Adding bling to blah

Well, a teeny weeny amount of bling.

We moved into our first home last year and it needed a lot of painting, not because the walls were in bad shape but because they were so depressingly dull yellow and green everywhere.

We chose a soft blue called French Gray for the living room and it turned out quite well. One wall looked like it lacked a little something, though. What would be cheap and easy?

I got out some white pearl paint left over from another project. I mixed this with the wall latex about 1:1 in proportion and got a nice pearly blue.

Next, I quickly drew some donut shapes floating down from one corner and then just filled them in with my paint mixture. The result is subtle and classy and gets noticed without at all being in-your-face.

I like it!

How to sell your house for more money

Getting certified as a home stager has opened my eyes to how many properties are being sold without the least effort to make them desirable. "It was good enough for us all these years," sellers seem to think, "surely buyers can see it's a great place."

If only it worked that way.

Well, Spring is finally here! This is the time to renew and reassess. Do you have a house to sell? Is there a listing you’ve had for a while that is not going anywhere? In our neighbourhood a house has been on sale for months now. Curious, I went there one Sunday to see what could be deterring buyers. The answer was at once clear: no presentation. It was hard to see beyond the mediocre, uninviting exterior and the vaguely cluttered interior. The house actually had good ‘bones’ but I really had to make an effort to see that. No wonder no one wanted to buy it!

Now that good weather is here, you may want to step back and review what is working and what is not working in your sale process. Do you have a fabulous presentation?
If you have not yet considered staging your property for sale, this is the time. To stage a home simply means to present it in the best way possible. This maximizes the home’s benefits so that prospective buyers get a true picture of its potential.

Why stage? For starters, when you put your house up for sale you need to consider how it will be perceived by potential buyers. You need to showcase it as the best property within the buyer’s price range. This only makes sense. How will your market know your home’s worth if it’s hiding behind piles of clutter or personal knick-knacks? When prospective buyers arrive at your door they have already determined that the property suits their basic needs. Now they need that decision to be validated and reinforced. They need to walk in and say “We want to live here!”

Staging a home basically follows a three-pronged approach for each area of the house:

1) De-cluttering and organizing

2) Providing functionality and purpose

3) Creating focal points and accents

If you are planning to move anyway, why not do some advance packing? That itself will take care of the majority of your clutter. If you don’t use it, lose it. Either donate it, recycle it or throw it away, but let it go! Once that’s done, you’ll be able to give each room a clearer sense of purpose.

Does your office look like a spare bedroom? Maybe it needs more definition. Buyers like to see rooms performing a specific function, even if they may not use that same room for that same purpose. Professional stagers try to use furniture and accessories that the home owners already have, so the cost is usually minimal. The secret is to use the right things in the right way in the right room. You can do this yourself by browsing through home décor magazines. What works? How can you translate that to your situation?

Try to detach yourself and look at your home with the fresh eyes of a prospective buyer who has just stepped through the door. What do you see? Are your eyes drawn to a point of focus in the room?

Your home may even require painting or minor repair, but by investing some time and elbow grease, and usually not a whole deal of money, you can make your house shine. You can make the next prospective buyer who walks in go “Wow!”

Statistics from independent real estate studies show that staged homes sell about 50% faster, for 17% more money. Take advantage of the departure of snow and the arrival of new energy and vision with making a list of what could be done to sell your home in an easier, faster and more profitable way. And then work on it.

Just give it a shot!

A whitish Blackle...

...would be gray, of course. I hope I made a good compromise between the white layout I had and the black that's good for energy conservation, in response to the comment about my Blackle post.

There's something so stunning about black and white though. Take a zebra - magical!

Here's some of my black and white work from last year, somewhat inspired by tribal tattoos and henna designs. In any case great fun to do even though it did just break my tendinitis-affected wrists. I used a pretty fine-tipped pen so that I could control the thickness of the lines. This meant a lot of going over and over the same strokes, but it was worth it!

Blackle

I received this from my cousin today and I think it's great:

Google is the second Brain to many of us. We use it frequently. It uses white screen which consumes high power.
Read the following......... If Google had a black screen, taking in account the huge number of page views, according to calculations, 750 mega watts/hour per year would be saved..!!!!!!

In response , Google created a black version of its search engine, called Blackle, with the exact same functions as the white version, but obviously with lower energy consumption:

Help spread the word. Please use www.blackle.com

How can you help?

We encourage you to set Blackle as your home page. This way every time you load your Internet browser you will save a little bit of energy. Remember every bit counts! You will also be reminded about the need to save energy each time you see the Blackle page load.

Help us spread the word about Blackle by telling your friends and family to set it as their home page. If you have a blog then give us a mention. Or put the following text in your email signature: "Blackle.com - Saving energy one search at a time".

Old work

Maybe I should revisit oil pastels. I didn't do much in this style after this landscape I call, Red Earth. I wonder why. Oh wait, it really hurts my hands - all that rubbing the color into the tooth of the paper. Wrong type of paper? Or pastel sticks? I dunno. Worth researching, though (this is where an education in art would probably have been handy, I guess).

In any case, it turned out very intensely colored (although the photograph is terrible, I know), and I did enjoy doing it!

Coming home

Well, Houston was good, but it's also good to be back. The little HoneyB was amazingly good in the flight, not to mention an instant hit with the crew. She cried when she saw DaddyBoy, though, almost as though she was accusing him of being away. Of course, it was the other way around but she didn't know that!

I have so much catching up to do I don't know where to start. The Pelham Art Show opens on May 8. I still have nothing ready, which, when I think about it is nothing unusual. No need for the panic button yet.

Yeah, right. But no, I'll get stuff done. I mean, I have to, right? I'm signed up for the show. I can't cancel now, can I? Can I? OK. I need to stop being a human yo yo. Work things out. Attachment parenting, cloth diapering, elimination communication (or attempts at) notwithstanding. I can do it!

Here's a simple diptych that was fun to make. My hand went inescapably to the blue first. Orange seemed to be the logical choice after that, and then green followed. Just free brush strokes without any premeditation. I thought I'd put in some black ink so I added the fine lines. Oh, and those little green splotches? An accident, but a happy one, I think!

I called it Fly.

Works in progress

This blog, for one. Is a work in progress, I mean. Might be a good idea to LET PEOPLE KNOW THAT I HAVE ONE!!! This is the reason no one knows about what I do.

Oh, the things I need to learn!

Other works in progress: a set of chair pictures, or Spring pictures featuring a chair. Why a chair? Well, I always enjoy making perspective views of interiors when I do a design assignment, and for some days I've been wanting to feature furniture in my paintings. I did do some whimsical looking interior scenes in watercolor a long while ago but moved on to other things and forgot about them. Now I want to do them again but in a different way altogether and I guess this is a start.

I made one watercolor and then played with PhotoShop to make four versions. It was fun!

This is what I started with:



And this is post-PhotoShop:

The benefits of TV

None that I can think of really. Maybe an enduring memory here and there but certainly not worth the many wasted hours of vicarious living. Definitely not good for a baby, in my opinion. I'd much rather spend time talking and playing with my BubbleToes than plonk her in front of the thing I'd much rather just get rid of.

However, I guess I can thank television for my above-mentioned enduring memory: an Energizer Battery commercial where the Energizer Bunny is playing tennis with Michael Chang. After an endless volley Chang pants "Don't you ever give up?" "Nope!" says the cheeky bunny. I loved that ad for the bunny being so sassy and um, energized.

Apparently this commercial didn't run in North America or else North-American, raised-on-a-staple-diet-of-TV-and-video-games DaddyBoy somehow missed it, because he has no memory of it. But then, he has no idea who Michael Chang is, either.

Oh well.

While on the subject of memories, here's an old watercolor (sorry for the terrible picture), one of a pair actually, that I did years ago but still remember the feel of the paper turning a beautiful turquoise under my fingers. So lovely to be lost in a painting....and I am now feeling the urge to revisit all my favorite blues.

This in not a food blog but...

In India, in my hometown, the monsoon rain fills the air with earthy fragrance. The dust settles. Leaves turn into bits of translucent emerald that glow against the dark, dark skies. When the sun breaks through a crack the result is a magical amalgamation of shadows and brilliance. Those are the days you want to remain outdoors as long as you can.

At sunset you are reminded of tea time and you come in to make a pot of aromatic chai. But not before you’ve phoned up a few friends to join you for bhajiyas – the real rainy-day treat. So easy and versatile, these fritters will turn any tea party into something to remember.

Bhajiyas, also known as pakoras, are chunks of fresh vegetables or slivers of sliced onion dipped in a batter of protein-rich chickpea flour (called besan) and deep fried. A great stand-alone snack that can also double as sandwich or wrap fillers, they are served with some sort of chutney, usually mint or tamarind, but ketchup or HP sauce works well too. Try them out and don’t be shy to play with the ingredients; the possibilities are endless and well worth the trip to an Indian store.

INGREDIENTS
•1 cup chickpea flour
•1 teaspoon salt
•1 teaspoon chili powder
•1/2 teaspoon (altogether) ginger and garlic paste
•1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
•1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
•1/2 teaspoon ground coriander (or try whole coriander seeds, roasted and coarsely ground, for more flavour)
•2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
•3/4 cup water
•Enough oil for deep frying
•About two cups of any of the following: sliced potatoes, zucchini, eggplant, onion, spinach, cauliflower florets

DIRECTIONS
1.Sift the chickpea flour into a bowl and mix in the salt, spices, garlic and chopped coriander.
2.Make a well in the center of the flour. Gradually pour the water into the well and mix to form a thick, smooth batter.
3.Over medium high heat in a large, heavy saucepan, heat the oil hot enough to fry. (I test this out by dropping a very small amount of batter into it. If it splutters you're good to go.)
4.Dip and coat vegetables in the batter and fry them in small batches until golden brown, about 4 to 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels before serving.

Enjoy warm with a dipping sauce. Yum!