[Gemme]

Seeing as how I live alone, my whole apartment is my cave but I've been here almost 5 years with only a few pieces on the walls. It's leftover 'stuff' from my childhood but I decided to Hell with that and I went a little bat sh*t crazy in my living room recently.

I have a wall that is approximately 16 feet long. It's a lovely pumpkin color....technically 'sweet carrot' but due to a paint mixing incident at Ace Hardware, it's slightly muted. It's still rich and warm. Anyone that didn't know the story wouldn't notice the difference.

So, that wall has been bare bottomed baby naked this whole time until the past 4-6 weeks. I worked from out to in, and against the wisdom of folks that do this kind of stuff regularly, but it worked for me. I now have a gallery wall chock full of me.....framed artwork, little hanging chachkies, pieces with wise sentiments and inspirational messages, a metal letter K, a few things with sparkle, wooden script words and even some pieces I made myself. It's primarily black and white with splashes of yellow, gold and teal and turquoise, which looks soooo good against the pumpkin. When it was all done, I literally felt like I'd ripped a part of me out and thrown it onto the walls. I had so much anxiety about it throughout the process....again, childhood stuff....but once it was done, there was nothing but relief and pride.

I've made baby steps in this direction in other rooms as well. I have a half bath that will feature artwork found at festivals, except the mirror. I've got two pieces that have been professionally framed and matted and they. are. gorgeous. I just acquired two more pieces this past weekend to go in there. One will need matting and framing and the other was painted onto wood so it can up as is. The remaining pieces are wood mounted mermaids and a starfish. I'm wobbling on the starfish as it's not a festival find but it most definitely goes with the water/ocean flow of the room. Of course, the full bath is also an ocean themed room but the blue is different and the feeling of the room is different. Still pondering that...

My bedroom has only had one piece of artwork up since I moved in. A naked lady painted from the back. I found another piece of another naked lady from the back and they are now sharing the hallway so the bedroom needs love. A lot of it. So I have a hanging LOVE piece. I'm not sure how it got there but the bedroom is going to the birds. Literally. I have a mix mash of festival 'Alice in Wonderland' pieces, Kelly Rae Roberts pieces, a couple of random pieces and now, birds. Lots of freakin' birds and I don't even like the suckers as pets. But I love to listen to them and I find pictures of them to be peaceful so there you go.

My craft room is also growing with art. One wall is nearly finished and I'm itching to put the first piece up on my accent wall. I'm growing more confident in my choices with each piece that goes up and even when things don't quite work out as expected, it's okay.

I don't know what my problem has been here. I've had no problems settling into other places. Maybe it's because I know in my heart of hearts that this is not my home; this isn't where I'm going to settle, but it's where I'm 'stuck' so to speak for the time being. Maybe that is why I've been hesitant to put down roots. Though this isn't permanent, I'm going to be here for at least another couple of years so I might as well get comfy.