FUN WITH PHOTOGRAPHY - french coffee table

This solid maple table was painted with

10 min dry EXCEL spray paint in Oyster Grey.

It's a beautiful color and the paint provides a

 remarkable hard, durable, and professional finish.

Unfortunetly it is hard to find and has a

very strong odor when first applied.

TEA ANYONE?

The view is amazing!

For more pieces finished in white:

http://4theloveofwood.blogspot.com/p/white.html

I'm sharing the view at:

Monthly Mosaic March

Time flies! Another month of this new year (is it still new? sure feels like it) is already over. I had many plans for my shop for this year, but I kind of feel like I've nothing so far due to my arm and wrist injury. So I reviewed this month by checking out my own blog entries and found out that even without almost no sewing, it was quite an eventful month on here. 

Even though I didn't blog and sew as much as I had intended, I did blog quite a few things (including two tagging games), I interviewed five lovely and crafty ladies (this was a long month with five Wednesdays), I searched the web for the most impressive cupcakes (still dying to try some with marshmallow frosting), and I even baked rainbow cupcakes! 

And I did sew a little these last two days and finished a butterfly! I also finished another big project, my first pdf pattern and tutorial and I want to make many more. And I did all this while taking the Indie Business course in the background, and getting to know and networking with all my awesome classmates!

So I guess it was a productive month after all! From now on I'll review every month like this, with a monthly mosaic, to remind myself I'm not just doing 'nothing'! On the contrary :).

A BARN GEM - white washed dove grey table

The neighbors had a yard sale early this month,

and of course we scurried over to take a peek.

This little guy musta been hidden in their barn for a

 bit of time, but was now time for a new home

..... AND A NEW LIFE!

The only products I used to achieve this look were
primer, stain, and a finish wax.

If anyone would like to

 see a post on how I accomplished it let me know

 below and I'll be happy to write a tutorial

with photos I took during the project.
UPDATE: tutorial can be found here:
*JUST PRIMER AND SOME WAX*

Joining the ladys at:

Lumieres

HERE

How to code a blog button

These past couple of days I've been having fun making new buttons for this blog (see right sidebar) and the eleventh monkey blog. Buttons are images that other people can share on their blog, usually in the sidebar, to link straight to blogs or websites they like and want their readers to know about.

Some logo buttons made with Inkscape:

Some old buttons that I still love:

My new Hipstamatic buttons:

And a bunch of monkeys serving as 'square' PNG buttons:

It has taken me a while to figure it all out perfectly and delete unneeded parts of code, but I ended up with an HTML code that really works well for me. It allows me to show a message to people who hover over 'grab a button' and most importantly to adjust sizes quickly without resizing and reuploading images. 

If anyone else wants to make a button but doesn't know how to code it yet, here you go:

Lou C's Designs

1. Could you tell us a bit about yourself? 

My name is Kristy and I own Lou C’s Designs (handmade jewelry). I am a Texas girl, I grew up in Dallas and moved to East Texas around 1991 and currently thinking of moving to Austin! I am 37 with two children Sophie (9) and Camden (7) and have been married to Derek for the past 11 years! I am currently obsessed with Lou C’s 24 hours a day. I make the jewelry, take the orders, book keep, etc... but also I have been working on the website, writing descriptions, pricing and taking all the photos! Busy, busy, busy I have been, so I hope it all pays off. 

My favorite number is 11 so this should be a great year, my favorite color is black (I know people are usually like WHAT??) but I LOVE black! So I wonder what my favorite nail color is (some form of BLACK)!!!! I even have a black cat and a black dog! Anyways, I love to make jewelry and it has taken over my world!

2. What do you make and how did you get into this?

I make handmade fine silver and bronze hand stamped jewelry (try to say that three times fast)! I started by stamping blanks you can order and then I found PMC precious metal clay and realized I could make my own shapes/designs and then stamp them. It all started when one day I saw a lady hand stamping and thought that was the neatest thing, I had never even seen that before. I bought one and watched her make it, while making it I whispered to my friend that I can do that (my sweet friend believed that I could too!) I went home researched and two weeks later I was stamping. 

While I was stamping I kept looking for ideas, (remember I had never seen it before so I needed to know what people were doing) while I was looking around I found a charm that said it was made of PMC so I went a researched what it was and how to use it. I bought some with the thought that if it did not work at least I tried! It worked and then I found Etsy, I thought I was ready to go and I was going to sell and just be happy.

If you know what Etsy is, you know there are a lot of people that make jewelry and if you do not tag it just right you will be on page 3078! I tagged really well and got on page 1 or 2 but then someone would come behind me and tag just a little bit better, I had to retag EVERYDAY!!!!  This was just too much! 

While this tagging war was going on over at Etsy I was selling really well off of Facebook, people would call and email. I did so well that I am able to start my own website and pay for all my supplies that I need (I have not paid myself yet) but I have not taken out a loan to do this. I really wanted this business to go where it is meant to go by itself and not push it and so far it has done just that.

3. Why did you name your shop Lou C's Designs?

I name it Lou C’s Designs after my two children: Sophie (Lou) that is just what I call her, her real middle name is Isabella, and Camden (C). I just liked the way it sounded when I was going through names!

4. Where and when do you like to create? 

I create in my office at no particular time! When it pops in my head, when I see something, when I get bored, when I GET AN ORDER!!!!

5. What inspires you?
Anything and everything! But most of all I want my children to be proud of me. I love to hear one of them tell their friends that “my mom makes jewelry!”

6. What’s the best thing you’ve made so far? 
MY two kiddos! I know it is not jewelry, but if I said a piece of my jewelry over my kids it would be a lie!

7. When you create what do you like to drink? 
Iced coffee.

8. What skills would you love to learn and who would you like to be your teacher? 
There are too many amazing people to put just one but I would love to learn to sew better and learn more about jewelry. OH!!! Photography too!

9. What are you working on now and what are your goals for the future? 
At this moment I am working on my website (should be out as you are reading this!) it is important to me that the website looks as good as the jewelry. If the website does not look good you will lose the buyer. Before I started my site I would find myself clicking off a website if it did not appeal to me (even if the product was amazing).

10. What are your five favorite websites?

This is very hard because there are soooo many!

Facebook:  I have to say Facebook first because without it I would not be able to do this. It is a wonderful networking tool, it has really gotten my jewelry out there!

Tattered Style: This is a blog and she is really new but she has amazing style (for the home).

The Pleated Poppy: I have a bloom bag (too cute), I just love her style and I love the clean look of her site.

Where Women Create: Because they are all about business’ like us!

Lou C's Designs: Just because I am so proud of it! I love the way it looks.

11. Where can we find you online?

Website | Facebook | Blog

Next Week: Bonita Rose