DIYing My House

Or should I say, DIM (myself)? Haha okay that wasn't very funny. It's been a long day!
Moving on!

For years, in our dining room, we have had a long black piece of furniture from Ikea, used to store my art supplies and Neely's craft supplies. And since the top is a flat surface, it has also been used to hold everything I am too lazy to put away as I'm walking through the dining room, and a bunch of house plants that are severely neglected (sorry plants). I knew it was messy and terrible looking but I didn't know what to do about it. Above that, on the wall, was a large rasterbated image of Frank Sinatra.
UNTIL several months ago I saw on A Beautiful Mess' blog, the architect prints. I immediately knew I wanted to do something with some sort of giant print but I had no wall space and no ideas.
A couple months ago we decided to get rid of the Frank Sinatra print and were left with a big, blank wall. I remembered the architect prints and knew that was the perfect solution!
I went to Kinkos and had them print me a picture I had taken of Neely. I chose 3'x4' because our wall space is 5'x5'.
When they handed it to me, I was amazed. Not only did it look perfect, but also, it cost me $6. Can't beat that! If you get one of these made, just note that I'm not sure if they let you print out someone else's picture, so you might want to check ahead.
I chose to hang it with office clamps because I wanted a more industrialish look.
Once it was hung up I knew it needed something else.
I decided I wanted to do a variation of this idea. Instead of making my own felt balls from wool roving I opted to buy pre-made ones. Not only was it more convenient, it was way cheaper. I attached them to floral wire. I bought a thin piece of wood from Home Depot and painted it flat black (I actually used gesso.). Once it was painted, Brett drilled 12 tiny holes in the top of it and then attached it to the wall. I filled each hole with a felt ball attached to wire, now looking like cute colorful flowers.
The effect I wanted was a tiny splash of color against the massive black and white print.
Super simple and I am so happy with how it turned out!

January Home Project

You saw the wall I did for Christmas, right? Well now it's a blank canvas and is now my January decorating project. These yarn balls are hot glued to twigs that we found on a family adventure. I will be putting them into vases that I make and will post here once they're done.
I am also repainting a piece of furniture that was passed to me from my parents. It's always been green but I am almost greened out now. Green was my color for years but I am moving on to different colors. Have you ever gotten to that point? Where everything is a certain color and one day you wake up and realize you need to change everything? I am thankful for Pinterest because it allows me to change things with little to no money involved.
In our house we don't have too much space (fine by me!) and I would have to paint my pictures on the dining room table instead of in a studio space. So, decorating is the only way I can express my creativity while Neely is still little enough to get into all of my painting supplies.
My mom is a world-class decorator so it's in my bones.
I recently told Brett I would probably never be completely satisfied with our home decor because I am always finding ways to improve things. He loves it though, luckily!

If you're reading this, I'd love to hear about a home project you're working on! I need more creative people in my life!

Pinterest Craft Mania

I've been a crafting freak lately. So I decided anything I make from Pinterest ideas up until Christmas will fall under this category:

I saw a similar repurposed tray on Pinterest (which as it turns out is from someone's Etsy store) and I knew that I had to make one! The SAME day I was at a thrift store and saw that ugly tray on the left and knew it would be perfect! I think this tray cost me around a quarter.
I sanded it, sprayed chalkboard paint (from Home Depot) over the entire thing, (which, in hindsight was dumb because it caused me to have to put on a million coats of yellow) and painted it a color called Mustard Seed. It's WAY more mustardy than the pic...I'm not sure why it's so bright yellow there!
I ordered a chalk pen from an etsy store and voila! A repurposed tray! I'm so pleased with it! I will attach wire to the back and hang it up after Thanksgiving.

This area used to have a cluster of pictures of Neely but they looked too small on this 5 foot wall.

Following this idea from Pinterest (of course!), I went to Kinko's and had this picture of Neely printed today. Instead of mounting it I used office clamps to hang it. I like the look and am going to get rid of the plants under it so it's more of a statement. The entire thing including 10 clamps cost me $7.

This is an old slate from the 50's (at least) that I picked up at a garage sale last weekend for $1. I used the chalk pen to write down this dreamy poem by Pablo Neruda. This will be hanging in my living room after we get our couch back from being reupholstered and I take down our giant Björk print. I have a lot of pinteresting ideas for our living room wall...stay tuned!!

I love crafting.