Summer Hibernation and a Chalkboard Calendar Wall

Oh boy. It's the first day of October. I haven't seriously (not that I ever really seriously blogged) blogged since the middle of July. I threw in a few random family posts every once in a while. But I even failed in that! I forgot to do an anniversary post, and we also have a new cat. So, I might catch you up on all of that. In the meantime, I finally got around to completing the project I mentioned back in July. That's right, I finally finished the chalkboard calendar wall.

We placed it on the wall past the stairs, right before the closet and hall bath. Here is a good before of the wall.

and after

I'm really glad this project is finally complete. It's embarrassing how long it took. Those blue painters tape lines have been haunting my dreams! Believe it or not, there are a few other things I'm working on. I hope to start blogging at least once a week. Pretty lame, but a good start. :) :)




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Operation Rainbow Room {Reveal}

After what feels like forever, I'm finally calling it quits in Story's room. I've done all I can to improve it.  I didn't want to do a whole lot to it. Mainly I wanted to buy pieces that would transition to the next house. It will be an exciting day when I can make purchases secured in the knowledge that we will not be moving again. What I wanted to accomplish was a place for everything to go. I don't know about your kids, but mine is a hoarder. She doesn't even like to get rid of trash. I wanted to purge a lot and then have proper places for it all to go. Before she would just kind of shove everything into the closet (wonder where she picked up that trait...) Here is a nice and messy before shot for you.

These were actually taken after I started sorting. The real before was even worse. Just so much junk everywhere. She does have a lot of nice things and was having trouble finding any of it.

Such a difference. What really made the space happen were the ClosetMaid systems. I looked into a few from Ikea but found these at Target to be more in our price range. Not to mention about a mile away.

As you can see, there are spaces for everything. Now, when she cleans her room she knows what bin to put certain thing in.

 

We had a lot of fun starting her gallery wall. I've had most of these frames for a few years now. I've been collecting them since she was born. There is space off to the left of the light to add more :)

I had a lot of fun working on this room. But I am glad to see it done, finally.




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Operation Rainbow Room {Striped Wall}

Story has been wanting a rainbow room for as long as I can remember. I've been wanting her to have a clean room for as long as I can remember. So, over the weekend I decided to completely re-do her entire room. I thought it would take a couple of days. Though it was taken longer than that, it's been going pretty quickly.

The first thing we did was paint stripes on her main wall. I've wanted stripes in her room since we moved in. I'm glad I waited. I had originally planned on painting blue stripes, because blue is her favorite color. Then came the rainbow fascination. She wanted an entire rainbow room, and while I'm a fan of color, I just couldn't do that. We compromised on painting one wall.

I'm terrible at math. I mean, like really bad. So mapping out the stripes was completely out of my limits. Luckily for me, my husband is a genius and could do it no problem. We decided on 7 colors in 6 inch stripes.

He also taped the whole thing out for me. (have I mentioned how amazing her is?!?) ;) All I had to do was paint. I didn't think it would be that difficult. I had my small brush and the sample paint cans.

And it wasn't really that big of a deal. Quite time consuming but not back breaking work. I started with pink on top. Now, I know pink isn't in the rainbow but Story wanted pink. The pink went on great, no trouble at all. I washed out my brush and dried it well. Then I started on the purple. And it was horrible. Real watery (guess I didn't dry out the brush as well as I thought) and it was going to take two coats. At this point I was freaking out. I don't know about you but I've had really bad experiences with painters tape in the past. I was afraid that the paint would dry between the coats and then I would have an awful mess. I'm really glad that wasn't the case. And it all turned out just fine.

 

It ended up taking me two days to complete. I had to wait in between colors for the paint brush to dry out a bit. 

I think it turned out pretty good!

I can't wait to show you the rest of the room! I just need to hang one more curtain rod and sort through her clothes.

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HELLO

This project is a long time coming. I thought it would be simple enough, but like most of my projects it wasn't. I had originally wanted to do string art. Similar to this:

 

via 

While this is an awesome concept I wanted something a little bit more three dimensional. I saw this idea and I thought it could work, just on a bigger scale.

 

via 

So, with both those images in mind I went to my local Jo Ann's. There wasn't a local one when we lived in North Carolina so I would find myself going to Michael's a lot. Let me just say, our local Indy Jo Ann's was amazing. It's huge and has everything you could imagine. Needless to say, I spent longer than I should have looking around at everything. I did eventually find what I was looking for: Really big letters.

Just look at the size of those letters! They are 23". I love how much of an impact they make on this unused part of the wall.

 

I'm really happy with how this project finally turned out. I know the spacing is off between the letters. And I will eventually fix it :)  But for now I'm just enjoying it.

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Another DIY Abstract Painting

So I've had this painting forever. It was one of the first things I bought for my house, when I was pregnant with Story, five years ago. I went through a purple and green phase and I'm ashamed to admit it lasted a whole lot longer than it should have... Any way. I had this painting. It worked well with our bedroom in N.C. But that was the last time I had it up.

This is the best picture I have of it, but it's the big one in the left hand corner.

I liked the size of the painting and the frame wasn't in terrible condition. I have been looking at our local Goodwills in hopes of finding decent sized art (that wasn't ugly) I had been looking for a while before it hit me : why not just paint over the painting I already had? So that's just what I did.

It look a few coats of primer before I had even coverage. It's not canvas but not a regular print. It's on some sort of cardboard-ish material that was then printed on but was covered in texture. Real weird. 

I really had no idea what I wanted to do. I looked around Pinterest for a while, found one painting that looked pretty decent, and then decided to just wing it.

 

Caroline Havers

But you know what? Turns out I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to painting. I've heard a lot of people say there is no wrong way to do an abstract painting. I beg to differ. Pretty sure I do it the wrong way.

You know those ugly painting you see all over hotel rooms? Yeah, I can do that kind of art. Not sure what's up with the brown circle? When is a brown circle ever a good idea?! 

I tried fixing it. Hahahaha!!!!!!! As you can plainly see I have no idea how to make art. So I did what any horrified individual would do. I covered that baby in glorious black. 

So much better. I know it's not as visually stunning as the painting I was aiming for. But there is something about the subtleness that I enjoy. Which is the most important aspect of the entire painting. It is after all, in my personal nook. I like how when you look at in from different angles the blue really stands out. 

It was a fun learning experience. I did enjoy the ill fated attempt. I might even try it again. I do get excited when I see my personal paintings.

First DIY painting 

To see the rest of the room {pt 1} 

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DIY Canvas Art

I've recently finished the main wall of my office area. It was a lot of fun to put together. I had one spot that was kind of bothering me. It was a blank canvas just begging to be painted.

I searched Pinterest for a bit before I came across Tanya's painting and it hit me : why not just do that?

 

via 

I started with my blank canvas and then painted it with a coat of primer I had on hand.

Following Tanya's instructions I wet my brush and then just did a few light strokes starting at the bottom and brushing up.

I went back again for a few tiny touch-ups, but liked it as is.

I really like how it looks with the rest of the gallery wall. Most everything there is muted and I think this fits in well.

I think I like Tanya's version better. I mean, everything she does is awesome. And, hers is bigger. But the more I look at mine the more it's growing on me. 

I look forward to doing more paintings. It was a lot of fun and didn't take that much time. 

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