DIY vinyl family tree! (nat)

In our last place I tried to come up with a fun way to display all the recent family pictures we'd done with each of our families--so after walking through Ikea and getting "inspired" I decided to do a vinyl-like family tree. I had it in our old place here and then later here. Well when we got to our new place-- I decided this was the one thing I wanted to incorporate here too. BUT I thought the tree itself needed a major re-vamp. Good good bye Ikea decals, hello vinyl by-the-foot thanks to Roberts! Roberts now carries vinyl in about 10 colors and it costs 1.99 a foot! Yahoo!

Very first I just jumped online and googled vinyl tree images. TONS pop up. But if you buy one online it can cost 75-hundred+ dollars- who wants to pay that much!? NOT ME. Soooo I found a pic I liked...

....then I sketched out the image of the "inspiration tree" the best I could on a huge piece of butcher paper- made to the scale of where I ultimately wanted it to be hung. Really no science behind it, just eye-balled and sketched, there was a lot of erasing and tweaking but it got the job done. Then I bought a huge piece of brown vinyl- I believe I got 6 feet (12 bucks) I took the butcher paper drawing that I had cut out and traced it onto the vinyl, and had to piece a few branch pieces together but managed to get them all on there.

Then I got about one foot of red and green and used some scrapbooking paper I already had for a bit of yellow and black. It only took about 30 min to get it all actually up on the wall and voila!

A re-vamped and totally cute way to display our family! I love that every time I walk down the stairs with our 18 mo. old he points and says- mommy, daddy! (Even though I desperately need to switch out almost all the pics, totally out-dated!)

Total cost- without the frames, about $16.00!!! Ahhhh

Linkin up to thrifty decor chick!

Kitchen decor on a budget (nat)

Still loving the striped wall but it needed something--- nothing too busy b/c the stripes do enough but something- trying to stay on our new budget is depressing, but makes things more fun and challenging too so here's the solution for now!

My sister and I got these awesome little signs on our garage sale escapades last spring. I haven't done anything with them yet.. just waiting for the right place and we moved and yada yada so... I finally dug them out again to put them to use! I decided I better veto the Iced Tea one :) so that left the other two- they looked blah and unfinished just as they were on the wall so I took a simple matted IKEA frame that I won at Bunco- (Thanks Linds) framed the pic... and tada- instant art for the kitchen for 2 bucks! It's looking a little lonely though so I either need to get lucky at Bunco again or head to IKEA for the 50th time to give this pic a friend--- hmm might be awhile, but for now- I like it!

Then onto the 3 white doors in a row--- what to do, went to a cute little craft show and tada! perfect cheap solution! vinyl lettering for 3 bucks! OK... i have to admit I don't really love all the vinyl lettering craziness that is out there- all the same quotes we see everywhere and some of it is all a bit cheesy. BUT i do think if done tactfully- vinyl lettering is super cute. If you don't over do it or really search for a quote that means something to you then its great. So anyway- I liked the font on this one a lot, its totally simple, inexpensive, and breaks up the space and fit the door perfectly. Yahoo!

Just ignore all the messy stuff on the counter! ...and the fact that i am still in debate about where the clock should hang-- i am thinking 6 inches lower? yeah, probably!