Our Weekend and a Little {DIY Art}

It's Monday!  After a busy weekend, I'm actually glad to see Monday.  Hopefully by Wednesday I'll be regrouped and ready to prepare for another busy weekend ahead.  This weekend we had Norah's dance competition out of town.  The girls did such a great job, I just love watching them up on the big stage!

We spent the night out of town and got home Saturday evening.  Then, Sunday we celebrated Matt's birthday.  It ended up being a full day with church, brunch, cake baking, cake EATING(!), naptime, and then a little birthday date for Matt and myself.  Here are a few Instagrams from the day...

Thanks again to my parents who watched the kids so we could get out for this delicious meal!

I spent most of the day today finishing up a project I've been helping my uncle with.  He asked for my help framing jerseys for the seniors on my cousin's (his granddaughter) college softball team. There were five jerseys that needed to be stretched and mounted.  My uncle built the shadow boxes and frames.  The photo on the left is after it's been stretched, the middle is mounted, and the right is the finished piece. (with the protective film still on the acrylic)

And now for the DIY art I mentioned up there in the title, and I do use the word "art" loosely!  Maybe more of a love note maybe?  Anyway, it's something I made for Matt for his birthday.  It's the lyrics to one of "our songs."  We have a few, but this one takes me back to when we were first married.  I love it because the words ring even more true today.

I just gave a canvas a quick coat of black paint.

Then I taped together some paper to be the size of the canvas and wrote out the words to have an idea of spacing.

Then I just wrote it free hand in cursive with a gold paint pen. I could have stenciled it or printed it, but I liked the idea of it being in my own handwriting, more like a love note.

I took it outside and sprayed it with some clear acrylic, and that's it!

Nothing earth shattering here, just a little sentimental something for my love!
I'll be back later this week with an update on the One Room Challenge!

Tootles,

One Room Challenge :: Week 2

Hi Guys!  It's week 2 of the One Room Challenge!  Last week I introduced you to to the room I'll be working on.  Click here if you missed it.

Soooo, not a whole heckuva lot happened last week and it has me wondering what I've gotten myself into.  But regardless of whether or not I bring the room to the finished vision I have in my head, I'll be a lot closer to it than I am now.  I spent most of the week just planning, making lists, and sitting in the room day dreaming about what I want to do in there.  I DID get out and get some paint samples though! The middle two colors are what I'm considering for the ceiling.  I want something in a peachy/coral/grapefruity tone.

The walls, trim, doors, and built-in drawers will be painted a nice crisp white.  Speaking of the built-ins, here they are....

I'm thinking about changing the pulls, but I'll wait on that until after everything is painted.  They match the bedroom door knob and I actually kind of like them.  I mean, they ARE black and gold, sooo...

I'm undecided on the changing table up there.  I'm hoping to find some sort of open shelving/dresser/unit with some character (preferably vintage) that I can put the changing pad on.  After a couple of months of keeping an eye out for something, I'm not very hopeful that it's going to happen within the 6 weeks.  So, it may just end up getting a paint job and called good for the time being. Paint and some cute baskets for the shelves will help a lot I think.

Also, I have a rug!  This was a "baby" gift from my parents.  Since Teddie is our fourth child we pretty much had all the baby gear covered, so I was able to ask for something a little more fun (for me anyway).  Thanks Mom & Dad!  I LOVE this rug.  I did a lot of looking around and finally went with this one from Rugs USA.  It is so soft and fluffy and also makes an easy background for my girl's monthly pictures!

The cute little ostrich will be used as a sort of growth measure for our little photo shoots.  He was also the inspiration for what I have in mind as a feature wall behind the crib.

I am so excited to use this ostrich wallpaper from Beware-the-Moon. It's fun and a little quirky and I think it will transition well into Teddie's big girl room eventually.  This will be my first experience with wallpaper, so hopefully I won't ruin it!

So to recap, I pretty much accomplished nothing this week.  Boo.
Here is my checklist for what needs to happen over the next few weeks:

- Paint ceiling and walls
- Install wallpaper
- New light fixture (makeover vintage fixture I have)
- Window treatments (semi-DIY)
- DIY art project
- Cover upholstered rocking chair
- Floor lamp
- Open wall shelves
- Replace or make over changing table
- DIY decorative touches (maybe a garland and closet door pulls?)

Be sure to check out what some of my fellow "ORC-ers" have cooking!


Tootles,

Blowing the Dust Off the Ol' Blog

I decided to jump back into the blogging pond! Linda's One Room Challenge is just what I needed to get me motivated. The goal is to decorate one room from start to finish in six weeks. There is a group of talented design bloggers that will be featured in the challenge who will give weekly updates on their progress. The fun part is, we can play along too! The day after the updates, Linda will host a linky party where anyone who has taken the challenge can share their progress as well.

I've decided that I'll be tackling baby Teddie's nursery for this round. It's a very small room and a little bit of love will go a long way in there I think. I have lots of ideas and a few little projects in mind for this room and I can't wait to see how it all comes together. This is what the room looked like before we moved in 7 months ago.

There is a little window alcove and also two sets of built-in drawers. This doesn't leave many options for furniture placement. The crib will go where the bed is in the photo above. What I'll be focusing on is painting the room, including a fun color on the ceiling, window treatments, lighting, wall shelving, re-covering her rocking chair in some way, and also a fun wall treatment. Here is the direction I'm heading...

I'm new at this mood/design board business so I hope you'll bear with me, but hopefully you can see what I'm getting at anyway.   I'm hoping it will feel light, airy and fluffy!

I can't wait to see what everyone else has in the works!

Tootles,