Jen Bowles Design

Year in Review: 2009 Things in 2009

Back in January, I sat down with a small spiral bound notebook and a pen.

My goal was to come up with 209 things I wanted to do in 2009.  Some big, some small.

Let's see how I did...

First of all, turns out that 209 things is a lot of things.  I only managed to write down 76 things.

However, I did manage to complete 32 of my 76 things--plus, I'm sure, a whole lot more that I didn't write down.

Some of the bigger things I did accomplish included:

• Visit Savannah.  Went there in March with my mom and had a wonderful time.  It's so pretty there and the people are so friendly.  And of course there's the shopping...
• document a Year of Wednesdays.  This is the one I'm most proud of.  Yesterday marked the last Wednesday of 2009.  I now have a stack of index cards with notes about each and every one of them.  The weather, daily life, outings and funny quotes.  I suppose one of my goals for 2010 should be to make some sort of scrapbook or journal out of them.  We'll see.
• participate in 3 online swaps.   I enjoyed participating in all 3 swaps that I signed up for this year.  All were hosted by Kari (Artsy Mama) over on her Year of Color blog.  I had some great partners (Julie at Jane's Apron, Katie at Create Each Day and Artsy Mama) and got to create some fun projects including a May Basket, a beeswax coated collage and a yarn wreath.  And of course now I have some great additions to my home and creative stash :-).
• expand our rear deck.  While I didn't do this work, I did place the call to our handyman extraordinaire, Patrick, and contracted to have the work done.  That counts, right?

Some of the other around the house things that did get done include:

• Painting my office & the upstairs bathroom
• Creating the Wall of Woof
• Sewing window treatments for the dining room
• Organize Will & Cuyler's closet
• Install & plant a window box for the farmer's porch

A few of the 'places to go' things I did:

• visit Patriot Place in Foxboro
• visit Yummy Goods on Cape Cod (had so much fun, did this one twice!)
• take the ferry to Provincetown

Some of the family things that got done:

• bake 12 months of Treat of the Month club for my dad.  Apparently I'm letting my success on this one go to my head.  I gave treat of the month club to 4 family members this Christmas.
• enroll Ebby in dance class
• get a Duxbury beach sticker and take many family trips there :-)

A few of the crafty things that got done include:

• more art journaling.  While I originally wrote that I wanted to complete a page per week, I'm happy to have completed  more than 4 pages for the year--which was my total for 2008
• make painted tin & button flowers
• make cushion for mudroom bench. This turned into getting some nice pillows at a yard sale, but I'm still counting it.  Besides, I did create cushions for the outdoor patio bench.

As I look over my list of 209, er, 76 things to do in 2009, there are several that I didn't accomplish.  Lots of these things still hold their appeal and will probably make it onto my next list including paint the porch ceiling sky blue, visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum and make pizza on the grill. Of course there are tons of things I did in 2009 that never made it onto the list such as: spontaneously introduce myself to women whose blogs I read (Melissa of Yummy Goods and Jenn Hayslip of Sweet Eye Candy Creations) and find out that they are even more fun and entertaining to hang out with in person, take unique art classes and create cool projects (with Mimi Kirchner and Marah Johnson), walk around the holiday window displays in NYC at Christmastime fully in awe of the creativity, detail and craftsmanship, be in the same room as 2 major film actors, and collect about 3 tons of beautiful beach rocks.

Yep, I did lots of things in 2009.  And I'm looking forward to accomplishing many more things in 2010~whatever they may be ;-)

To you, thank you for stopping by & reading about my adventures and endeavors and leaving me notes.

Thank you for sharing your inspiration, talents, photos, and links on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. 

It's a big (real & virtual) world out there, and I'm happy for the connections that make it feel just a little bit smaller and a whole lot friendlier.

Wishing you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!!

The Patio: Before & After

Last week I showed off our newly transformed patio bench.  Now it's time to show the rest of our newly transformed patio.

Up until a couple of months ago, we didn't even have a patio. 

This is what the house looked like when we moved in last year.  2 flagstone paths, a bunch of overgrown shrubs and brick-faced concrete steps.

This past spring, we removed the bushes.  And found that the long, hard, cold & snowy winter had taken quite the toll on the steps.  The steps that went from ok to falling into the ground.

So we set about finding a stone contractor to repair the steps. Oh, and the walkway.  We got a price on a patio too, just for kicks.

We decided on a contractor and signed off on re-doing our steps and building a patio.  We were able to reuse granite that we had in our backyard for the new front steps.  Our contractor used an engineered concrete paver for the patio.  Things were moving along ok... 

Then we starting talking about how we would route the water from the downspout that is located in the corner of the patio.  Long story short, we decided to add some underground drainage from two points at the front of the house.  Both were places were water tended to pool whenever it rained.  Even I know that water near the foundation of your house is not good. It made the most sense to take care of the problem before the patio went in.  Then of course, as long as the mini excavator was going to be here, the contractor gave us a price on a front walkway.  Goodbye flagstones and summer vacation, hello concrete pavers and staycation. 

Weather delays &  equipment issues made the project drag on for longer than expected.  Which is to be expected.     

Finally, it was finished.  Except for one little nagging item.  The mortar joint between the top step and the existing porch slab cracked and came loose the same day the contractors installed it in June.  Last weekend, one of the masons appeared early on Saturday morning and did the repair. Naturally that was the day we had 15 people over for a cookout and then couldn't use our steps but hey, at least we have other means of entry.

Everything is good to go now.  The patio and walkway look good, the grass has (mostly) grown in--except where Maisy keeps digging holes in it, and furniture has been found, painted and arranged.        

There's still more I'd like to do out there, more landscaping, more mulch, maybe an arbor, paint the door and the exterior of the house...Hmmm, I seem to be getting ahead of myself ;-)...

While the stonework didn't come cheap (but fair, for sure), the patio furniture and accessories sure did.  I already gave the breakdown on the bench ($55, I think, total).  The two green metal bistro chairs were $9.98 each on clearance at Target.  The pink ice cream parlor style chair was free from my dad's basement (win, win).  The blue bench and the blue square table were both found at the dump swap pile for free.  I used leftover paint to freshen them up and a $13 can of marine varnish to protect them from the rain.  The window box (which filled in nicely this summer) was $3 at a yard sale, mounted on metal brackets from Hobby Lobby (miss you!!) I already had.  The other porch accessories were also cheap yard sale purchases--except for the Welcome wielding puppy which is from Lowe's.  I didn't buy that, so it doesn't count ($15, BGD). 

I'm still on the lookout for a small, round bistro type table.  Perhaps someone will leave one at the swap pile for me...

Art Journal Pages

It's been a while since I've posted (or worked in...) my art journal.
I guess #13 Art Journal 1 page per week from my 209 Things to do in 209 isn't going so well.
But that's ok. Plenty of room for improvement ; )
This first page was heavily inspired by Pam Garrison's artwork on the cover (and inside) of the premiere issue of Stampington's Art Journaling publication.  Pam has been featuring a ton of her amazing pages from her latest art journal on her blog.  Definitely go and take a peek!
Back to my page.  I used a black Pitt pen, oil pastels, colored pencils and 2 different kinds of paint--turquoise Lumiere metallic acrylic and pernod yellow Setacolor transparent fabric paint.  The paints were fun to work with and the fabric paint was on clearance at Michaels when I got it (bonus!).  My inspiration was really Pam's artwork, and I do love drawing birds.  Other than that, just playing with my art supplies on a rainy Saturday morning.

The second shot is 2 separate pages, scanned together.  Both of these pages were inspired by the words/ideas written on the pages.  From there I just doodled, playing with patterns, colors and supplies.  I used the same supplies for these pages as  the bird page. I like the 'Consume Less, Culitivate More' page a bit better, not so crazy about the purple on the 'Life' page.  But that's ok, it's an art journal and it's just for fun.
I like fun.
Especially where creating is concerned.

 

One String at a Time

Recently, I participated in the One String at a Time swap hosted by Artsy Mama  on her Year of Color blog.  Each partner made a garland or bunting out of the material of their choice, the only requirement was that it be 48 inches long (includes the string).  Since the mail out date was just last Friday, I'm not sure if my partner has received her package yet (look away, Kathie!). However, since I've posted about nothing but my Savannah trip more than a week, I thought I'd change it up.
From the Atlantic to the Pacific, here's what I sent my partner:
Seems we share a love of the ocean : )  I really enjoyed working with this color palette and making a banner just for fun.  I even managed to use an appropriate book for the background text behind the glittered letters (The Sea at Ebb Tide).

A few close ups... 

See more in the Year of Color flickr pool!  

And now that it's begun to downpour, I must go pick up Cuyler at school.  Perhaps I'll drive instead of walk today...
  
 

209 Things in 2009 ** 1st Quarter Update

Back in late December/early January, I started making my list of 209 Things I'd Like to Do in 2009.  Since today marks the end of the first quarter of the year, I thought I'd check in and see how I'm doing.

Overall, not too bad.

Done:  #8  Visit Savannah   (much more on this coming this week)

Not done:  #10 Visit my cousin Karyn--who lives an hour and a half away and whose house I was 10 minutes away from a couple of weeks ago.  Poor planning.

Done:  #16 Paint my office (that's the accent wall color in the background of the basket picture)

Not done:   #17 Paint upstairs bathroom.  But I am thinking hard about a color...

Doing:  #39 Record a year of Wednesdays.
I've been pretty dedicated to this one.  Every Wednesday I take out an index card and write down all the seemingly mundane details of the day. I have a growing treasury of ordinary days that I think will make a cool scrapbook at some point.  It's amazing how many Wednesdays I have a headache.

Not doing:  #13 Art Journal page a week.  I've done 4 all year, and 2 of them aren't really done.  I'd like to do much better on this one.

Done: #21  WOOF letters.
Not Done:  #22 HANG IT letters--but I've collected almost all of them.

Done:  #31 pull out holly bushes at back door (thanks to BGD)
Not Done:  #27 Make a terrarium

There are several more that are currently in progress (#7 Strip wallpaper from bathroom, #36 Display more flower bouquets, #15 business plan for Jen Bowles Design, #42 participate in 3 online swaps). 

I'm pretty happy with my progress and I do love my lists(!).  One more thing I must admit:  I currently have only 65 things on my 209 Things to Do list.

#66  Complete entries for 209 Things in 2009 list ; - )

209 Things in 2009

Happy New Year!
Is it really already January 5th??
I've been working on a list for 2009.
Not a list of resolutions.  Resolutions are so 20th century ; )
Instead I've been working on a list of 209 Things I'd Like To Do in 2009.
I'm handwriting them in a little notebook.
So far I have 54 things written down.
There's a wide variety of Things To Do.
Some are to be expected (lose weight), some are fun (go to Savannah).
There are lots of house projects (paint upstairs bathroom, make family room window treatments) and yard projects (fence garden, pull out bushes at back door).
Lots of creative things to do as well (work on redecorating my wooden dollhouse, make a mixed media mosaic icon using polymer clay tiles, art journal 1 page per week).
I'm planning on documenting my progress here--hopefully that will help keep my motivation up as well : )

Of course before I can really get to my list for 2009, I have a few things leftover from 2008 to finish up.  A few days ago I checked two of those things off my list: make pink ruffle apron and make blue & green ruffle apron are now done.  They are post-Christmas gifts for some young friends.  My well-loved "woman" was happy to model them in the meantime.    Hope they'll like them--whenever they receive them ; )

Here's to a happy, healthy, creative, prosperous, and joyful 2009 for one and all!