painted rug!

I gots a rug, y'all! 

I bought it at Southeastern Salvage for TWENTY BUCKS!!!!! It was yellow, 5" x 8", and a good pile to paint.

Yes, paint. You can paint rugs! They just need to be low pile. I'll be sure to do a post featuring some of the lovely beauties floating out there in the blogosphere. 

Here she is! Much brighter than the fug rug. I bought this baby over a month ago, mind you. It looks pretty good next to the gold framed mirror!

Here it is rolled out in the den. Note the dirty spots.. no wonder it was only $20. I wanted to paint a pattern on there, so I knew it would be covered up enough not to be visible. I decided to go with a hexagon pattern.

To start, I used my T-square from school to help keep a straight line. I started from the center.

Then I measured between the end and the center. Rather, a fourth of the way from the end.

I did the same from the other side.

Then I placed two strips of tape between each of those four sections, measuring them evenly.

And continued on the other side.

Then I found the center of the middle piece of tape, and stabbed a hole in it with my triangle. I wanted the angled lines to be centered around the middle of the rug.

I've used my 45 degree triangle on a ton of projects before, but I broke out the ol' 30-60-90 triangle for this puppy. Why? Hexagons have 6 angles, all equaling 60 degrees. HOW CONVENIENT! 

I placed the triangle next to the dot in the center.

Then I folded a piece of tape in half and put it on one side of the hole.

Then I put a whole piece of tape over that and covered the hole. Why? I didn't want the pattern to be one inch over from the center.

Then I took my T square and laid it on top of the triangle to continue the angle and stuck the tape along side it.

Then I flipped it and continued the tape going the other direction.

I did the same thing for the diagonal going in the other direction.

And pulled the tape to the corners.

Phew! Not even close to being finished! 

I used my "tools" to determine the shape of the hexagon. It was going to be way too big for my liking. Can you see the sides of it with the T square, tape measure, pencil, and triangle?

So what to do? Lay more horizontal lines down, of course! I don't think I even measured here, I just eyeballed it. 

Time for the diagonals! 

Of course I ran out of tape.

I got some more tape the next day! I finished the diagonals one way.

Then I laid the tape going the other direction. This is where I made an unfortunate mistake. See how all the yellow bits showing through are different sizes and shapes? Not good.

I didn't notice at first. It was quite late at night, so I began carving out the tape. I used an exacto knife. So long as I barely cut the tape, it didn't cut the carpet fibers.

"Don't start cutting!" Diesel says. 

Too late!!!!! The first hexagon looked nice though! 

"Oh nos, I can't watch."

They started getting all caddy wompus shaped.. 

So I put the tape back down. I also had to pull up nearly all of the diagonal pieces (the last set put down going the same direction).

When I laid the second set of diagonals, I failed to cross over the point where the horizontal and first set of diagonal tape intersected. Does that make sense??? 

Of course I ran out of tape again and had to use some leftover from a past paint project. See how the yellow bits are now mostly the same size (minus the middle right there where I still needed to add a few pieces)??

Time to cut again! The shapes looked so much better this go around.

They aren't exactly the same size, but that was fine with me. Cotton was fine with it too.

So much tape!!!!!!

Beauti-mous!!!!!

Time to paint! I brought it to the carport, just in case it bled through the back.

I used my sponge brush to dab it onto the rug. I used my leftover white paint from the staircase project.

And this was as far as I got for a loooooong time. It rained for about 4 days straight in Bham. Then I went to Auburn a couple weekends, then Thanksgiving travels, THEN I found the FUG RUG (woof), and didn't even give this rug a second thought. 

Until this past weekend! I brought the ol' gal out to the driveway and continued painting her. 

It took forever to dry. I finished around 4pm, and it was still wet around 1am when I went outside to check it.

I brought it to the yard the next day, and....

spray painted it. Imagine that. Can I get through one project without spray painting?!? 

It needed one more coat, and I didn't want to take 2 hours dabbing paint back on it, so I used some flat white spray paint to go over each shape. 

I was too excited to take tape removal pics! Here she is inside!!!! 

With the stools! Not too shabby, eh?? Not the brightest either, but for twenty bucks and leftover paint, I can't complain! 

EEEEEE!! 

A lot of the bloggies I read said to sand the painted areas very lightly to loosen up the fibers (supposedly it doesn't remove much of the paint). I didn't do that (the step skipper strikes again). It doesn't feel that bad though! It's a wee bit stiff, but I'm hoping that will loosen up over time. And you're just suppose to vacuum like normal. I'll update everyone on the condition of everything in a few weeks!  

I lubs it!

Updated pictures from my new camera! 

I'm happy to report it has held up nicely! It only takes vacuuming to clean it! Success!

Linked to: www.addicted2decorating.com  .  http://www.homemakeronadime.com  .  http://diyhshp.blogspot.com

http://soverycreative.blogspot.com/  . http://www.getouttamyheadplease.com 

 http://youaretalkingtoomuch.blogspot.com/2012/01/meet-me-monday_15.html

new page!

I added a page at the top of the bloggie for pet painting info! I had a great response after the post a few days ago, so I decided to just put the information out there for everyone! 

Super short post, I know. 

I'll leave you with this, because a post without pictures is like a night without Stars... 

Stars is a karaoke bar in Bham, mind you..

This is what I do when when I'm not doing projects.

HA! 

(Stars really is a karaoke bar here. I don't usually go there though.. I prefer Bstreet.. the play on words was just too good to pass up, though.)

real quick.

I was super busy after work today/everyday this week! A lot of times I set up bloggies to post for the upcoming week on Sundays and Mondays, and I just couldn't get it togetha these past few days! For some reason in the past few weeks, I have been determined to get a post out almost every week day (Mon-Thurs) and sometimes Sunday. I figured I'd just drop in real quick tonight for a life update! Is that lame? I feel like it's a cop-out post. BUT this is my bloggie, and I do what I want!! 

1. I am working on my first commissioned puppy painting for a dear sweet bloggie reader!! SO EXCITING!!!!! 

2. We are having a cookie swap at work tomorrow, and I just made some chocolate chip cookies. Now my house smells of deliciousness. JEALOUS?! Speaking of cookies, you know what is the worst? When you get a chocolate chip cookie, take a big ol' bite, and it turns out to be oatmeal raisin. Woof. Hopefully this won't happen to me tomorrow at the swap.

Cookie monster hates all fruit, which includes raisins.

3. My sissy Binky may be coming to visit me tomorrow. The primary reason? To take a Christmas card picture. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we still take Christmas card pictures. It use to be quite the undertaking. Binky gets SOOOO ANGRY whenever we take them. No one knows why. Not even she knows. There are some classic ones throughout the years: the bawling crying 3 year old Binky, the arms crossed glaring at the camera Binky, the adolescent "why the hell are we doing this" smirk Binky.. I am going to have to scan some pictures from the past when I go home for the holidays, because they are worthy of a post all themselves. It use to be TORTURE when we were younger because we would use a deposable camera to take them. Only 27 chances to get it right... You would've thought it got better once digital cameras came out but it didn't. 


We found a way to curb the anger by taking pictures throughout the year instead of waiting until December 20th. It seems to take the pressure off. And whenever we take a picture together, no matter what time of year, we say: CHRISTMAS CARD PICTURE! 

4. I went to Michael's to get some stuff, and they are having a 40% sale on frames!!!!! ALSO there is a 25% BONUS coupon for frames online or in your newspaper. SO THAT'S 65% OFF FRAMES, YALL!!! If you are doing your own (hold me closer) tiny art wall, or just need some frames, GO NOW!!! Sale ends on Sunday I believe. I bought 3 big ones and 3 little ones for $30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Note: they have frame sales a lot, but the bonus coupon was what stepped it up a notch). 


Can't wait to fill this baby out with my new purchases! I've added some new art, btw. I will unveil once I hang the new frames... although I don't have art for the new babies.. never ending art wall! 

5. I tried to set myself a bedtime. Or rather, send myself upstairs at 10:30pm to get ready for bed and stop doing projects, blogging, etc. So far I'm 0/3. It's 11:41pm. Oops. 

Maybe tomorrow I'll get to bed early..

fug as a bug in a rug.

Greetings! 

My new rug came in yesterday. Why no exclamation points for that? BECAUSE IT'S FUGLY. 

First off, here is how it looked online: 

And here is what came in the mail: 

I thought I'd give it a chance and check it in the daylight. It was a bit better..

But not how I wanted it.

I think it might would've looked alright if there wasn't yellow in the stool seats. It just looks out of place next to them.

And don't get me started about it not looking good with the pillows I thought it was going to match.

Woof.

Now, you might be thinking: it doesn't look that bad, Rachel..

Well, you'd be wrong. 

I think those pictures let in more light that what I'm seeing in real life. Here's a close up more true to color..

Brown with little yellow flecks.

Here is the rug in a room scene I found:

No way is that the same as what I got in the mail, I don't care how fancy the camera is that took that shot or how good the lighting is...

(also, I know the pattern colors are reversed, but it's by the same company and both were "gold/ivory". Here's a direct comparison for your viewing pleasure. 

 

Here's what kills me: I looked for this rug for FOREVER! I had seen it on one of those discount sites (where the sales only last 3 days), and I just knew it would come back around (the rugs usually do). Well, it didn't. For months. So in the meantime, I searched for other yellow rugs, and I couldn't find a pattern I liked. I finally found a plain yellow rug, and I decided to paint it! Yes, you can paint rugs. Google it, there are some awesome ones out there! SO I taped off this rug (which took several hours) and began painting it. Well that happened on one of the monsoon weeks here in Bham (aka it rained for 4 days in a row) so I stopped painting. I was planning on an awesome bloggie entry for it, but in the meantime, my "dream" rug came back on the discount site!! Of course I snatched it up. 

All this to say, I'm mad I found a rug to paint, stopped because I ordered this rug, and then it turned out to be fugly. 

The good news is there will be a rug painting bloggie next week! 

Hooray!