clicking on the word "comment", or feel free to email me at dawnmariedelara@gmail.com.

If you would like to see what other styles of murals I paint, and what other decorating services I offer, pop on over to the website, at theartofthehome.com. 

Sorry, can't hear you, I'm in the bathroom...again.

Pretty little details around a bathroom window.

It's a good thing I have big exciting stuff happening this summer, like the birth of a new magazine, because otherwise, this would go down as the summer of garage doors and bathrooms. Have I painted anything else? Scroll down and check. Oh, never mind! There was a pink bat and blue llamas. Whew! For a minute there, I was worried things were getting strange.

These pieces inspired the style of the painted detail in this bathroom.

Todays bathroom paint job was a repaint of one that I did for the first time, about seven years ago. Just details. They did some work on the ceiling, and after that, the walls needed fresh paint, so Shirley gave them a couple of coats of off-white, and had me come back to add pretties. Last time, it was little pink rosebuds. This time, she had some French/Belgian themed accessories, inspired by a trip taken to Paris several years back, along with adorable cut-work bath mats she bought in a shop there. She went to Paris, fell in love with a leather jacket and a beautiful white sweater, but came home with bath mats. That's a bit sad, but the bathmats are way-much nicer than anything we have here, at least.  It apparently had something to do with a frugal husband tagging along, so put that on the Things Not to Take to France list, dear hearts!

There are a couple more of these corner details in the room, keeping the focus on the window, but carrying the decoration to other walls.

I riffled through a few books of ornamentation, and pulled together an idea for lines and scrolls, to surround the window, and accent a few corners. I painted three samples. Solid black was too stark. Tan scrolls with fine black line work was better, but the black was still to jarring. Finally, I tried doing the pattern in shades of light brown and bone. Just right! Though she wanted black and white to dominate, there is a lot of oak in the trim and cabinets, so this palette helped settle that into the design of the room. Shirley is pleased, and I'm on to my next project...

Yup, another bathroom.  Actually, I do get to spend tomorrow working on the mural at Unity of the Valley, adding a lizard, sea otter, and maybe a grizzly bear, to the bat, llamas, and other previously painted residents of that technicolor landscape.  So, animals Monday, then yet another bathroom on Thursday, if things go as scheduled...(it could happen).  Do check back!

You can also check out my portfolio, which I promise does include something other than bathrooms, garage doors, and improbable animals, at theartofthehome.com. 

Can I answer any questions?  clarify a process, or advise on a product?  Don't hesitate to ask, in the comments below, or by emailing me at dawnmariedelara@gmail.com.