Purple People Eater

For as long as I can remember, I've struggled with shin splints. I like to run, so I generally try to stick to only doing a few miles with once a week or once every two weeks 5 milers built in. I also try to stick to running on the grass instead of the sidewalks.

With all of this running I've been doing lately for my fundraiser, my shins are just going downhill.

My friend Jenny emailed telling me about these compression shin sleeves. I used them on Saturday for my run and loved them. I think I need to wash and re-shrink them though for this Saturday's run. I wore them on Tuesday, and my shins aren't happy with me at all. I think I stretched them out too much.

I do look absolutely ridiculous in them though. They're pretty good at "breathing", so it doesn't make me any hotter than the normal 100 degree weather with 100% humidity does.

For our run on Saturday, Chris couldn't stop laughing at me, and insisted on getting a picture before we headed out at 6 a.m..

Wanna see?

.....

Okay, I have no shame...

So do you like my new fashion statement?

Subway Art - Part Two

Yesterday's Subway Art Tutorial shows how I'm getting over-confident with my crafting skills. I've had quite a few projects turn out right, and now I'm getting way ahead of myself!

I knew I didn't do the first Subway Art picture correctly, and I'm not a quitter, so I picked myself back up (and my ego as well) and tried a different approach for Sign #2.

I lined the edges with tape the same (since that was the only part of Subway Sign 1 that I liked). Instead of painting the entire thing black this time though, I first cut out my Letters and Numbers from the painters tape. I knew that I wanted my two subway signs to have the same lettering (even if I didn't love the first one), so I traced out the shapes of the AVE letters in the tape and then cut around them.

If you look back at yesterday's post, you'll see that the 3rd letter is supposed to be S and underneath of that, it's supposed to say SPECIAL.  By the time I'd reached this point, I was all about just doing whatever to finish up this project, so I took the easy way out.  I have no clue if there's a subway station T at 7th AVE, but it was easy, so I went with it.

I painted the entire thing black.  I tried initially to line around everything so that black paint wouldn't seep underneath the paint, but quickly gave up on that idea.

I removed the tape and was left with quite a bit of touch-up work to do.

After I traced and colored all of the letters with white paint, here's the final product on the wall:

All in all, this was my least favorite project, but I still like the way they look on the wall.

I've been working on decorating the living room for quite some time, and as I walk into the kitchen and look into it, I'm really proud and happy with the way it all turned out.

I started in April with hanging the ski's and picture frames on the wall, then built my bench with my fake sewed cushion for under the window, made over a clearance sign to relate to us and hung it above the ski art, made my key art for underneath my hung too high planked America, built some pallet shelves, added a new picture above the mantle, and finished with my subway art.  Not all of the projects have come out perfect, but I am happy with the end results!  I'm linking up to these fun parties...go check them out!

Worst Project in the Entire World - Part One

I finally finished it. Thank goodness!

First, let me explain why, for me, this is the worst project in the entire world.
1. I hate to tape. I don't even tape walls when I paint them because I make more of a mess and it takes more time.
2. I hate to paint. I love the way fresh paint looks, but I hate the act of actually doing it.
3. I have zero patience when it comes to projects. I can do things that are tedious and take a lot of time, but I do not have patience when it comes to being meticulous.

As most of my projects / ideas start off, I saw something from RH that I wanted, and decided to try to replicate it.

Image courtesy of Restoration Hardware

I started with 2 blank canvases from Jo-Ann's that I got for 40% off.

I wanted to create a framed look.  I measured 1/2" around the canvas and marked it with a pencil, and then applied tape to my marks.

I painted all of the white area with a few coats of black.  Yep, I got some paint on my toes...again.

I was really really excited at this point.  Minus a little bit of leak over, the frame part I was trying to create came out perfectly!

And then things started to go downhill.  I couldn't find stencils that were the right size, so I gave up looking.  I tried to print out and trace letters, and even with that, I couldn't figure out anything that would work size wise. So I improvised and made my own sized letters by taping the area I wanted to leave black.  What a freaking pain.  This took FOR.EVER.

I then painted all of the non taped letters white.  I had to go over it a million times with white to get it to cover the black.  Again, not the smartest.

This looked like an eye chart when I was done with it.  I still had to shape out the 6th and 8th street from the original picture shown, which took even longer than doing the big letters did.  I messed up quite a bit and kept removing and reshaping the tape, so when I was done, my white paint had leaked underneath my not-so-well sealed tape.

I touched the picture up with black paint and hung it on the wall.

Obviously, I had two pallet shelves that I made, so there's another subway art sign that I created.  That post will be Part Two.  I think the way I created this one was the hardest and dumbest way to do this (wow...all in one!).  I did use a different approach to the second subway art sign.  Stay tuned for part two to see the entire updated living room.
Happy Monday!