My Home Tour

I love being on the road with Biceps.
But the smelly bars, graffitied bathrooms and late nights
can take a toll on a woman.
I love my safe oasis, my clean house.
I need my nest. Tweet, tweet.

And as they say in Oklahoma:
“Ya’ll Come On In and Throw Your Feet Up!”

Our kitchen is the hub of any and all activity. I spend 99.99% of my
time here. Maybe a little more. Either I am cooking, cleaning up my mess from cooking , or I am merely entertaining guests that drop by. The countertops are trowel finished concrete and the floors are the recycled haymow flooring from Bicep’s family’s century barn.
The cabinets? Well…Ikea, of course.

This is a little sitting room off of our kitchen. I picture our children (not that we have any) playing intelligently with blocks and reasoning out conflicts amongst themselves while listening to Mozart.
But for now, this is our workout area every morning. We just scoot everything out of the way and get crazy.

In the same room sits this little disguised piece of furniture. I gutted this stereo cabinet to house all of our workout equipment and our weights.
Aren’t I a sneaky little devil?

Ah…my bed. Nothing is better than coming off the road, leaving behind hotel rooms and not-so-sure-if-they’re-clean sheets…to this room. It may be plain, but it is complete serenity for me.
Learn how to make the Scrappy Art hanging over our bed.

We reconfigured a huge ‘bonus room’ to be our master bedroom. And wouldn’t you know it, we got a fireplace out of the deal? I love lighting this sucker in the winter, drinking tea and eating my homemade ginger snap cookies. I just might have to share my secret ginger snap cookie recipe. Those cookies make me salivate just thinking about them. Yum…I think I need a moment.

We made a dream bathroom out of a weird stinky moth-ball hallway and some wasted space in a ‘sauna’ room.
I love our bathroom-concrete floors and countertops, two sinks, a huge walk-in shower with two shower heads…

…and my own make-up area that Biceps has no reign over.

Little known fact: I like to throw parties, I like to entertain, I like to feed people until they can’t eat anymore.
The size of our dining room table was therefore very important to me. I wanted something to seat twelve while the entirety of the menu sat in the middle of the table for those second-helping kind of people.
We made the table from more barn wood salvaged from the in-laws
family barn.

Our living room is perfect for us. There’s a great amount of space to expand into, the fireplace is perfect for those cold Tulsa winters….

(Learn how to make the Mirror Art hanging above the fireplace.)

And the mannequin heads on the mantle watch over us all. And they tend to creep out our more delicate guests that aren’t used to this sort of thing.

Our guests stay in our ‘Cowboy Room’. There is no relationship to this name and our weirdo cat. Cowboy the Cat is not allowed in this room. It is a fur-free zone.
I like retro cowboy-esque type stuff and Biceps let me pretty much do what I wanted to in this room.
Very unusual…..

Three vintage finds-the lamp, the shade and the nightstand. I repainted the nightstand and added the stripes. Total invested in this picture-$14. Boo-yeah.

The desk was left behind in the shed when we purchased the house. I sanded and then spent hours painting this thing. I don’t think I have ever painted a gun on anything before.

Well, thanks for stopping by.
There’s more, but no need to bore you.
Come back anytime. I like guests.

A Close Shave

I love the springtime. The flowers are in bloom. The birds are busy nest-building.

And…the cat needs a shave.

Here’s a before of our furry beast.

This is Cowboy’s arch nemesis. Mr. Remington burned out in the middle of the shaving process. We had to call for backup.

This pile of fur tells the story of:

two pairs of clippers that burnt out

one expletive dropped due to cat fangs

both Biceps’ and my entire outfit engulfed in cat hair

and…

a cold kitty.

And here is our furry beast after-our ‘Little Lion’.

It took a few moment until he would talk to us again.

Funky Gold Medina

I can’t pass up tacky gold objects. I have an addiction,
and I’m alright with that. My lengthy affair with silver seems to be coming to a close.
After browsing one afternoon at Habitat for Humanity, I found two gold light fixture medallions for $1 a piece. And I made this. Want to know how? Read on, sister!

A medallion is the part of the light fixture between the glass that houses the lightbulbs and the ceiling. It covers over the ugly hole in your ceiling cut by your contractor or a housewife that tries to replace a ceiling fixture while her hubby is away.
Not that that’s ever happened.

What you’ll need for this swanky wall hanging:
Light fixture medallion
Oops Paint (2 colors)
Paintbrush
Rubber Cement or White Glue
Textured Wallpaper or textured craft paper
Card Stock or cardboard
Scissors

Trace the inside opening of your medallion onto your card stock and as Uncle Joey used to say, ‘Cut it out!’. Cut a square of textured wallpaper or craft paper out that is slightly bigger than your piece of card stock.

Cover the card stock with a sufficient amount of glue and adhere it to the back side of your wallpaper.
I set a large book on top of the wallpaper to stick the two together.
Sit and wait. I chose to listen to Getz and Gilberto while I was waiting. It was most enjoyable.
Actually, I did a load of laundry and made dinner and returned some phone calls. But a girl can dream, can’t she?

Once your glue has dried, cut away the excess of wallpaper from the card stock circle.

Paint your circle with some of your favorite ‘oops’ or leftover paint you have lying around.
Pay no attention to how messy my brush is in this picture. It was for dramatic emphasis for the reader.

I found a silhouette of a feather that I liked online by, are you ready for this?-googling the words ‘feather silhouette’.
I am a genius.
After tracing the silhouette on your circle, grab your second color of paint and go to town.

Here’s my silhouette taking shape.

After the feather was dry, I mounted the circle into the medallion using double sided foamy squares (the kind used for spacers in scrapbooking and card making).
Then, I hung the finished piece on a tree I have outside. My neighbor just looked at me and asked me what I was doing.
I told her I was decorating the tree.
‘Uh, huh’, she said.
I hung it up in my office eventually, but I just liked messing with my neighbor. She can take it.

My Mini Chainsaw

I love being on the road with Biceps, but I also love being at home-especially during the springtime.
I get to be outside and take care of my yard. There’s something about smelling my own fresh cut grass, instead of smelling the grass at the hotel or the truck stop.
Sometimes, you don’t want to smell that grass.

One of my favorite yardy-type things to do is to break out this little lady-my mini-chainsaw. I really want a bigger one, but I think Biceps is scared of what I might do to our yard if I owned one. So, little Mini will do.

Safety first. Mini’s blade was a little lose, as you can see here.

On little Mini, first you loosen the blade by using a socket wrench on these two bolts that are sticking out and then you pull the center black metal piece out to tighten up the blade.

Check to make sure you have plenty of ‘bar oil’. I checked and I did.
Now, it’s time for Mini and I to do some killin’.

I recommend you pose like this before you attack anything.
It’s very intimidating.

This pose will allow your victim to prepare itself for impending death. I recommend doing this, also.

Die, sucker, die!
Oh, you’re already dead…hm…

My little Mini is rather sassy. I have no idea where she gets it from…

…no idea at all.

No one messes with me. No one messes with Mini.
I am tough. Hear me roar.