Man, I really feel like I lost this summer. I can't believe it's already September. How lame. I wasn't ready for it to be done yet. But then, I suppose I never am. There were a few notable things and projects that happened.
First of all, Blue October came to town. They are one of my favorite bands in the world, and I've gone to see them nearly every time they've come to town, which is almost annually. After the last concert Rachel and I promised ourselves we would do meet and greet passes, because we regretted not doing it that time for a band we always go see. So when they announced Boise on their tour we immediately bought the meet and greet passes. It was like $100 extra, but worth it to us.
The actual experience was kind of a mixed bag. We waited outside for almost a whole extra hour when we were supposed to be inside with the band, I didn't love that. When we got in, the meet and greet wasn't he band up on the stage and us down on the floor where Justin did his best to make it as friendly as possible, but there was definitely a barrier. We got early access to the merch table and they signed everything, and we got cool posters, but I was really hoping for something a little more... I don't know... Personal? I did get a pretty sweet picture with the band though:
And Justin kissed my hand and told me he was sorry that it takes longer for me to get new songs through Amazon than it does Rachel through iTunes. So that was pretty awesome. And then the show was freaking amazing. Justin had me in tears because he actually did "Should Be Loved"
Which you might not know, but that was my drunk song towards the end of me marriage and it was a pretty big moment for me when I realized I was singing that song at my husband. He followed that with "The Chills"
which has a similar message and was just amazing. And then a few songs later he did "18th Floor Balcony"
which is my number 1 most romantic song and makes me think of what I have now in my current relationship. And I never thought I'd ever get to hear those songs live because they're not some of the more popular ones. So yeah, you add a drink or two to some of the most emotional music you can think of and I was wrecked and elated all at once. It was an amazing high. Despite the slight flaws, it was a fantastic night.
On the subject of concerts, several months ago my boss was talking about how his parents were one of the original major investors in the remodel of one of the major stadiums in town and as a perk of that, they got free tickets to every show ever at that place. If they're not interested they usually just sell them or whatnot. I had recently heard that Fallout Boy was coming here this year and my boss happened to mention that his parents didn't know what to do with those tickets, they didn't know anyone who cared. I immediately piped up, yo Fallout Boy fan, right here. My boss laughs and I figure that's the last I'll hear about that. A few weeks ago, my boss walks up to me, hands me an envelope and says, "This is for you." I open it up and look at that, two tickets to Fallout Boy. God, I was so excited. I wanted to go but the show was kind of expensive so I'd decided not to. Now I can! And for free! That's gonna be so great.
And now for something totally different!
I have yet another nerdy wineglass. Shannon wanted to have a clay night and I already had a plan for the glass I'd painted red some time ago. I planned to do the Cutie Moon Rod.
Unfortunately I don't have any progress pictures. I just wasn't thinking about it while I worked. It wasn't too complicated really.
I covered the stem in light pink, added a yellow crescent to the glass just like I did on my first Sailor Moon glass, made the wings out of some fairly thick triangles that I cut slits in and shaped outward, made a pink heart at the base of the cup where the wings joined the glass. Added details like the stars on the stem, dots on the crescent, red band around the glass and so on. I had a thought about creating a cutting out piece reinforced with plastic or something to give the look of the crown sitting on top, but that didn't work out so it just sits on the rim. Honestly, it didn't really come out the way I wanted it, but I don't dislike it.
I'm currently out of the polycrylic spray I had been using to gloss my creations due to another project I'm just about to tell you about, so I'm going to try an experiment with this one. I do currently have a clear gloss enamel acrylic paint that I'm going to try painting this with and see if that turns out better. I'll let you know what happens when I get there.
So. I had one Really Big project I did this summer. It's one I've been intending to do for ages and ages. My kitchen table and chairs are hand me downs from my brother. They're good, solid pieces of furniture, but someone lost their mind at some point and painted them the most horrifying shade of green you've ever seen. I always intended to repaint them, I just never had the time.
So, on a whim one day, I decided Shannon and I should paint her dresser and night stand. I'd been wanting to do that too, to give her something more fun and colorful. It was a good time, she wanted rainbows so we went nuts with multicolored spray paint.
From there I kind of caught the bug and wanted to paint more things. So I did a stool. I have a pair of yellow wood stools that we mostly use as end tables and I decided I'd do a test run of my plan for the kitchen table and chairs. It went great. I don't have any before pictures, but this is what I got after:
The bottom is just plack spray paint, the top is a stain mixed with polycrylic that does not go on smoothly at all. So I decided the streakyness was an artistic choice.
And then, a strange thing happened. Stu had a bachelor party and a business trip end to end so he was going to be gone for three days. And at the same time Shannon was going to be spending a week with my dad. I was going to be all alone for an entire weekend. That first Friday night I was completely frozen with indecision on what to have for dinner, despite the fact that literally no one's opinion but mine mattered. I ended up at Paddles Up Poke, which was a good choice.
So, with all this free time I decided I was gonna finally do that. I was gonna haul that table and chairs outside and get them painted. And that was how I spent my weekend.
Before:
After large amounts of sanding:
It was at this point that I learned that there was a very nice dark green underneath this horrible avocado garbage. Who would paint over that? That looked nice.
Black paint added:
Various layers of stain:
Final product:
I had a very good time hanging out outside, playing Fallout Boy loudly and drinking soda and eating junk food in-between sanding and painting. It took me the whole damn weekend and was physically way more draining than I thought it would be, but I got it done, and my kitchen furniture finally looks nice.
The top actually ended up darker than I intended, after two coats I was going to leave it and I started spraying it down with my spray on polycrylic, but what I did not take into account was the current 90+ temperature outside, which caused the spray to become sticky milky white dust. As a result I had to add a third coat of stain to cover that, making it much darker. But that not really a problem, just not what I intended.
The only other thing I did recently was a few simple skirts. Rachel, Cari and Sarah and I decided to go to a Harry Potter themed bar crawl, and of course we were going to dress up for it. Nothing complicated, we did skirts in house colors and attached house patches to them. Now, Rachel, Sarah and I are all Slytherins, and Cari's a Ravenclaw, but the patches came in sets with one each. So to reduce costs we decided that Sarah was the most Slytherin, and Rachel and I would go as our secondary houses, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. I read feel more like a Hufflepuff anyways. But apparently I'm an evil Hufflepuff. The bar crawl was a lot of fun.
Look, aren't we cute?
I think that's all I have at the moment. I have technically started working on my Halloween costume already, but I think that's another post I think.
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