Sunday, January 25, 2009

Decorating a lamp shade

I thought I would share with you my latest decorating project. I have been wanting to have one of those fancy decorated lamp shades. They are a bit expensive so I thought I would try doing my own. Here is my shade, the light shines though it nicely and I have had it for a couple years now.















First thing I did was go online looking for free graphics of animals, be sure to put in the image option when doing this.




deer



bear




another deer

















moose





















trees








Now on the trees, these came from the graphics from my card program,
then I printed them off in color book mode.




Next, I
cut them
out, and
then colored
them in with
a magic
marker.









All colored
in and ready for
the shade.








Here I just used tape to attach the cut outs. I will get some
spray adhesive when I go to town, but for now I just have
them taped. Isn't it cool?














Enjoy making a project of your own, let your imagination help you
decide your design. Perhaps some leaves, birds, flowers...............

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Happy Accident

We are in the process of rearranging things after enlarging our house, so I put some things on a cabinet and ended up with a cute arrangement.














Below are 3 candle holders my FIL made for me. Generally these are made from birch, but these are from cottonwood. They dress up for holiday's with simple bows wrapped around them.
Look in your yard or the surrounding countryside for downed branches that could be made into these rustic accessories for just a little time.




















I thought I would share some of the things i have around the house that denote this decorating style. As I am looking around I am wondering if I should not say my style is country rustic, instead of rustic country..................hummmmmm.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

About decorating

Just what is rustic decorating? Lodge, cabin, or country for that matter. I did several searches looking for other blogs, hoping someone else was documenting their home, all I found were businesses selling items for this style of decor.

So just what is Rustic, Lodge, cabin, country.........RLC for short.

RLC, is about nature. Just as a beach decor incorporates the colors, plants and creatures found at the beach, and in southwestern you will find all kinds of things that showcase that area, in RLC you will find things from the mountains and the open plains, farms and ranches.

Lets think about things and colors you will find in the mountains.

Lions, tigers and bears (oh my), deer, elk, moose, duck, geese, birds of all kinds, fish, coyotes, eagles, buzzards, and the list goes on. Then there are trees of all kinds, pines, birch, all depending on what part of the country/planet you live in dictates what kind of trees are in your mountains and countryside.

Colors, what colors do you find in the mountains.....brown in the form of trees and dirt, green trees and grasses, the blue of the sky, then there are blacks, creams, tans, pinks and greens of rocks (and more), and what about wild flowers, that is a long list.

What about on the plains, or a farm or ranch. What critters are there? What natural colors do you find? If we look to nature for our color combination we can't go wrong, God is the Master artist, nothing he puts together is ugly, not if you really, really look at it.

Now you may ask why I include country with rustic, it is because they seem to blend into each other at their borders at least, just think of the Pondarosa (from the TV show Bonanza). What a beautiful example of rustic country.

Here is a question for you......What color to go with wood? According to nature?
Green? Trees are green, but wait, some trees change colors in fall, perhaps you can find good accents for your wood tones in fall leaf colors.

Maybe you don't like greens all that much, what about the colors surrounding a creek, or red clay bluffs, or........I think you get the idea. Look to nature for your color scheme.

So there you've got it, my style a combination of rustic (which includes the lodge and cabin) and country. Rustic Country. You will find even at that, that I believe in "mixin it up". I find sticking strictly to one style is very boring (that's just me), so you will find in my Rustic Country, elements from even other styles such as lace, stained glass, stitchery, many different woods, glass collections, doll collections, even some industrial elements, and more. I don't like things to match, I do like them to play together nicely, no shouting allowed, everyone using their inside voices. I also like the interplay of the mascline of the rustic, with the femine of counrty and a bit of Victorian thrown in there to boot.

So where to start?

Until later, blessings

Monday, January 12, 2009

Welcome to my Tin Shack

Welcome to my new blog. I have been looking for blogs about rustic, lodge, cabin, country decorating. I have not found one as yet, and am hoping others will find me.

This is my Tin Shack. It is sided with metal siding and has a metal roof all in silver. When the telephone guy came up to install our phone, we were in Ca. bring another load of our stuff up. Our friend was watching things and our contact person and the guy said to Terry...."They want a phone in this tin shack".















Our little house as seen here is 800 sq feet, we are in the process of adding 900 sq feet, more.
You can see all the building process and more on my Wyoming blog here.

I would like to explore rustic decorating, with lodge, country, cabin, including laces, stained glass and more.

I hope you will join me.