Mortem's Trick or Treats: To Be or Not To Be-- Craft-along + Giveaway!

Another home, another spooky sewing room to make my own!
One of my favorite things about moving is being able to rearrange and redecorate my creative living space.
Once again, I find myself with not just one but two rooms to house my hobbies-- one room for my machines and general craftery; the other room for my stash... because yeah, my stash really is that big.

The "store room" came in an ashy grey, and that is ok... for now.
Unfortunately, the machine room is where the paint job wasn't exactly a blank canvas.

The ceiling is painted in a high gloss black, 3 of the walls including the closet are painted a pastel purple, and the wall facing the rest was a deep pink accent wall.
I don't mind the purple, and I am keeping the black ceiling... but the pink had to go immediately.

I bought a gallon of Kilz, and luckily the previous owners had some leftover eggshell ultra pure white that I eliminated the pink with.

Unsurprising, it took almost the entire gallon of Kilz to neutralize that deep shade of not-my-favorite-color, but already the room became livable for me.
I dabbed the ceiling accidentally here and there, and weirdly it's the only mistakes among the plethora that can be seen on photo-- perhaps it's the white contrast on black... well the previous paint job is intensely sloppy. There are 2 colors on that edge... actually all edges even on the sills and frames that aren't turning up in the photo.
It's almost as if they decided to forgo painters tape... I have major amounts of retouching and scraping to do despite my own mistakes.

The wall remained an accent wall, but instead of being a solid color, I opted to stripe it-- black and white! How exciting that it should fit exactly into Bane's theme for this month's Craft-Along. I did make a submission for previous month's craft-along... but my move sort of prevented me from writing up a post for it; if you're following my IG account, you would have seen what I made and are perhaps waiting on that outfit and post. If I can only find the box they're all packed in...

Anyway, this was my first time painting a stripe wall... I think the concept of stripe walls was scarier than the doing, though to be fair, I did quite a lot of video research before I got to the doing. I bought a cheap laser level which made the process much much quicker and less messy. I also created a cardboard template, so that I could get nearly perfect spacing for my markings to set my laser on: I say nearly because I don't think each stripe is exactly 5.5 inches; there is very likely fractions of an inch differences to each, but it's very near the mark.

Since I was painting on a wall I only let cure for 24 hours, I went with delicate surface frog tape. I read that no matter what you buy or how much you try, some bleeding is inevitable; with that in mind, the best tip I read was prepping the inside of the stripe by painting a coat with your base paint just overlapping the inside and the tape to create a kind of bleed-barrier to prevent a lot of that; whatever bleeds heavily will be the same color as the base. You let that layer cure as per paint can instructions, and continue with your dark paint.

Another tip that everyone chimed in with is taking off the tape while the paint is still wet to get a cleaner finish. That said, my second coat went slower, as I worked 2 stripes at a time to move carefully around the wet paint.
All in all, I'm extremely happy with the result-- I didn't have any bad bleed spots on my stripes, many of them came out so clean I could have made one of those "satisfying" videos...

But like expected, some bleed did happen-- not very big, the biggest ones were no bigger than the head of a pin. I took a tiny dab of white base on an artists paint brush and it fixed them right up.

So now the question remains... what to do with the purple. Do I keep it? Or do I change it...


I'm assuming since the paint cans left are such, that I'm dealing with a Behr paint. This purple shade color wasn't in the pile left us. The color, I think, is either 'Foxglove' or 'Bohemianism' in semi-gloss.
Tough to tell... thinking more it's foxglove.

I do love purple, and I don't like doing this kind of painting (the act, not the result, heh!)... but I also really love the idea of a nice aged pumpkin orange to go with my vintage and retro decor that make up my signature spooky sewing room theme.

My two orange choices are 'Japanese Koi' or 'Mandarin'-- almost no difference, except mandarin is just slightly more pale.
I was going to go for a matte, but my husband convinced me eggshell would be more appropriate to go with the accent wall.

So, as of yesterday... I am completely undecided. I was so sure I was going to do the orange that I bought a couple sample tubs to play with on the wall... but gah, I went and overthought it.
I can't make the decision...

So I am going to leave it up to you, fiends!

And for your troubles, I shall offer a chance to win a little Halloween Treat Bag

With the spooky season still in full swing in my heart (regardless of those Christmas fanatics already revving up!), and having an October that also included a Friday the 13th, I'd say there's still lots of cheer to spread.
Help a fellow spook out, cast your vote and be entered to win this here surprise treat bag stuffed with all manner of spoopy, kitsch, and oh so delightfully Weeny goodness, including a handmade piece of spooky cute jewelry by yours truly and a couple knick knacks to entice a crafty spooky soul among the loot!

The Rules:

1. You must be following my IG (@mari_mortem) and/or this blog.
2. Comment on either post (via IG or on here) with your vote-- team purple or team orange. Receive an extra entry if you comment on both (please leave an identifier if you have different account names).

Winner drawn randomly on Oct. 31th, open world wide.

Good luck, fiends-- spook ya later!

Fashioning My Cyber Microcosm: Sleepless In Calgary.

January has been a month of getting down to the roots of complacency and tearing them out.

My husband and I sat down an hour each day and talked about all the things that made us unhappy, and planned how we could attempt to eradicate and mend through small and big gestures.

This life overhaul has left me with all the motivation to sew, craft and ultimately write about it... but I haven't had a chance to do any of it (for myself, that is). I find myself overwhelmed because I have so much to write about, and no idea where to really start... might explain the lack-luster of the previous posts.

I guess one the biggest updates yet to be written about was first mentioned on the post made during the week I arrived back home.

I mentioned very briefly that I met with lady Insomniac from Insomniac's Attic.

Let me start of by saying that I am thrilled for chance at having met a fellow blogger. Like so many of my internet interactions, one only hopes to meet the many individuals someday, but it rarely ever happens.

Luckily, lady Insomniac lived in my hometown of Calgary.

I still wonder what are the chances of that...

I visited her twice with my youngest brother, once to see the progress of her wonderful Gothic Cottage in the spooky woods, and forgetting to take my camera....

And the second time (with camera!) she drove us about to see some of her favorite places.

Sadly, lady Insomniac is the camera shy type, and I was unable to convince her to take a photo with me for my blog. Nevertheless, I am able to show you the type of places she likes to visit once in a while, heh; this was the Chateau Country Lace.

It would be a while till I will be able to afford the items in this shop for my own home, but it was very nice taking in all inspiration, as lady Insomniac tends to do as well!

One of the places she took us to, my mother was tell me she once visited when she first settled into Calgary-- I guess it's been around for a while, but I never seemed to notice it; it was lavish, beautiful and once again far more than this humble person could afford... and yet, that didn't stop me from falling head over heels for the top floor of Chintz & Company...

I was too gobsmacked by the myriad of luxurious items to bust out my camera; I had always wondered what kind of place sold the unique items those better off could attain, and it was everything I imagined it to be.

The top floor had several rows of the most luxurious fabrics I had ever been privileged to see or touch.

I was on cloud 9.

Then, lady Insomniac showed me just how far my head could obsess over mere fabric and showed me this...

Chenille Damask in a dusty purple

To this day, I cannot stop dreaming of this fabric (the website has better shots of this fabric: here).

It haunts me; I've never been so consumed with desire for a material object... I must save for it. It will be mine one day. At $30.00 a meter, I'm not sure when... but it will be.

Lady Insomniac also took us to several thrift stores, where I managed to buy myself an entirely new wardrobe of clothing; we seemed to hit every sale these stores had. I was wondering if perhaps I should've puchased the meters I wanted (4) in lieu of the clothing purchases... though I would've spent more on the fabric, then the entire total of what we spent on the clothing, shoes and accessories.
I was more than a little torn.

Unfortunately, I had underestimated how much room I have back home; the mountains I had created with my new purchases was one of the catalysts to the "life overhaul"... who'da thunk it.

I was blessed by lady Insomniac's generosity when she first offered a buckle/clasp to a jacket I wanted to revamp some time ago. This time, she gave me a petticoat!

I feel like a glamorous gypsy as I twirl and twirl in it. Because of my "height deficiency", it doesn't quite fit the way it probably should, but I am appreciating what it does to my full length gypsy skirts, heh... so I don't know, should I shorten it? Or keep it full length? Decisions, decisions....

I made myself a promise that I must somehow return all the gestures of kindness which have been shown to me. I've never been good at guessing what someone may like, even in the slightest; I hate to admit it, but it literally has to be spelled out to me, hehe.

Is gift giving hard or easy for you? 

Share your tips and tricks!