Sometimes People Won’t Understand Your Journey

I started this blog a couple of years ago with the intent of blogging my way through an Interior Design degree life-plan. Ha! The best made plans, you guys, the best made plans… So here we are again, but with a different approach, on everything.

So let’s pick up where I left off. I was working as an intern at Brunschwig & Fils in the Design District downtown. Loved that internship, the people, the company, the product, the clients, all of it was great. During that summer, I was in my second and last semester of Interior Design, though I wasn’t aware of it at the time. The school I was attending was loosing their certification and I was not going to be able to become licensed if I continued with their program. Looked at going to a university in the area, and things just never panned out. The door was shut and I was disappointed. I had been seeking out a career in some form of creative design for so long, and nothing seemed to fit me like Interior Design. I floundered for a good year trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, how I could put my talents to use, and struggled through the doubts of thinking, ‘who would hire a girl with no experience on paper’? I have finally come out on the other side of 2013 for the better. There is no way I could recount all the things that have transpired this year, and all the ways that I have changed, it has been so transforming.

The one and only – Dallas, Texas

When I was younger, before I was in my twenties, I thought that when people became grown ups, they knew everything. As a child I was surrounded by people who seemed to have life figured out. Scared of nothing, and able to handle situations vastly beyond my capabilities, the adults I knew made it look easy. Now that I am in the last months of being in my twenties, I am realizing adults don’t know that much at all. Now we are just thrown in to situations and have to constantly think on our feet, hoping that the decisions we make do not result in calamity or come back to bite us later. No wonder grown ups are always tired.

If I have learned anything this year, it’s that I am forever going to be growing and changing. How does all of this relate to my passion for art and design you ask? My style has changed in almost every regard over the past few years. I feel like a completely different person than I was in my early twenties. I wish someone would have warned me about all this change, haha. Someone probably did and I just wasn’t listening, like a typical kid.

Reference the first post on this blog. Same living space.

I seek simplicity in every aspect of my life. The paintings that I create, the objects I choose as decoration for my abode, or the food that I make – which my room-mate will inform you is rarely done in our house. Let’s face it, I am a single white female in Dallas, when am I going to be home long enough to cook? I would rather grab a bottle of wine and some great cheese from Whole Foods and go to the lake with a friend and watch the sunset before I will set aside more than an hour of my day cooking and eating something at home. Dear gentleman in Dallas looking and hoping for a single white female that cooks at home, I know some, don’t lose hope.  In the words of my dear friend Wes, “different strokes for different folks”.

Sunset at White Rock Lake – Summer 2013

Fast forward to April 2014. I am now working in a showroom in the design district full-time. I am working beside an amazing Creative Director, and with a wonderfully talented and creative team of individuals in luxury furnishings and lighting. I get to be creative at work, and then come home and do my own projects. I feel like I have found the best of both the career lifestyle and artist lifestyle. No more ‘starving artists’ ‘salary’ for me. I took a risk, I hoped that my daydreams would become real life. I took a chance on myself, and I was surprised. Sometimes you just have to keep jumping off cliffs till you find the one with the lost treasure in the waters below.

Take a chance on yourself, you might be surprised at the outcome.

Lately I have desired a place where I can collectively hold my love for life, laughs, art, writing, photography,  design, typography, handmade things, friendships,  good wine, and sunsets. Welcome to the new blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy making it.

Every girl should have a Little Black….Dresser?

I frequent a local thrift store. And by frequent I mean that I am such a regular that the employees know me by name, one of which I have even become friends with. Hello Matt, if you are reading this. I was pa-rousing the back room one afternoon when I stumbled across this little gem. The top was raw (not so fantastic) wood and it was beat up, just my kind beauty! Looked at the price tag, only fifteen dollars! I had been searching for a drawer set of sorts to keep all my design materials in, and this little thing fit the bill.

My next stop was Home Depot. I knew exactly what I wanted to do to this empty canvas of raw beat up wood, paint it! Not just ANY paint, the Martha Stewart paint line, Martha Living©, has magnificent options for a reasonable price (around ten dollars). Directly adjacent to the Martha Living© Textured Metallic and Metallic Glaze paints there was a beautiful stencil. With gumption and quick feet I paid for my new toys and made my way back home.

After hauling my current find out of my car and up two awkward steps in to my house, I assessed the plan of action. I grabbed a towel and a bucket of water, gently erasing any superficial traces of misuse and neglect from the worn and sturdy frame. Apart from a little bit of chipped paint, the body and drawers were in great shape. So I cracked open the Textured Metallic Paint by Martha Stewart and picked up a paintbrush. The paint goes on fast, and I only had to put on one coat of paint which dried in twenty minutes. After the textured paint dried I used the metallic paint and stencil to finish off the top. The whole project from start to finish was only about an hour and a half. Fast and beautiful.

As my little dresser filled with materials and was adored over the next few months, something was missing but I couldn’t put my finger on it. A couple of weeks ago I was mesmerized, as per usual, in Anthropologie where I saw these gorgeous, to-die-for knobs. But at thirty-five dollars a pop, it was not in my budget. So I waited and found the ones now on the two drawers at Hobby Lobby on sale for five dollars each.

My little dresser is the perfect size for both the materials I needed to store, and for the small wall that is sits in front of. Best part, all materials and dresser added up to just under fifty-five dollars.