Lay Decorating/Le Decorating

The title of this post is a homophone because it has two meanings and if you use your imagination and squint a little, both are pronounced the same.

"Lay" means "not belonging to, connected with, or proceeding from a profession." This is just to clear up the fact that I am not a professional decorator, as if you needed to be reminded by the four years it took to get curtains up in my kitchen. So, like all good lay preachers, instead of delivering original words or wisdom, I'm just going to be stealing from multiple professional sources, rarely citing them correctly.

"Le" means "the," as in "the word you say before a totally English word to try to make it sound French."  We will also be discussing a french-inspired decoration.

Now that our English lesson is complete, let's commence with the decorating- because Webster defines "commencement" not as an ending, but as a beginning, as any good lay graduation speech has taught you.

First, I have been in love with Design Dazzle's blog ever since my coworker found it last week. We were both totally impressed with this play kitchen someone made from an old entertainment center:

Today's post was this playroom, including a play "house" made under the stairs.

I also love these letters as clever wall decor:

A smaller version that would actually match Ryan's current room is found on Tonky Designs: 

But I hesitate to pay money to a company who is also offering this chic wall sticker (in 14 colors...including mint):

Quickly, now, let's return to the "letters and numbers in different designs" train of thought which brings us to the French part of our post today. My old coworker who now lives in Florida saw this Parisian perpetual calendar on etsy:

So, she went around Cocoa Beach with her camera and printed out her own letters on magnetic "paper" to create a personal sign on her apartment door. Love it!

So, there you have it: Lay Decorating and Le Decorating.

Good night! or Bonne nuit! or whatever. 

R-Y-A-N

Ryan took his first shopping trip with me to Wo-town this week where I tried on over 30 shirts just to try to find something I can wear when I return to work next week (eek!). He was a trooper and survived the 4-hour excursion where we only visited Shopko (twice) and Walmart. If you don't count the Burger King Drive-Thru where I went all-out spending $2.03 on a spicky chicken sandwich and chocolate frozen yogurt cone. It was 3:45 and I hadn't eaten lunch yet. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Back to shopping...one of the pickups of the day was a 13-pc. picture frame set from Walmart for $15 (causing the second trip to Shopko where I returned 2 frames for $23). I wanted the frames for a plate-holder thing in our living room that needs 4 matching black frames, plus frames for the pictures I ordered for both of our desks at work. I filled all the frames and had four 3.5"x5" left. Does anyone in the world print 3.5"x5" photos anymore? When I used to work at the drug store, people would bring in their film and check either the "3x5" or "4x6" box and then we would hold it in a special drawer to send in on Wednesdays so they could get free double prints. How times have changed. Now I upload my hundreds of pictures to winkflash and then click to order the 4x6's for 6-cents each. If people want doubles, I add them as a friend and they can PRINT THEIR OWN, folks! 

Okay, off subject again. I have to stop writing these posts at 11:30 because I tend to vomit words more profusely the closer it gets to midnight. Back to the frames. I had a little craft project in mind and gathered the materials which were all leftover from other projects:

I removed the backs from the frames and taped the glass in using masking tapes on the edges. I found a font I liked and printed R-Y-A-N on the computer, centered in 3.5"x5" boxes. Then, I placed each letter  behind the glass and used it as a template to paint the letter directly the glass. I like how they turned out!

It matches the 4-season wooden cutouts I made that hang on the opposite wall.

I also hung the "Angel" frame so that corner of the nursery is now complete:

I doodle, I do

I've been doodling my whole life. In high school and college, I'd fill my "notes" with all sorts of words, fonts, illustrations, and diagrams. It helped me listen to the often-dry lectures and it helped with information recall when I was taking tests because I could visualize my notes. My doodling ability has also helped me in my current job as I  develop new candy brands, logos, and packaging.

Michaele Barsnack, a licensed art therapist and professor at Capital University, claims there are benefits to doodling. "There's energy that we're discharging in doodling. There's psychic energy, stress and anxiety," Barsnack said. "Doodling can help to organize thoughts, feelings or experiences."

So, doodling has paid off in psychiatric and academic ways, but it recently also paid off for me in a monetary way! I read about a doodling contest on the blog written by the staff at Insight Marketing Design in Sioux Falls, SD (you may recognize their work if you frequent the Pizza Ranch Restaurants). I kept a page of doodles going for a few days, a few minutes or seconds at a time, wrote a short little limerick to accompany it, and uploaded my entry.

Last week I was excited to learn that my doodle had been chosen as a winner of 2 tickets to Neil Simon's Plaza Suite by the Sioux Empire Community Theatre. Hurrah! However, I'm not sure there's much to brag about;  in the posting about the winning entries, they called it a "slightly under-the-radar" contest. Is that a nice way of saying that the other "winner" and I were the only entrants?! Oh well, I got the tix, so who cares?

If you'd like to check out my doodle (slightly modified to fit their format), check out the Art Circulator.

Doodle on, dude!