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!

Mortem's Tricks or Treats: Purple Pants Revamp

I love to revamp clothing almost as much as I love creating them from scratch. It's a fun little thing to do when I don't feel like drafting patterns and feel like having something new to me.

During my trip down to Phoenix, my boi and I stumbled upon a shop that was having a blowout sale of their summer clothing, and there in the window hung purple pants. We bought them, and I seriously debated keeping them just purple... but the urge for a good pair of stripe pants inevitably won. I've seen numerous tutorials, and suggestions on how to achieve these; so it won't be hard to google your favorite technique if you tried this yourself.

 In my zeal I purchased a bottle of fabric spray paint, not realizing that I picked up Stencil Spray over Simple Spray. If you've ever used either product you'll know the difference; if you've never used either; Stencil Spray goes on rather thick and stays rather patent even after a wash or two; Simple Spray conforms the softness of the material and is relatively matte; it is essentially a dye, but in spray form... pretty handy, albeit a bit spendy. I had coupons from Joann's, though.

Despite ending up with a stiff pair of pants, I still enjoy the shiny results; they add more character to a staple (trite?) idea.

I hope with a bit of time and lots of wear, they will soften up some; they may fade and that's fine; it might even look better when they're slightly distressed.