• Home
  • about emily
  • before + after
  • HGTV + DIY Network
  • good press
  • contact
  • Let’s Organize These Posts:

    • Art Attack
    • Backyard
    • Barn
    • Basement
    • Bathroom
    • Beach
    • Bedrooms
    • Being Thrifty
    • Business-y
    • Buying and Renting and Selling
    • Casual Celebrations
    • Closets
    • Curb Appeal
    • Dainty Details
    • Deck
    • Decor
    • Dining Room
    • DIY
    • Dog-Related
    • Entryway
    • Flooring
    • For the Kids
    • Garage
    • Gardening
    • Helping The Economy
    • HGTV + DIY Network Projects
    • Holiday-Related Projects
    • Home Safety
    • Kitchen
    • Lighting
    • Living Room
    • Merry Travels
    • Office Space
    • Organized
    • Other Pads
    • Outdoor Living
    • Scooter Fun
    • Stairwell
    • Sunroom
    • Supporting Sponsors
    • The Art Room
    • Tools
    • Uncategorizable
    • Wedding
    • Windows
    • Work-pads
  • Search

  • Hi, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

    I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle.

    You can find me writing for HGTV and DIY Network, follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note if you'd like. I love notes.

    Thanks for visiting!

  • BROWSE POSTS BY CATEGORY:

    • Art Attack (7)
    • Backyard (92)
    • Barn (8)
    • Basement (27)
    • Bathroom (43)
    • Beach (13)
    • Bedrooms (73)
    • Being Thrifty (53)
    • Business-y (12)
    • Buying and Renting and Selling (23)
    • Casual Celebrations (36)
    • Closets (17)
    • Curb Appeal (44)
    • Dainty Details (8)
    • Deck (23)
    • Decor (286)
    • Dining Room (37)
    • DIY (577)
    • Dog-Related (24)
    • Entryway (59)
    • Flooring (58)
    • For the Kids (32)
    • Garage (17)
    • Gardening (70)
    • Helping The Economy (30)
    • HGTV + DIY Network Projects (283)
    • Holiday-Related Projects (80)
    • Home Safety (12)
    • Kitchen (83)
    • Lighting (31)
    • Living Room (77)
    • Merry Travels (21)
    • Office Space (21)
    • Organized (41)
    • Other Pads (14)
    • Outdoor Living (12)
    • Scooter Fun (8)
    • Stairwell (20)
    • Sunroom (22)
    • Supporting Sponsors (43)
    • The Art Room (3)
    • Tools (43)
    • Uncategorizable (1)
    • Wedding (28)
    • Windows (14)
    • Work-pads (10)
  • Search

  • Pages

    • blog
    • Merrypad Features
    • Privacy Policy
    • about emily
    • before + after
      • before + after, our current home
      • before + after, our first house
    • contact me
    • choose a badge and share the merrypad.com love
  • Home
  • about emily
  • before + after
  • HGTV + DIY Network
  • good press
  • contact

I Know It’s June, But Skiing Is On The Mind

June 17, 2011

Once upon a time, I was a little ski bunny.

I spent every blustery, wintery Saturday at a small ski club in Colden, NY; the small resort, Tamarack, was a great place to learn to ski. The classes were small, the season passes affordable, the terrain, manageable, and the nachos in the dining hall, the best that I’ve had to date (truth be told, my first ever job at a lake side hot dog stand also served the same amazing liquid-cheese nachos, and my body would probably thank me if i never ate another nacho chip again since between Tamarack and long rainy days at the hot dog stand I’ve easily consumed 4x my body weight.. but I digress).

Tamarack Ski Club. Colden, NY. Circa 1998

I lucked out by learning to ski alongside my childhood best bud, who I’m sure will recognize this project and reflect back on those times with much happiness. Between the ages of 12-18, we spent a lot of time there, from fall open house to unseasonably warm spring days skiing through a substance comparable to a slurpie, and we loved ever minute of it.

Pretty with autumnal foliage too, right?

Tamarack Ski Club. Colden, NY. Circa 1998

And then something sad happened when I was away at college; Tamarack closed.

I remember the disappointment I felt upon learning of that; after all, it was the kind of place that I wanted to bring my kids to learn to ski someday. Not long after shutting down, perhaps even in a previously-arranged transaction, it was acquired by the neighboring private Buffalo Ski Club, which I have nothing against but always wanted to infiltrate, since it was only separated by a thin row of trees. I imagined that the members were hoity-toity snobs, but considered that paid memberships might also come with larger orders of nachos and more black diamonds; plus, anything exclusive seemed oh-so-desirable to a 16-year-old kid, especially the idea of exclusive ski clubs with rich little 16-year-old boys on snowboards.

OK, onto the real project.

I have this mammoth glass-less picture frame that Pete moved in a few months ago. You saw it photographed in this post, and since then it’s been sitting to the side, yearning for some new art. Pete says he won it at a golfing event years ago, which seems like a pretty fun prize to me but meaningless to him. Time to make it something special.

I’ve been relishing the idea of commemorating Tamarack in some way, deciding in the end to craft an abstract piece that would be meaningful to me (and almost only me). In this case, the abstract vision began to take on a multimedia approach. While I considered using a piece of brown craft paper as my starting point, I instead decided to use a large piece of old burlap that I actually had saved away at some point.

Rather than relying too much on my memory, I went straight to the Buffalo Ski Club’s website to view its trail map. While the whole left side of the trail map correlates to the club’s original ski trails, the right side is still clearly Tamarack. I wanted to make an easy-to-use template for my project, which I had decided would also employ some crafty-yet-totally-inexpensive-at-35-cents-a-pop embroidery thread.

Bought out the Snow White 220.

For the template, I cut pieces of white printer paper to size to represent where the trees forming each trail were; as those clusters of trees were assembled on the pre-cut burlap, the trails started to take form. And you may not see anything yet with this photo, but believe me, this is pretty darn close to what Tamarack looked like:

A test layout of Tamarack.

I worked my way through the project cluster by cluster, slowing embroidering the clusters of trees into place and mapping out the trails. There are some square buildings in the original plan, but I opted to leave them out of the equation in the end.

Note: I haven’t embroidered anything since 7th grade Home & Careers class wherein I was challenged to make a kick-ass US flag out of felt and cotton fabric. Thank you, middle school.

Embroidered on the burlap to designate how the clusters of trees formed the trails.

Once the trails and trees were mapped, I added my own chairlift, installed the burlap within the envisioned frame, and stepped back to view the piece:

Mapped ski trails.

Love. I’m fully aware this has no meaning to anyone but me and a few of my friends and family members, but seeing this trail map again is pure happiness. Plus, I’m liking how the old burlap had some wear and tear and discolored areas; adds a nice added dimension.

The original vision in my mind included having the trails white. I was all for making this a full-on embroidery bonanza and hand-stitching the trails, but decided that adding paint to highlight the trails would look a little cleaner than my haphazard embroidery abilities.

As I started painting the trails with plain out-of-the-can white paint and stepped back, I knew it was going to look even better than I expected. In the end, I was elated:

Trails of Tamarack, painted.

I left painting the edge trails and around the chairlift until the end, deciding to fade the color and leave the area beneath the chair lift a little less saturated.

Looking down the faintly painted chairlift trail.

Of course, I had wanted to use this frame in the entryway of the house, but it won’t fit displayed horizontally and I’ll have to come up with a new place; maybe my bedroom. Time and testing of various locations will tell.

 

P.S. Just a quick reminder: Today’s the LAST DAY to enter the Sugru giveaway; go leave a message on this post to be included in the drawing at 10PM.

 

Share

Decor  / DIY

Emily
I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. I've been a freelancer writer for 10+ years and you can find my work on popular home and garden sites, like HGTV.com. Follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note.

6 Comments


amber perrodin
June 17, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Reply

Beautiful work Emily! Make more and sell them on etsy. I promise. People will love them whether they understand the meaning or not!



    Emily
    June 17, 2011 at 1:44 pm

    That’s so nice of you to say! Thank you, Amber!

rach-dawgg
June 17, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Reply

ooohhhh very cool! and now that i look at it with the snow effect added, I totally recognize the trails!



Ashley @ DesignBuildLove.co
June 17, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Reply

oh my gosh! TOO CUTE! What a great, sentimental DIY piece!!!



    Emily
    June 17, 2011 at 7:34 pm

    Thanks Ashley + Rach-dawgg :)

Cait @ Hernando House
June 17, 2011 at 7:40 pm
Reply

Love it! :)



Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • HI, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

    I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. Follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note if you'd like. I love notes.

    Thanks for visiting!

  • Instagram

    merrypad

    Merrypad by Emily Fazio
    Instagram post 17902304861708711 Instagram post 17902304861708711
    Highly recco mining those #herkimerdiamonds ✌️ Highly recco mining those #herkimerdiamonds ✌️
    Pt. 2: Well before Halloween, the last of the garl Pt. 2: Well before Halloween, the last of the garlic went into the home garden: 10 rows [L>R] 6 whole Nootka Rose as an experiment, 3x8 Mennonite-grown cloves from Aman’s, and 6x8 (and, I think, total 112? notes are cryptic) “normal.”
#gardennotes #growinggarlic #garden2023 #whatisnormal #merrypadathome
    Out of sight but [documented so it’s] not out of Out of sight but [documented so it’s] not out of mind! #garden2024 kicks off with my favorite biennial: elephant garlic! 15 cloves planted from small, to medium, to enormous. #gardennotes
    Annual garlic notes for #garden2023, pt. 1: this i Annual garlic notes for #garden2023, pt. 1: this is getting ooc, and I love it. 👩‍🌾🧑‍🌾

🧄 65% of the planting is in a new plot in the country. 🧄 Seeing if NR grows bigger with more sunlight. 🧄 Big @chasefarms cloves from 2021 were really productive in our home garden; can’t wait to see how they can show up next year in the new space. 🧄

Hand-turned a small bed, but big thanks to my sister, who rolled into town just in time to help me double its size (and did not complain once).
    One straggler from #garlic2021 debuted with 7 stal One straggler from #garlic2021 debuted with 7 stalks and 7 scapes, and I can’t wait to see this mammoth looks like when it’s pulled next month. #garlic2022 

Also, fierce springtime performance by parsley, chamomile, and self-seeded cilantro.
    Annual garlic notes #garden2022 ~315 cloves total Annual garlic notes #garden2022
~315 cloves total
50 in new, unfenced garden
Still need thick mulch on everything
Did a terrible job tracking varieties when I harvested, so it’s all a mix of hardneck now 😒
Added some big cloves from @chasefarms and look forward to adding some @fruition_seeds in #garden2023 when @porterfarmscsa delivers.
    Load More... follow emily: @merrypad



  • Like Us On Facebook

    Facebook Pagelike Widget



  • Popular Posts

    • How to fix an IKEA drawer. The Easy Fix For Broken IKEA Drawers 66.7k views
    • DIY sideboard rehab. 7 Steps for Restoring an Old Midcentury Sideboard Buffet 56.6k views
    • How to design and make a barn quilt. How to Make Your Own Barn Quilt 49.9k views
    • How to hang art on brick surfaces using specialty clips. The Easy Way to Hang Art on Brick or Stone 39.9k views
    • DIY driveway removal. The Driveway Rocks 35k views
    • Our DIY flagstone patio. Building a Flagstone Patio in One Day 32.7k views
    • Tips for dying pasta different colors, and a Halloween Recipe for the kids. How to Dye Pasta Different Colors (Halloween Recipe) 32.5k views
    • Goodbye, gold fireplace covering. Less Is More: How to Remove a Fireplace Surround 29.5k views
    • Fix an ikea dresser drawer. Life Support For An IKEA Dresser 29.4k views
    • After: Custom wooden garden fence. Designing a Durable Wooden Fence For Our Beautiful Backyard Garden 22.9k views



  • BROWSE POSTS BY CATEGORY:

    • Art Attack (7)
    • Backyard (92)
    • Barn (8)
    • Basement (27)
    • Bathroom (43)
    • Beach (13)
    • Bedrooms (73)
    • Being Thrifty (53)
    • Business-y (12)
    • Buying and Renting and Selling (23)
    • Casual Celebrations (36)
    • Closets (17)
    • Curb Appeal (44)
    • Dainty Details (8)
    • Deck (23)
    • Decor (286)
    • Dining Room (37)
    • DIY (577)
    • Dog-Related (24)
    • Entryway (59)
    • Flooring (58)
    • For the Kids (32)
    • Garage (17)
    • Gardening (70)
    • Helping The Economy (30)
    • HGTV + DIY Network Projects (283)
    • Holiday-Related Projects (80)
    • Home Safety (12)
    • Kitchen (83)
    • Lighting (31)
    • Living Room (77)
    • Merry Travels (21)
    • Office Space (21)
    • Organized (41)
    • Other Pads (14)
    • Outdoor Living (12)
    • Scooter Fun (8)
    • Stairwell (20)
    • Sunroom (22)
    • Supporting Sponsors (43)
    • The Art Room (3)
    • Tools (43)
    • Uncategorizable (1)
    • Wedding (28)
    • Windows (14)
    • Work-pads (10)





  • a little bit of everything, friends, DIY, and inspiration

    • Dadand.com < My husband and his BFF
    • DIY Network
    • HGTV
  • Some Legal

    Merrypad incorporates the occasional affiliate link to Amazon.com and Minted; we link to many other websites and products, but if it is in context of a paid sponsorship, it is always noted as such. Please review the privacy policy and contact me if you have any additional questions.

    Theme customized by Pete Fazio Creative, the guy from dadand.com.


© Copyright Merrypad