Tomorrow I begin teaching a 3-day class at the National Quilt Museum! It's going to be fun and I hope to be able to share some of that with you. I'm lucky enough to be staying with Caryl Bryer Fallert in her very fine studio here in Paducah. Caryl's studio includes the space where she holds her retreats. Oh my – it's very nice!

Today Caryl took me out to see an art installation in progress. Well, it's seriously hot in Paducah and the art was (slowly) happening outside so we went inside Etcetera, the coffee shop in the arts district. I met these lovely ladies who are members of the Radioactive City Roller Girls – it's roller derby time in this part of the world!

From left to right: Jennifer Blair (Smackeroni N' Cheese), Emily Sands (Mean Mean Mississippi Queen), Claudia R. Harris (Dollface Delilah who was celebrating birthday #20), and Kelsey Doyle (Scream Queen). They are getting ready for a fund raising event this weekend benefiting Charles Bradford, a local window washer much beloved here, who fell from a 2nd story window and suffered extensive injuries. These ladies are characters in the best sense of the word – lots of fun and very friendly!

Etcetera itself is very arty. I was especially taken with the tabletops, painted by local high school art students…

I think they are painted in acrylics and then covered with an epoxy resin finish.

I have two tabletops that are crying out for this… don't know when I'm going to get to them but at least now I'm developing a plan!

Today was the day to get this done. (Scroll down or click here to see the 'before' fixture picture.) Steve took the fixture down and I suspended it in the center of our garage. I went to Lowe's and chose an orange and a green spray paint. I suspected orange would be better (and it was) but that green spray paint was a really good color. (I'm going to hold on to it for later.)

I stuffed the bulb openings with torn strips of paper towel…

…and I taped off the screw threads at the top of the fixture.

I sprayed a base coat of white primer followed by two coats of the high gloss orange spray paint. I sprayed inside the light cups, the chain, the cord inside the chain – if it was visible it is now orange. If you do this be careful to look at your fixture from all angles, high and low, be be sure you're not leaving areas unpainted. It's bad to look up in the middle of a dinner party to find the spot you missed.

FYI – I ended up taking out all of the little screws that you see here. They aren't necessary in Texas, where glass shades do not hop off of this sort of fixture, and they are visually distracting.

While the paint was drying I went back to Lowe's to look for new glass shades. I though about using those cute round bulbs but they aren't cheap and I thought they might be too bright. First I looked at the fixtures that were on display…

…and then I looked at the glass shades. The majority of the glass shades are frosted. What I took down was frosted glass. I remember when I loved them – when that was a new look. Now it's not as new and I wanted to freshen up the fixture. I decided to go old school – the skinny clear glass shades with the grooves (bottom row, far left).

I LOVE it!

I saw this this little fire hydrant in a parking lot near Evergreen, CO. It must be nearly invisible to drivers. You can imagine the sequence of events:

1. Paint it red.
2. Add a flag!
3. Station a large pole on either side to protect it.

It looks like the 'bodyguards' have taken some hits.

I saw this on Design Sponge and it reminded me of just how much I want to paint the light fixture in my dining room. 'Chandelier' is too fancy a name for mine as you can see, below.

It's BORING. Eventually I'll get around to painting it and I'll share
the after photos when I do. I really ought to scrape the popcorns off of
the ceiling too – someday, but not today.

We have a new tote bag! The image on the bag (both sides are the same) is from Picasso' Garden, from the book Applique Outside the Lines. It's a good size for carrying quilting projects or to take shopping. Or traveling! It has a zippered closure. And it's made from recycled plastic bottles.

This cute bag can be yours for only $6.95 (plus shipping of course). I think you need one, don't you? Click here for more on this tote!

I found a link on Ami Simms' newsletter to a man who makes art from toast. I had to check it out.

Maurice Bennett is exploring the use of 'flame as paintbrush' in this series. Well, there you go. It sounds way too dangerous an enterprise for me, but he obviously is good with a torch. This one is called 'The World of Finance' and it can be yours! It's very quilt-like, don't you think?

Then the mail came and I got the new Anthropologie catalog. I love looking at this catalog. The clothes suit my DIL better than they do me, but I have found many items for my own home at Anthropoligie. AND both their store and catalog layouts are wonderful. They must have an army of designers whose only job it is to think up cool display ideas.

As I was flipping through the new catalog I noticed that there were a variety of shots mixing their stuff with food-stuffs. Very cute. Can you guess what one of the foods they used was? You guessed it… toast!