SUMMER BOTANICALS

My second set of paintings! Here's the Pottery Barn inspiration for $49 a print. My knock offs cost whatever the canvas and paint was. I think it would have been fun to paint the background instead of leaving the canvas white, but I wanted to sketch out my flowers first and the walls in the room they're going into are blue, so I thought the white might look nice against it.

I had a super fun time painting them! I've been perusing websites for other ideas I can try imitate and thinking of places I could put them : )

SURE, I CAN PAINT?

I don't remember being super into art class in school growing up. There's a few projects here or there that I remember that turned out well but not many of them were paintings.

My last big attempt to paint art work was inspired by Color Splash on HGTV. I was pretty confident that I could make something for our living room and we had the perfect size piece of plywood. I'm pretty sure what happened is that I bought the wrong kind of paint and went a little crazy spraying it with a water bottle, along with not being patient enough to let paint dry and the colors started mixing together in a bad way.

So instead of painting works of art I had Chad built me a wood frame and then wrapped fabric around it. It works great. And it's easy to change when you want something new.

One of the families I sit for has a little girl and are wanting to do some decorating in her room since she's not a baby anymore. I was super excited to help. Her mom bought some canvases and paint and has given me the freedom to paint whatever.

I looked googled things like art for girls room and what not to get some ideas. Pottery Barn Kids had some cute stuff that I'm gonna do my best at imitating. Right now those are just sketched out to paint this weekend. Two I already have done. Check them out!

She was born in New Orleans and the fleur de lis is a big symbol there. And a whimsical owl (that still needs the bee painted in)

LIVING ROOM CHALLENGE

(I've a lot of time on my hands today - still stuck at home)

How well do you know your favorite home stores? Can you tell where these living rooms came from? Can you rank them in their value?

Each has a sofa, chair, 2 pillows, bookcase/cabinet, side table, floor lamp, clock, vase, art, curtains and a rug. Good luck!


I will post the answers right here in a couple days ; )

Answers posted 2.9.11


Here is what I would put together between the four. Total $3631.85

What would you do?

HOW NOT TO PUT AWAY LAUNDRY

I washed and then had this laundry pile on the bed with intentions to put it all away. It didn't happen and they've been on the floor for the last week. Finally got the energy to tackle it and make some sense of the closet - much better! (Except now the hamper is full of dirty clothes again from past week)

I WANT IT: GLASS TILE BACKSPLASH

No, we're not in the processing of buying or fixing up a home, but whenever that day comes I've already decided on one thing - glass tile - I love it. It's so clean looking and still adds a lot of fun and dimension into a space. Will be very excited the day I get to pick some out for my own kitchen and bathrooms : )

INSPIRED BY . . . .WIPE OFF BOARD

from makeandtakes.com via Little Birdie Secrets -- I want to make one!

DIY: REFINISHED COFFEE TABLES

BEFORE:Here's the story.

Chad's mom was moving to Bozeman and we went out to look for furniture for her new place. He found an ad in the paper for a loveseat for $100 so we went to take a look. It was pretty much brand new and gorgeous and our style. The older woman selling it said she liked us so much that she'd give it to use for $75. We bought it, for us!, thinking we could get the matching sofa and give his mom our old furniture.

I was able to track down the store where she bought it from, but the series had been discontinued. After a little looking, I found the same exact style set in leather (the loveseat we bought is a suede-microfiber kinda fabric). About a year ago, along with buying the sofa, we got a matching chair. . .and about a month ago decided to buy the small ottoman to go with the chair. .it's here, just have to go back to Great Falls to pick it up!

Nice, new furniture of course spurred a whole redecorating of the living room. Kept the same lamps, found a new rug. .. and still had the coffee tables, which we really liked but the finish of the bases were a little bit industrial for the warmer feeling that was starting to happen. Chad is great at coming up with ideas for my decorating and craft dilemmas and suggested painting the bases - perfect!

Rust-Oleum makes a spray paint that has is brown with a hammered look when it's done drying. It took about $20 for 3 cans and tada - new tables. They came apart super easy, the paint was easy to use, it dried quickly and they look great.

AFTER:

PERFECT RECIPE BOX

I have many cookbooks. How often do I use them? Rarely.

Every now and then when I'm looking to make something for the first time, but so often it's a cookie recipe I got from my mom or something I tore from a magazine or something scrawled on the back of an envelope. All these lonely and random recipes needed a home. I was not having much luck finding a recipe box and figured it wouldn't be that difficult to make my own.

I decided that I did not want it to have a top and that it would be something to keep out. I found a 5x5?? box at Micheal's . . painted the inside. . .mod podged some paper to the outside . . .created some dividers for different types of recipes . .. and ta da! . . .perfect recipe box : )

And it looks great next to my pear colored Kitchen-Aid . . .

I LOVE THIS BATHROOM

This is the only "finished" room in my house - the guest bathroom. It all started with this tin/neon flamingo clock. I bought it for my dorm room on the way to college somewhere between Alaska and Montana. The colors from it inspired the pink and aqua theme with a vintage sort of feel. When the pink neon light is on, the bathroom lights clashed, so I replaced them with "blush" lights that give everything a softer feel.

A few items were bought and put in "as is":

-- Rugs, towels and soap dispenser from Target
-- Candles from Cost Plus World Market
-- Silk flowers from Michaels
-- Trash can from Bed, Bath & Beyond

Projects I did:

-- Magazine rack from Ross was originally green, I repainted pink
-- Tray from Michaels, painted aqua and mod-podged paper to bottom
-- Picture frames from Michaels ($1/piece, in the kids section!), painted and put in pink patterned paper
-- Butterflies above the magazine rack are various papers I had, created a template and cut them all out (idea from Ali Edwards, she used a punch from Martha Stewart Crafts)
-- Clothespins are covered in paper and hold postcards from Perspectives and cards I've received