My Studio

Please come on into my studio. I’ve been up late trying to get it just right for the Where Bloggers Create blog party. Join in and visit MANY wonderful studios and art corners created by fellow bloggers. If this is your first time visiting me at The Little White Attic, then WELCOME.  This room used to be my daughter’s bedroom before she went to college. For almost a year now it has been my creative space and a room for goofing off, trial and error, and a lot of messes. Luckily I can just close the door!

This room also still serves as our guest room, but I have to clear out some of my things. Now for grand tour of my room……..

On the easel is one of the paintings I did last fall that was inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Now that my children are getting older I am trying to devote more time to painting, but it is very easy to let other things take priority. I wanted this room to inspire me, and also to be a place where I could experiment artistically. I think to come up with good ideas you have to be free to play around. You may have some silly ideas, and some that are just no good at all, but from all that creative time comes a few good ideas now and then. Everything doesn’t have to be a masterpiece.

 

This mural in progress is based on a painting of London’s Vauxhall Gardens circa 1815.

 

Some people say that items that appeal to you will go together in your house. This room puts that to the ultimate test. I am still pretty new at having a studio, and things are not organized AT ALL. I have boxes slid under the bed and a little space in the closet, but as I’ve gathered art supplies from around my house for each project, I would rather play than organize. but one of these days it will have to be done.

 

Here you can see a corner of my dollhouse. Here’s a closer look.

  This is the dollhouse I have sat at to play from the time I was six years old. After being passed from younger sisters to nieces it found it’s way back to me. My original decorating that I did with my mom was long gone, so I’ve been stripping it down and reworking it.

 

 

Another shot of the mural I’m painting, and my fancy bell collection.

  My scarves have migrated from the bedroom closet onto the back of the door in my art studio.

 

My dress form is all dolled up for the occasion…..

And above the closet door, my chorus line of beloved

Raggedy-Anns

 

And here’s the shelf that holds almost all of my Jane Austen books

 

More Jane Austen books…….including my trusty compilation which is falling apart. I’m currently re-reading Sense and Sensibility and I can hardly hold it with the cover dangling. Time for a new book.

Here’s the view from my window in the daytime. It may be to cloudy to see the lovely mountains today, but you can see all out Washington state greenery, including a Christmas Tree lot behind our house.

And a few more random photos of the room………….

I love color! 

Necklace from Beth Quinn Designs I won in a blog giveaway. Yay!

This room used to be my college daughter’s bedroom. You can see her creative space at Paisley Muffin, if you haven’t been there yet. If you are going alphabetically then you’ve already seen it.

Now that the blog party is completed, my next task is to sew my regency dress for the Jane Austen Annual General Meeting in October. I need a new dress for the banquet and ball. I can’t wait to learn more dances. My mom and I are going to Portland for the AGM together and then….THREE days of nothing but all-Jane-all-the-time. I can’t wait! So follow along, especially if you love Jane like I do.

After that it will be the holidays, and then time to think about my third annual Jane Austen Tea Party in February for some of my friends and family here in the Seattle area.

Thanks for visiting The Little White Attic!

-Lynnae

I would love your comments!

New Area Rug

Today I picked up a new area rug that I ordered for my living room. I am so excited and I love how it looks.

I didn’t put down a carpet pad because we have wall to wall carpet there. But I really felt an area rug would pull the space together more and when I saw this one I was in love…and at a good price at Walmart.com.

I love my modern, bright red sofa. I also love my old, traditional piano. One great thing about the area rug is that the style goes well with both and unifies the room.

I am still on the look out for a coffee table (despite my husband’s protests) that I can fix up with a little paint, but I want to keep it under $30. And truth be told I’ve let one or two good ones slip by after talking myself out of it and then later I regret not buying them.

I also have Magnificent slipper chairs waiting to be redone….I know I capitalized that. But they are awesome and just need some love. Only now…..well, it’s beginning to occur to me that there are no arms on the slipper chairs or the sofa, so maybe a club type chair would be better for the room. The slipper chairs will find a home somewhere….and the husband would prefer to get them out of the garage.

Well, there is little more boring than reading about decorating without any more pictures, so I’ll quit. I mostly just wanted to show the new rug. Yay!

3 more days until Where Bloggers Create, and my room still looks like a tornado hit. Agh!

-Lynnae

A Little Note

….for the Pride and Prejudice fans.

After my two daughters were discussing which Bennet girl they would be, they decided our Cavachon dog, Missy, would be Mary Bennet. That led to my daughter making the following picture and caption…….

"You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit."

 

But seriously folks……

I have been busy with my daughters graduation, and now I am trying to make my studio look pulled together for the “Where Bloggers Create” blog party (see button on sidebar) So I am busy busy busy.

FIVE more days until the blog party!!!!!!!!!

Dear Lynnae 10 years ago…….

A friend put up a nice little comment on facebook today that really got me thinking. It was this….

“If you could go back ten years ago and tell yourself some things, what would you say?”

Dear Me…….. The day is coming up with the truck on the freeway and the skidding and the guardrail…..And even though you’ll walk away and be very thankful, still be able to function and look normal to everyone, and despite several rounds of physical therapy, your neck will basically be painfully nagging you for the rest of your life. Please take the back road that day.

And Dear Me……check into some custom shoe  inserts now before those foot problems set in. Once the kids are in school you will have more time to exercise, and guess what? You ARE going to lose weight and be active despite your setbacks, but it takes a toll on your feet, so let’s try to avoid the shots, braces, casts, and pain, OK?

Love every moment with Jon and especially the girls, they grow up so fast. But you already know that. There will be challenges, but trust me, come 2010 you wouldn’t go back for the world.

Just thinking about what it would be like to not have a sore neck and not have a sore foot brought me to tears. Think of what I could have done then……….

But on the other hand, I’ve been led on a path, and learned so much about myself, maybe my successes were because of those challenges, not in spite of them. And ten years ago if you would have told my I would lose that weight- I would have been jumping for joy.

I think I’ll jump for joy today!

 

OK, so what would YOU tell yourself if you could go back ten years? You sat through my rant, now lets hear yours.

Fiddler On The Roof

Last week my sister offered me her extra ticket to Fiddler on the Roof at the Paramount in Seattle. We had a lot of fun.

Kids in my family grew up on Fiddler on the Roof because my parents loved soundtracks to musicals. We knew how to thread the reel to reel stereo, and then blast the music as we danced around singing the songs. Several of my sisters and I even once performed ‘Matchmaker, Matchmaker’ in a church talent show. So it was fun to go with Shannon and laugh and cry together (I was totally wiping tears on my scarf!)

Tevya always reminds us of Dad, cooking for us and stomping around the kitchen, waving his arms around singing ‘If I Were a Rich Man…"’

 That was a lot of fun. Thanks Shannon!

-Lynnae