American Grafitti

A few weeks ago while I was in East Texas at my lake house, I decided to take a back road all the way from Lindale to Gladewater to check out the antique stores.  Along the way on highway 16, I ended up in the sleepy little town of Winona, Texas that has one  blinking red light.  These two very interesting buildings caught my eye.  I would love to find out the story about how this art work came about and who the artist is to give them due credit.  Amazing work I must say and so creative!  How many familiar characters do you see in the painting?  Please post your answers on this blog for all to see.  There are some I recognize, and some I don't, like the octopus in the bottom center.  (double-click on the image to enlarge)

Here's a better photo of the train and the track.  Look at the detail and how the artist captured the effect of the train coming around the corner.  Awesome.

Just to the right of this is another building that appears to be someone's residence.  I stood in the parking lot for a few minutes trying to figure out the artist's interpretation of this work.  Wilma Flintstone and Barbie.  Does anybody have a clue?  Again, I would love to give the artist due credit.

Here's a closeup of 'Wilma Flintstone'.

Here's a closeup of 'Barbie'.  She looks like the original 1959 Barbie doesn't she?

On my drive back to Dallas on Highway 80 I stopped in the small towns along the way, including my home town of Grand Saline.  I love very old buildings and would love to do a little research to find out the origin of the building and the history of the tenants.  This building is next to the old movie theater that has since been torn down in Grand Saline.  Does anyone know the history they can share?  I'll bet all the Grand Saline readers could tell a story or two about the Grand Saline movie theater!

_{^{I'd love for each of you that remember the theater to post your most vivid memory here.}}

Next stop was in Wills Point, Texas.  This old building now houses a darling quilting store, but I wonder if anyone remembers what was there, say back in the 1920's.  Comments?

A couple of weeks ago, the Sunday edition of the Dallas Morning News posted an article on the front page of the 'guide' section about this movie theater in Wills Point.  It is supposedly the oldest operating movie theater in NORTH AMERICA!!!.  How cool is that?  Such a beautiful theater and I believe there is concern that it might be shutting down soon.  How sad.

While posting these photos, I got a bright idea that the next time I'm in Grand Saline, I'm going to find someone that has access to all the buildings along Main Street that have been abandoned and see if I can get a private tour of the building.  I want to find out the history of the buildings and find out what types of stores occupied them back in the day.  That will be a future post I'm sure.

Be sure to add comments below if you have any interesting information to add or share.  I am very, very interested!

Til next time~

Ladyfingers Side Patio Makeover Part III

So finally I'm posting the rug I almost put out with the Tuesday garbage pick-up a few weeks ago.  It had stains and gunk all over it, and thinking it was ready to toss, while dragging it out to the street, I got an inspiration and made a u-turn back to the garage.  I remembered I had a stencil upstairs in my craft closet, and some left-over black Ralph Lauren paint from years ago.  Basically, except for the 2 cans of spray paint I purchased, this project was 'free'. 

Here's the original rug.  I just went head-first and started creating as I went.

 

I added a little water to the black paint and just stippled it on to the rug.  It's so porous, it took a little time to do this to get good coverage.

Next, I just laid the stencil on the edge of the rug and painted the leaves lime green, and the little flowers hot pink.

I didn't go to extremes to lay the stencil out perfectly, I just lined it up where I thought it should go and started painting away.  I love the way it turned out.

 

So here's the rug with the chairs I re-did a couple of weeks ago.  This is still a work in progress so I'll be posting photos randomly when I complete the next step.

Enjoy!

Bling-Bling Skirt

I found this awesome skirt at Salvation Army several months ago and wore it to work for the first time on Friday.  There are yards and yards of fabric in this skirt and lots of silver sequins stitched all over.  I found little trails of them all over the office during the day as some of the not-so-well-stitched ones fell off.  Kind of funny to see a trail of sequins on the floor at all the places I had ventured during the day.  Ah well,,,for $7.99 who cares?  I got the belt for 99 cents so beat that if you can!

 

The necklace is from Charming Charlies.  What a perfect match! 

 It's pouring down Rain in East Texas and I hear frogs croaking near the lake's edge.  I love rainy nights, pizza, wine. Nothing better!

Have a nice long weekend!  I'm going to try to photograph some fireworks on Sunday night.  It's pretty tricky to get the camera set up correctly for this type of photography, but I'll show you what I take no matter how they turn out. 

Ladyfingers Side Patio Makeover Part II

My projects always seem to grow hair.  What started out as just tidying up the concrete turned in to a full grown inspiration.  The very day I started the painting portion of the patio, I hit upon an Estate Sale in my neighborhood.  I lucked out and found these two metal patio rocking chairs for a mere $40.  They were a little 'tired' looking, but I had a vision and went to work on them right away.  I bought some spray paint and some fabric and went to town.

 

Nothing like a fresh coat of paint to bring out the life in something.  My grass suffered in the transition, but....it will grow back.

 

Here's a before/after photo after I painted one of the chairs.

Next I ripped off the old fabric/padding of the seat cushion and replaced it with some wonderful fabric I found that was originally $125 per yard, but I got it for a mere $22 to cover both chairs.

This fabric is hand-woven in the rural areas of India where there is no electricity.  The villagers weave the base cloth called 'dosuti', typically a hand loomed cotton duck, on pedal operated looms.  It's woven in to 25 yard lengths or less and then dyed and processed in the villages.  Aretisans then prick the desired design on to the fabric with a needle to create perforations. Once the goods are marked, the artisans embroider the lengths using a hook needle called an Aari.  It takes about 3 months to complete a 25 yard bolt.  There is no electricity so the finished lengths are washed by hand in the rivers and then folded and bailed.  There's actually some sand from the river that you see if you shake out the fabric.

 

Because the fabric was going to be exposed to the elements, I decided to put a vinyl waterproof barrier over the fabric to protect it outdoors. Here's the outcome of the chairs. 

I promised the rug makeover this time, but I really needed to show the chairs first.  It's all a work in progress, and I want to give each step due justice.  I love how the chairs turned out and can't wait to show you how far I've come with the patio.

I still have lots more ideas spinning around in my head.

Ladyfingers Side Patio Makeover Part 1

I promised photos of my latest Ladyfingers project and I'll have to post them in various stages since I have so many photos and different phases of the project.

The side patio is just outside our master bedroom  For years we thought about putting in a jacuzzi, or enlarging the master bathroom, or building me a closet. We never decided what to do so I just made a decision to make it in to a little wine patio for happy hour in the evenings.

First I cleaned the concrete with a special concrete cleaner and a stiff brush. 

After the concrete dried completely (didn't take long with this Texas heat!) I measured and marked a dotted line 18" away from the wall and then put down 3/4" masking tape along the line I drew.

I laid each piece of tape first before I measured for the next 'tile'.  I measured 18" from the outside edge of the previous tape, marked a line and then laid another piece of tape until I had gone all the way across the length and the width of the patio.

After it was all taped off, I applied the concrete paint using a roller and a paint that closely matched the brick.

I let the paint dry over night, and first thing the next morning, I went out and peeled up the tape.  That's the fun part!

Here's how Phase One turned out.

 

Next post I'll show you the old rug that I touched up.  I was ready to toss it when I came up with a great idea.  Stay tuned...

 

 

Really Cool Dress/Funky Shoes

I've worn the heck out of this very light, floral, colorful sundress.  It's my favorite so far from Charming Charlies.  I love the fullness of dress with the baby-doll bodice. It is so comfy and cool with this unbelievable Texas heat.  I saw 104 degrees on my rear-view mirror thermometer this afternoon.

 

Look closely at the retro-shoes.  These are actually Liz Claiborne shoes I purchased a couple of weeks ago at Goodwill for $1.99.  Guess no one was looking for hot pink pumps to go with something in their wardrobe like I was. (grin).  They are actually VERY comfortable despite the pointy toe and they go with the dress perfectly.  I'm wearing them to dinner tonight.

and last, but not least, is the matching necklace and earrings.  Gotta have matching jewelry if your going to go to the trouble of having matching shoes!

I've been out today looking for 'stuff' for my side patio.  I promise I'll start posting photos when I get a couple of more steps along.  It's turning out to be a really fun project. I can't wait to finish it.

I'm working on a project, but not quite finished. Here's a little peek at what's to come...I have a little plain-jane side patio that I've been wanting to spruce up for some time, but only just now got inspired. Lots of work ahead...stay tuned. :)