Quick Fix

I think this dresser is the very first piece of furniture we ever spray painted-about 7 yrs ago, in a church parking lot b/c we didn't have space at our apartment. It used to be banana yellow and white, from Grandma. It's cheap but for now it gets the job done. When we painted it white I painted the knobs black to go with some other dresser we had at the time. 7 years later, the knobs were driving me crazy in our room because they look so cheap. So a few months ago when I was roaming around in an antique shop- I happened upon these knobs. Nothing too fancy but metal instead of wood and at 50 cents a piece I knew it would be a good upgrade! 

 Of course, I didn't take a picture til half way through- so now u can see the difference

 After

 A little DIY styling on the top- the S is from Hobby Lobby at 50% off it was $5, the frame was something I had, and the stencil print I did myself with some butcher paper and a sharpee, books I gathered from around the house

Free Fall Decor

When I was walking to a neighbors house the other day I noticed several pallets that had just been dumped in an empty lot. My mind started reeling on what I could do with them, and there are ideas online everywhere. Table, headboards, dresser, art... I wasn't sure what I was going to do with one but I knew I would put it to use some how. So after watching for a couple days and realizing no one was going to claim the pallets, I broke my back dragging one back to my garage. It sat there for a week or so until I decided I wanted to spruce up the entry way a bit and add some touches of fall. 

Here's a reminder on what the entryway looked like before board and batten

This is how it looks now...all the decor stuff was free, minus the 2 dollar pumpkins I bought a week before & stuff I already had

Scrapbooking paper and paper bags for the banner- all stuff I had

Some wheat looking twigs I grabbed on our morning walk & some mulch with a candle on top

 

 Then my DIY pallet sign. It took me a long time to rip the pallet apart, & I woke up the whole neighborhood trying to do it. Then I cut them down a bit, hooked them all together with wood on the back- then created my own saying/stencil. I saw this quote years ago on an old window in an antique shop, I've always wanted to use it somewhere- and now it's perfect for fall/thanksgiving. All I did was print out letters from Word, then cut them out by hand- using the negative space from the paper as a stencil. I just used some white craft paint & my stencil brush. I love how it turned out, and love that I didn't spend a dime!

 

Done and done.

Thinking outside the box with photo displays

Several people have asked about my different photo displays lately so I thought I'd break it down a little. The one thing I always told myself was worth spending money on in life is good photos! So thanks to a lot of family/friends over the years (Jill, Val, Emmie, Jamie) we've gotten a lot of awesome pics of us and the kids so I wanna see them! There is no better way to make my home feel like mine than personal photos everywhere. But I think the standard just hanging posed pics on the wall is way too boring so I try to think outside the box and have fun with some photo displays. It's tricky to display tons of photos but still make things feel un-cluttered and streamline. But here's what I've done!

I always get questions about the photos above our TV. Our great friend Jill is an amazing photographer and we were lucky enough to get her to do our last family photos!! You can check her out here! I wanted to use some pics from the shoot to make a big statement in the room. I love, love, love canvas but it can get so pricey. I did a DIY canvas project in our last boys room here. With these pics I wanted them really big so I opted for foam board.

I got one piece of foam board at Joanns for like 3 dollars. Then I took the CD from our photo shoot to Kinkos, had them pull up the photos I wanted and blow them up to a 20x20 size. Then I had them printed on regular paper. At that size they have to use their really big machine so it got pricey. It was 20 dollars a piece. So I spent about 65.00 dollars for everything for all 3- when I looked online-- ONE mounted print this size can run you up to 500.00!! Craziness. Obviously the quality isn't the same, but for a similar effect, I'm totally happy. Seeing my little guys face BEAM when he walked down in the morning and saw a life-size photo of him on the wall was worth everything and then some!

Next up is this photo collage! I got the center picture for Christmas and was so excited about it until I hung it up and realized how small it was in the space, I knew I had to come up with something. I could do your standard framed photo collage like you see in all the magazines but when I started looking through all our pictures from over the years I realized there are sooo many fun pictures, memories etc. that I want to SEE. I don't want them just sitting in a box or stored on the computer somewhere. So I went through every photo CD we've had from when the boys were newborns until now. I had soo much fun looking through pictures of the boys as babies, or fun family vacations we took. It was hard to narrow it down- even to this many pics! But I picked ones that had special meaning or brought back certain memories. I got them all printed at Costco and varied the borders- some without any border, some with a thin white border, some thick.

I laid everything on the floor and Paul and I decided together which photos would make it on the wall. Again- so fun to look through and re-live all the memories together. I also thought it would be fun and add visual interest to include all our names in the collage. So I just bought letters at a craft store and adhered coordinating scrapbooking paper to them. For the names I used left over foam-board and stickers in a font I liked-simple, but love that it makes it personal.

I put all the photos on the wall with just that blue sticky-tac you can get at any office supply store. I love this too because it is soo easy to switch out or rearrange pictures as time passes without putting different holes all over. I added a few little frames I've had forever from the target dollar bins (and i've finally gotten them to hang straight :) Overall I probably spent 20 bucks for this- to print the pics, sticky tac, letters, scrapbooking paper etc. I love that we are all CENTERED ON CHRIST! It's probably one of my very favorite projects ever and it is a great conversation piece!

By now we all know about the life of this family tree and I did a post about it here

And this magnet board was a lot of fun back in the day- I did a post about it here -so nice to put all those random letters to use. This is where I put pics of friends and family- after I get everyones Christmas cards, I cut out their pictures and put them here and then they get updated every year with new Christmas cards! Love it!

**Linkin up at the DIY Showoff! (button on the left margin)
** Linkin up at The Inspired Rooms Gallery Wall Party!

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!

My family found a new home! (nat)

Ok no, we are not moving although hopefully one day that will be our wonderful news. For now... just my family photos have a new home. I've had this big empty wall that goes up our stairs and I have done a few things and none of them have ever worked. As you can see... big wall, tiny pictures- so not ok.

I decided that I really wanted to make my family tree work here since that was my original intent. You may remember it from this previous post.
The problem from the beginning was the adhesive on the back wasn't sticky enough for these slightly textured walls so I thought sticky tack would work as a last resort, then at the store I saw this Poster Tape. Totally removable but sticks things to walls. Ahh I love a cheap solution.
The other problem was this is a decal that I bought at Ikea quite awhile ago and they no longer make it. This becomes a problem because my lovely 2 year old thought it would be really fun when I wasn't around to start ripping the tree apart, leaving me with half a tree. If they don't make it anymore... then what do i do!? So.... I just took scrapbooking paper that I already had, traced around the few remaining branches and leaves I did have and there ya go. Instead of replacing all the missing leaves with just black and brown again I thought it might be kinda fun (also kinda cheesy) to use paper for the leaves according to the season. So now there's green, red, yellow, brown, and black- but maybe in the spring I'll have fun with it and change it up again. Who knows!! Now that I can make the pieces myself, the possibilities are endless. Totally something you could do too! So here we are again... totally bare and sad
and feeling much happier
sure is a cute family, i'm glad i get to see them everyday now instead of exhiling them to the basement. happy fall!

A little texture to my magnet board

Thanks to this great blog that is stuffed full of fun ideas, I came across this post where she talked about seeing this chair in Better Homes and Gardens. I thought it was such a fun idea and a great way for me to put all my random scrap booking letters to use. So I took this photo and used it as my inspiration for a re-vamp on my really boring magnet board. We are linkin up over at thirfty decor chick for the before and after party too!

See- I told you it was really boring! One of the first decor items I got in the 2nd apartment we ever lived in. It started out plain wood, then got painted black, then brown, it needed some serious life put into it.
So I gathered all the random scrapbooking letters I have, which i don't even know why i have them because i don't scrapbook- it takes me WAY too long to finish one page. I had a few of these wood letters too and just cut some of the edges for the whole- going off the page look.
Here it is with all the letters added. I actually think it looks super cute this way and it would be really fun for like a playroom or little kids room but since it's going in my family room and i didn't want it to distract from the pictures it got 2 cans worth of white paint. I love that this project only cost me 2 bucks- gotta love spray paint for 96 cents!
Oh and I used hot glue to put everything in place. Some letters were sticky on the back but I just wanted to make sure they were all stuck on and not going anywhere
Yeah it took a lot more paint than I thought it would to cover the brown and all the colorful letters.
Tada! Ooooo, AhhhhThen I stuck all my pictures and magnets back on and decided I was so done with the magnets now too. Scrapbooking paper just glued on was not working for me anymore.
So I just covered them in scrap fabrics I had instead, I love an easy facelift!
I especially love that it makes the pictures stand out so much more now. Ahhhh LOVE it!

I've been framed! (amanda)

My Family Room Gallery.

I love, love, love black and white photography. I have taken a few classes myself but am definitely an amateur. I would love one day to fill my house with my photography but in the meantime. I enjoy finding nature prints especially trees and using them around the house. I think it really helps to bring in a touch of the outdoors. These are a few examples of my favorites from around the house.

Such a nice Fall touch with my largest and most favorite print

This series works especially well in the Fall and Winter. I would like to find a few Spring/Summer prints that I like as well. I may take a few myself.


These pictures hang in my Living Room. They were so easy to do and the whole project was only about $20. My husband had kept these nautical prints printed on really nice linen paper that his sister picked up in France. I have always loved them but wasn't sure what to do with them. They are an unusual size and proved difficult to matte or frame. I finally found some unfinished wood frames without backs and antiqued them using a Williamsburg Blue under an antique white. They turned out great but it is difficult to make out the detail on these white walls. Another project in the works- redoing my Living Room decor.


More master bedroom artwork. I tried several combinations of things over my bed. It was proving difficult because my headboard is curved. I finally decided on this series of Monet art prints. I love Monet and I do tend to like a French country style. I printed these from the internet and framed them with black frames I think I paid like $5 a piece for. They look great over the bed.

I love rearranging wall art and making new creations. I needed a few new pictures for my master bedroom and had read that you should fill your adult space with pictures of you as a couple. These are two of my favorite wedding photos. I scanned them in to my computer and printed them out in sephia. Framed them in black mated frames I already had and viola new art and a great memory.