Then he sat in our playroom for a while (a while = 6+ months) and I recently walked in there and had this moment where I said to myself “Self: you have got to stop hoarding things in this room. Use them or lose them.” Which led to an initiative I like to call “Dude, Get On That Already.” The dude being me. Naturally. So I’ll probably revisit this initiative over the next few weeks and months (at least I hope I will) as I systematically pare down the hoarded playroom clutter and decide whether I’m going to keep things and actually use/hang/enjoy them or craigslist/donate/yard sale ‘em. A lot of things end up in there for one of two reasons:

• I’m not quite sure where to hang them (so I stick them there and say “I’ll get to it later” and later turns into never)
• I plan to somehow alter things by painting or staining them (so I stick them there and say “I’ll get to it later” and later turns into never)

Well not anymore, folks. I dug in and grabbed my horny little friend and marched his antlers all around the house, trying to find a spot to hang him up and actually enjoy him instead of hiding him away in The Room Of Chaos (yes, that’s its formal name these days, so it gets capital letters and everything). Anyway, after walking around for a while I decided it’d be fun in the kitchen next to the fridge, but the original black color (although very cool in its own right) wasn’t working there. So I dragged my buns outside with a piece of cardboard and some leftover white primer + spray paint.

You know my “thin thin thin and even coats” catchphrase when it comes to spray paint, so I snapped these three in-progress spraying shots to show you how each coat is a nice thin mist. You definitely don’t get full coverage with one thin coat of spray paint – which is a good thing. You’re doing it right if it takes about three of them to slowly accumulate. And always keep your hand moving and hold it 8-10″ away. No thank you drippies. Not on my watch.

Speaking of spray painting tips, this guy’s antlers were still looking dark on the underside, which I knew would be seen when we hung him up, so I waited a full day for his front to cure and then flipped him over to give him a nice deep tissue massage with spray paint on the back.

John and I actually considered a few crazier colors (plum, navy, yellow) but thought that the white would look nice on our grellow walls- especially with the gold mirror in the laundry room so close by (it’s on the other side of the doorway, so we didn’t want it to have to fight for attention).  But I have big plans for some of the other things lurking in the playroom. Oh yes, plum, navy, and beyond…

Don’t mind the paint touch ups we have been meaning to do for over a month. I’ll get to it sometime. Unless I’m too busy spray painting various faux animals.

Work it, antlers. Work it.

As for how I hung it on our paneled walls, anchors are a gal’s best friend.

Here’s the box we’ve had… oh… maybe a year?

They seem to last, which is nice because it’s so annoying to run to the store for little hanging stuff. Boo to that. Anyway, for those who might not know how they work, this might sound like “health class” in 5th grade, but the anchor is the white thing and the screw is the silver thing you know what a screw looks like. So you drill a tiny pilot hole into the wall, hammer (or push) the anchor into the hole, and then screw the screw into the anchor.

A into B, baby. Oh but just leave a little bit of the screw sticking out for hanging whatever it is you’re hanging on it (the anchor should be flush with the wall, but the screw might stick out half an inch). Das it.

I gotta tell ya, it took less than an hour of actual time (drying time doesn’t count because you don’t have to stand there and watch it). And that not only includes my little spraying trips in and out for those thin coats but also the whole hanging shebang after he was fully dry. So I have high hopes for my little “Dude, Get On That Already” project. I might just keep this up! And if I ever want to pop it off the wall for a fabulous royal wedding, it makes for a great fascinator.

So are you guys with me on this weird little self-imposed challenge? Any items (or an entire room full of stuff) that you’ve been putting off? Wanna tackle it with me as I go? I’d love to get to at least one thing a week but with kitchen/kid/book stuff I’m not sure if I can stick to that, but it’s definitely the goal! Oh and what should I name this guy? Or is naming white faux animals weird when they don’t have faces? Malcolm? I keep getting Malcolm.

And speaking of projects… surprise!

My apologies for the crazy lighting (oh yeah and the ladders and the dropcloths) but we’re in the midst of getting new lighting! Hah. So there’s just one floor lamp illuminating the back corner of our windowless interior room. Which explains why it looks like a glowing Katy Perry alien is hiding back there or something. But as crazy as it looks… wahoo, it’s progress! More details about the whole process as soon as it’s a wrap (and it’s all cleaned up, photographed, and written out) on Monday!

Our frames above the sofa started out with colorful paper in them ($5 worth of craft paper from Michael’s to be exact). That added some fun oomph for a while, but the beauty of that $5 price tag was the freedom to switch things around and just sort of go with the flow. So they sat as plain blocks of color for a while…

… and then we added some fun local art prints (just taped in the middle of our colored paper)…

… but after our new rug arrived we were jonesing for something less colorful (since we had amassed a ton of colorful pillows and some bright accessories like the ceramic hurricanes on the desk). We also decided we could use some more texture, so that somehow triggered me to look in my fabric scrap bin and realize that I had enough burlap-ish textured linen-ish stuff to do the trick.

Sorry for that terrible description. It’s just a sand-colored fabric that sort of looks like linen or burlap (you know, it has those crosshatched lines running through it) that I got on super clearance from JoAnn fabrics a while back – so I don’t think it’s actually real linen and it’s a bit too soft to be burlap.

Here’s my completely not scientific framing method. I just:

• unstuck my little art squares that had been taped to the colorful fabric with a loop of tape
• used the same loop of tape to stick them to the center of the eight 12″ x 12″ fabric squares for each frame
• taped the fabric to the back of the frame’s mat on all sides (to keep it from looking saggy and wiggly)
• regular old scotch tape worked for that part, but if you have heavier fabric, something stronger like duct tape might be better

That’s it! Oh and these are Ikea’s ribba frames (with 12 x 12″ openings) if that helps. I love that my tiny polariod-ish prints make you look closer, and when you do, you see the texture in the fabric behind them. It’s really sweet, especially in person. I keep glancing over at them when I sit on the sofa.

Sometimes Burger takes John-sprawled-out-on-the-ottoman-taking-photos-of-the-art to mean that he’s supposed to sit on him. Naturally. So we took more photos and shared them over on Young House Life. Naturally.

Anyway, so the art thing was a free swap and I’ve been using the colored paper that I took out for other projects around the house – like John’s boyscout badge Christmas present.

Oh and since a few folks also requested an open-ottoman shot to see how it’s all organized in there, here ya go:

The big woven basket is my paint chip bin (yes I keep various paint decks in there and even save loose paint chips so I can later do weird things like make art or ornaments with them). The other three baskets are for various Clara toys. There’s also a giant blanket in there (it can actually stretch across the entire monster of a sectional that we have and cover me in one corner and John in the other corner, which makes me crazyhappy). It’s just a king sized blanket I found at HomeGoods a while back for 25 bucks.

So there you have it – two living room goings-on. What have you guys been framing lately? Any fabric “mats” or backgrounds? What about fabric as art? That’s always fun too! Any ottoman organization? We learned really fast that tossing things in without smaller bins and baskets = chaos. Like a small tornado hit ottoman-ville every time we cracked it open. So apparently it’s all about sub-containment inside of larger containment devices. Lesson learned.

Psst- A reader (thanks Caroline!) sent along the link to this article about why people seem to be “wired” with the desire to DIY things, and it’s so interesting! The “add one egg” thing is especially amazing to me.

We love supporting/meeting local (and not so local) artists and artisans, so we went expecting to see some cool things, bump into a few people we knew, and maybe even to snag a gift or two. Instead, we saw LOTS of cool stuff, bumped into DOZENS of friends and blog buddies, and snagged a BUNCH of gifts. Well, I guess I should clarify. They were gifts for ourselves. Here’s a snapshot of our handmade bounty after we returned home and laid everything out on the counter:

1. A print from Zou Zou’s Basement ($25) which is a print of a mixed media rabbit painting. We thought it was fun and colorful. We actually almost got this elephant, but at the last minute Clara said “Bunny rabbit!” and the switch was made.

2. A robot coloring sheet from Turnerbots which they threw in for free after we purchased a bunch of ornaments (see #5). So nice! Clara had a blast coloring it when we got home because, as you may have read here on Young House Life or here in our desk-building post, Clara is a coloring fanatic as of late.

3. Two small canvas paintings from Amy Keith Barney ($15 each) who mainly specializes in stained glass – but the bright colors of these felt perfect for Clara’s frame wall. And can you beat $15 for such amazing little original paintings?

4. A Virginia-shaped ornament from Funnel Cloud Studio ($7). The ornament had us at hello (yay maps!) and we almost got one of her Virginia prints too, but managed to practice a smidge of restraint. She has Maryland and DC ones too for anyone interested…

5. Ceramic letter ornaments from the aforementioned Turnerbots ($7 for all four), one each for Clara, me, Sherry and Burger. Turnerbots mainly specializes in candy-colored pottery like these cool vases and cheeky robots:

6. A crudload of business cards for all sorts of vendors – every booth was seriously worth stopping for!

7. A letterpress card from Almanac Industries (free) who had one of the coolest booths at the whole fair. You could just feel their passion for what they do.

And we loved that our initials were coincidentally on display (doesn’t take much to excite us). Well Sherry’s, Burger’s and mine were – and if that P had been a C we really would have been downright giddy.

And since we couldn’t support every vendor that we admired with a purchase, we thought we’d at least show them some love by sharing their cool stuff here. Like these “Dangerous Animal” notebooks from MonkeyDogStudio. Sherry and I disagree on which one we think is the funniest. I vote the octopus with the ninja throwing stars, but Sherry died when she saw the squirrel with the pistol.

Speaking of cheeky animals, there were also cool woodblock prints and cards featuring some chic birds with fresh, punny attitudes (Yo Momma!) from Bowerbox Press.

Continuing the theme of craftiness with a sense of humor, we loved all of the funny crocheted items – like this jellyfish and ray-gun from Needle Noodles…

… and more jellyfish (this time as ornaments) and a crocheted conch shell from Lazymuse Productions.

There were also this awesome assortment of colorful faux antlers (they were made of resin) from The New Woodsman. Predictably, Sherry my Jersey wife was most in love with the metallic gold ones (sadly not pictured).

Illegible Ink‘s print of vegetables was really charming and detailed. You could stand there and study it for hours. There was a really funny meat one too.

There was also lots of jewelry at the fair, like this peapod necklace from Lucky Accessories that Sherry mentally bookmarked for the day that we have more than one child (it was available with one pea, but she figured she’d rather wait and beef up her pea quotient before jumping the peapod gun).

We also saw some familiar faces, like Love Elaine (who gave away a fabric wreath back in May). She had lots of Christmas fabric goods, but what caught our eye most was this festive kids apron. Clara would look so cute rocking this while making cookies.

And there was Phil Barbato, another giveaway alum, who makes these funky ape stuffed animals amongst other things (Clara said “buh-bye monkey!” when we walked away):

We actually bought a print from Phil this summer at another Richmond art event (the First Friday Art Walk), but it wasn’t until returning home with our new crafty treasures that we finally figured out the perfect place to hang it along with two of our Handmade Holiday finds (don’t mind the frames, they’re just what we had around).

This little frame collection is on the short wall right outside Clara’s bedroom door, opposite the playroom door. We thought she’d love saying “Hi” and “Goodnight” to the bunny, but instead her favorite thing to do is point at the robots and say “Color! Color!” Figures…

So that was our adventure in handmade arts and crafts. Are any of you going handmade for the holiday this year? We’d love to hear about any craft fairs in your area, or if you’ve snagged any crafty gifts or items for yourself or the ones you love.

Pssst- For more gift-related fun, check out Mrs. Limestone’s post about the whole Secret Santa thing that Sherry and a bunch of other fellow bloggers have been having fun with. You can even guess who had who to win a prize over there!

Our calendars from the last few years have all been text-based (you know, as opposed to full of photos). Like our 2010 calendar, where we assembled a dozen weird family phrases & inside jokes and laid them out in simple bright colors:

Or our 2011 calendar, where we used a numerical fact about our family to represent each month (ex: May, the fifth month, said: “Five years in Richmond” and July, the seventh month said: “Seven years spent together”).

Well, this year we ditched the text-on-white theme and went full-on photographic…

Each month of our 2012 calendar features a photo that we took that same month in 2011, so it’s an easy way for us to look back and say “oh yeah, so that’s what Clara looked like exactly a year ago.” Admittedly a photo calendar isn’t a groundbreaking idea, but it seemed really fun to toss together since 2011 is the first full calendar year that we’ve spent with Clara in our lives. And that girl can pose like Tyra Banks.

We gave each pic a “historical” feel by applying a free Photoshop action from the Pioneer Woman called “Heartland” (you can download that here) and then we brought color back into the calendar with a bright curvy border on the top and the bottom. The font that we used is a free download called Lobster (which you can get here).

And speaking of downloads, you can download our Photoshop file featuring all twelve colorful frames here. Which means you can personalize the whole thing for yourself (and then print it out and hang it proudly in your kitchen/office/mudroom) by:

1. adding your own photos as a new layer behind each frame using Photoshop
2. being sure to download the font if you’d like to alter the text (otherwise it could switch to a default and look wonky)
3. applying the Heartland action to your photos if you want a similar look (or you can making ‘em black & white, full color, etc)

Now all we’ve gotta do is buy a new color ink cartridge so we can print this sucker out on cardstock, cut it to size, and hang it in our finished kitchen (probably with a binder clip or two so we can easily rotate each page out as the months go by). Oh wait, guess we gotta finish the kitchen before we can “hang this in our finished kitchen”… so maybe it’ll be up by February or March. Haha. Either way, happy almost 2012 everyone! Hope you have fun making a little calendar of your own (or even whipping some up as gifts for friends and family members)!

But on to the secret… a little package arrived from my Secret Santa! Remember I mentioned that sweet Mrs. Limestone invited me to play along among a bunch of awesome fellow bloggers (and I was worried I would totally choke when it came to figuring out two perfect gifts to send someone’s way throughout the month of December)? Well, this package arrived all festively wrapped with a little “Peace On Earth” ornament on top…

… and I opened it to find this adorable silver box from Pottery Barn that reads “Good things come in small packages.” Which makes this 5’2″ gal smile.

And there was a little bit o’ sparkle going on – like fairy dust. Which all made sense when I cracked the lid to find three sweet ornaments with the hubster, the beanster, and my initials on them. So cute.

Anyone have any guesses which of these bloggers might be my secret Santa? I don’t have a clue but I love the suspense of it all!

• Mrs. Limestone at Brooklyn Limestone
• Michelle at 4 Men 1 Lady
• Bryn at Bryn Alexandra
• Emily at Emily A. Clark
• Shelley at House of Smiths
• Melissa at The Inspired Room
• Janell at Isabella and Max Rooms
• Paloma at La Dolce Vita
• Jacin at Lovely Little Details
• Nicole at Making it Lovely
• Marian at Mustard Seed Interiors
• Lauren at Pure Style Home
• Tanya at Save the Date for Cupcakes
• Michelle at TenJune
• Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick
• Laura at You Stir Me

As for my new little ornaments, off to the tree they went! Not only the three initial ornaments but the little glittering birdie too:

Here’s our little C in action. I love that these babies aren’t breakable – so they fit right in with our paint chips and ribbons.

The red on the initials tie right into the red ribbons, and the glitter around the edges gleam like our sparkly snowflakes.

Oh and our tree has filled out quite a bit over the last few weeks. Care to guess why?

Yup, many of the ornaments on our little homemade advent calendar have been popped off the door where they were hanging…

… and onto the tree. Clara and I have had fun finding the perfect place for each one as each day goes by.

Love me some holiday traditions! Maybe I was an elf in a past life. Those little seasonal activities and crafts (like our annual calendar and our ornament advent calendar) are hardly expensive or time consuming – but they’re so much fun for the family to get into the spirit. Especially little Clara. And when you’re dreading/gearing up for days and days of cabinet sanding and priming and painting… ya gotta love a little holiday spirit in the half-torn-apart house to keep ya smiling. Maybe we’ll play Christmas music while we putty and pretend the sawdust is snow…

When you look at the hallway from a distance, the change isn’t overly obvious, which we like (one of our favorite things about the frame wall in general is that it draws people in, so you have to get closer to see what each item is really about).

But if you get a little closer you start to pick up on some of the things that we switched out (you can see most of the original frame wall art here)…

… like how the paint deck that used to hang on the pig hook was swapped with a little yarn owl ornament that I snagged on clearance after the holidays last year at Target (to the tune of 25 cents).

I also popped two old snowflake ornaments into those two shadow box frames on the left. And that clear tree in the frame on the right is a page from Martha Stewart magazine (framing pages from mags, catalogs, or calendars for your own personal enjoyment is totally fine – you just can’t profit off of those images, for example: trying to sell them as your own designs on etsy).

If you scoot a little further to the right of the wall, you’ll see a few other frames that we tweaked with new holiday-ish stuff.

The frame with the glitter ornaments and green trees is actually a Martha Stewart ad for her glitter line (also torn out of her magazine). And the blue star made up of ornaments to the right of that is a page from a West Elm catalog.

Beneath the glitter ad we have a page from Pottery Barn with some festive shakers and the frame right above our console table has some West Elm plates that say Cheers, Joy, and Peace (all good holiday reminders).

Here’s a close up of the West Elm page full of ornamets in the shape of a star. It’s my favorite:

I also framed a few more West Elm pages, like this collection of holiday mugs and ornaments (backed with a piece of green paper that we already had) and this page full of numbered and lettered plates…

… including a plate that says “Cookies for Santa.” Oh and don’t mind that carbon monoxide detector above (I’ve been meaning to stick it somewhere a bit less noticeable).

These are the frames with plexiglass and heavy duty velcro to keep them safe for Clara since they’re down at her level (more on that here). And since she loves Santa (more on that here) I figured she’d like the Santa cookies plate down where she could admire it. The verdict in her words: “I love you, Santa!” And when she walks by it, sometimes we hear her mumble “buh-bye Santa.” So sweet.

Here’s the rest of that wall from afar. See, not too obvious… until you get closer…

… and notice things like two big jingle bells that I hung in a backwards canvas (I love the raw wood frame that’s usually hidden when it’s facing the “right” way). As for how I hung the canvas backwards (which I did back when we originally hung all of these frames), I just hammered one of these little metal tooth-hook things for hanging pictures (from Michael’s) into the front (now back) of the frame so I could hang it over a nail. There’s also a photo of stacked firewood with some holiday pillows piled on top from a Pottery Barn catalog.

Now let’s move over to the other side of the wall. Here we have a bunch of holiday swaps going on.

Like the piece of cardstock that I printed with the words “Happy holidays, y’all!” with some red hearts above and below it, and a swatch of red wrapping paper that I stuck behind an already-framed peacock feather. I also slipped two small silver ornaments into a shadow box (which already had a calendar with our anniversary circled inside of it) and added another little 25 cent yarn ornament (this time it’s a bunny) above it.

In the bottom right of that arrangement I also worked in a page from West Elm full of graphic numbered ornaments with fun shapes that Clara likes on them (like a swan and a goose). She points and says “honk honk!” (every kid should have a reason to practice their goose impression, right?).

Here’s the other side of that wall with six more frame switches.

Like a Banana Republic ad (with a sweet pooch wearing a bow tie sitting under some mistletoe) and a funny Christmas sweater ornament that I taped into another backwards canvas. On the right we have a felt ornament from Target last year (which almost looks like an ornate paper cut-out when it’s framed).

I also made another little texty design that I printed out onto card stock (this one says “Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas”) and under that is an illustration of holiday cookies from Woman’s Day magazine  (donated by John’s mom after I spotted it and asked if I could have the mag after she was done).

And in the top left shadow box I stuck more silver ornaments with some leftover wrapping paper as the background.

So there you have 22 quick frame switches, all of which can easily be changed back to their pre-holiday look once January rolls around. I kept all of the original art behind the new additions in each frame, so I can just put it back in front of the holiday stuff (which’ll live behind it until next Christmas when it moves forward again). Oh and for anyone wondering where we got the frames, they’re all from Ikea, Target (on clearance), or thrift stores. We just saved them up over time and actually had many of them when we moved here (they used to hang randomly in nearly every room at our first house, so we thought it would be fun to hang them en masse in our hallway instead of spreading them out again here).

Man, there’s something so satisfying about some free holiday festive-ness, especially in an often overlooked space like a hallway. Did you guys decorate any unexpected areas like a bathroom or a laundry room or a sunroom? Heck, even little trees on bedroom windowsills can be really cute. Oh yeah and on the subject of better-late-than-never holiday stuff, I spent some time making a page full of all of our seasonal/holiday projects & ideas that can easily be perused by picture. So you’ll hopefully have fun sniffing around for some last minute ideas.

You can click here to see it all and can also access it at any time by clicking the “Holiday Ideas” button on our sidebar.

Ho ho hope it helps!

Psst- We picked a winner for this week’s giveaway. Click here to see if it’s you.

So about a week ago I was standing in the frame hallway thinking about my dad and his awesome drawings and realized that I needed one to frame in honor of him and his super cool art skillz that inspired me so much as a kid. So I called him up (you can see an old picture of him here) and begged him to photocopy one of them and send me the copy in a big rigid “do not bend” envelope. But he did me one better. He sent me the original (!) of what he calls his “best drawing ever” – a super sweet seventies-tastic owl that he sketched in 1972 (when I was negative ten years old).

First of all, I love that dad named him “Owlie” since I’m no stranger to naming my ceramic animals (like this gal). I also love that if you look closely you’ll see that the entire owl is made up of repeating shapes and patterns (totally a signature thing that my dad did in nearly all of his sketches). And everything from the repeated hexagons to the soft layered colors that feel so “authentic seventies” just makes me smile. I know owls are all the rage these days, but I love that my father sketched this guy 39 years ago! Although maybe owls were hot commodities then too. Haha. Everything old is new again.

Anyway, true to my obnoxiously excitable personality, the receipt of this amazing guy got me ridiculously hyper. Stupid-giddy even. I couldn’t bring myself to frame the original (way too precious) so I decided to scan it so I could mail the original right back to dad where it belonged. And since my father had mentioned that he wished he hadn’t cut it down and matted it on purple paper decades ago, I took the opportunity to “digitally restore” his sketch to its original glory by putting it on a while background just as it had originally appeared. I also moved the little signature and date together for the new not-cut-down arrangement while I was at it:

Then I printed it out and popped it into a hallway gallery frame that had something less exciting (a picture of our wedding table, but we already have a few other more beloved wedding pics on the wall so… it got dethroned by Owlie).

Total spent: $0.

I think it makes the entire wall.

And sure enough, when we recently had some people over they gravitated to it and I got to proudly tell them that my father drew it in 1972! Woo to the hoo. Get it? Owl? Hoo? See what I did there?

Anyway, I love me some dad-made owl art. And as many of you know, I also love me some crocheted owl hattage on the bean (she calls this her “hoo hat”). Can my child really be into bad puns at the ripe old age of a year and a half?

With us parents… I think so. Oh and in case you haven’t seen her singing Adele, here’s that link for ya.

Have you guys framed anything that your friends or relatives have drawn? Did you only feel right keeping a copy of it? For some reason the original just feels like it belongs at dad’s house taped up next to his desk like it always has been (I also sent him a “digitally restored” printout, in case he wants one of those). What’s with kids wanting their parents to keep their houses exactly the same for sentimental reasons, anyway?

Psst- We announced this weeks three giveaway winners! Click here to see if you’re one of them.

And here’s what we have going on now that we’ve added a few more frames to the mix (and shifted the placement of a few of the existing ones):

And for those who have been wondering, here’s a quick rundown of the things that we’ve framed (you can find some other details here):

• John’s baby picture and my baby picture (for fun little comparisons)
• a hilarious doodle of Burger that a friend did on my Facebook wall using Graffiti (I just printed it out & framed it)
• this print of a girl and her dog from Etsy (it reminds us of C & B)
• a personalized canvas that says Clara Kenley from here
• a photo of Burger that I photoshopped to create a bright stylized picture of him in a field of flowers
• two faux butterflies in a small shadowbox that I backed with patterned paper
• a homemade silhouette of Clara that we cut out and placed on striped paper (more on that here)
• a giraffe print from here (Clara loves giraffes and pooches most of all)
• a cute Skinny Cow magazine ad with a giraffe that I tossed into a frame (framing ads from mags that you’ve purchased for your own personal enjoyment is totally fine – you just can’t profit off of those images or anything)
• a big letter P that we decoupaged with colorful paper for a more playful effect (more on that here)
• a print of peas in a pod purchased here made entirely of type (it’s the letter P, repeated over and over – which we love since we’re the Petersiks)
• a silhouette of Burger that John ordered me years ago (which we backed with fun patterned paper to nursery-fy it)
• Clara’s hospital bracelet (I just glued it to some pink construction paper and popped it into a chunky glass-less frame)
• a cute Sweet N Low magazine ad with an owl in it (once again, when you purchase a mag you can frame any pages you want, you just can’t use them for any reason other than personal enjoyment – ex: ya can’t sell them on Etsy)

And seven of the “art” pieces were actually completely free (our baby pics, the Burger doodle, the Burger in a field print, the Laughing Cow ad, the Sweet N Low ad, and Clara’s hospital bracelet) because we framed something that we already had or made/printed something of ours out on card stock. Gotta love no cost wall-candy, especially when it keeps Clara happy (read: not crazy-wiggly) during diaper changes.

The funny thing is that many of these frames hung in Clara’s first nursery (albeit in a slightly different arrangement with a few differences in what we framed):

One of my favorite things on the wall are our baby pictures. Clara loves looking at them and saying “Daddy baby!” and “Mommy baby!” and we love searching for characteristics in each photo that seem Clara-like. Here’s John’s a little closer:

And here’s mine:

First of all: we love that we both had our mouths wide open. But more importantly: who do you think she looks more like? Let’s have a good old fashioned vote.

Any Team Sherry peeps out there? Everyone in the family says she looks like John (even on my side) but John’s baby self was so sweetly chubby, so I personally think there’s a little bit of a mommy resemblance going on. Then again, I’m biased.

Psst- One of the five finalists for the Ikea Life Improvement Project is a reader of ours named Melissa Matthews! She found out about it back when we mentioned it during an Ikea giveaway, and entered… never thinking she’d end up in the finals (we were so excited to get an elated email from her all about it)! You can read more about her awesome cause and log a vote for her or any of the other finalists that you’re rooting for here (the other nominees are in the left column). Bonus: every time someone votes, Ikea donates $1 to Save The Children’s U.S. Programs.

And remember how we spotted these cool sign letters there that were made even cooler when we learned that they were meant for a Dollar Tree store and were selling for $20 each? I was obsessed with them and almost took home an E, R, or A, just because (sadly there’s no P, J, S, C or B in Dollar Tree).

Well, I finally got me one. Let’s give a lukewarm welcome to letter L.

Why L? Well… give that L a little 180 degree spin and whaddya get? Our favorite number AND a happy John (our first kiss: 7/7/05, our wedding date: 7/7/07 – even Clara was born on the 14th, which we affectionately call 7+7).

Maybe it makes me a little too happy, actually. Avert your eyes Sherry.

What? Nothing weird going on here. Just a man snuggling a giant number 7. It’s completely platonic, I swear.

So here’s the deal. Since I kept talking about how much I regretted not getting that L, Sherry had been brainstorming a way to surprise me with it (we didn’t realize its 7-like appearance ’til we were back home looking at road trip pictures). Her maniacal planning came to an abrupt conclusion when Lesley read the initial post about it where Sherry mentioned that we regretted not getting one and contacted Sherry to act as a secret courier to help with the surprise. Apparently she lives right near the Ole Sale Barn in Denton, Maryland and her mom lives in Richmond so she frequently makes trips between the two spots. Perfect!

Sherry had planned to surprise me for my birthday next week, but Lesley made a trip earlier than expected so after a quick meet-up-in-a-parking-lot and a cash-for-giant-letter swap, the 7 was mine ours. I was actually really surprised. And more than a little in love (both with the wife for her sweet surprise and with my giant number seven itself). It’s already keeping me us company in the office (still need to figure out what to hang next to it, get a real side table and lamp for that corner, etc).

We thought about hanging it on the other wall behind the chair but we both decided we liked walking into the room and seeing it “smiling” back at us, face first (instead of seeing the side of it most of the time, which would be the view if it was hung on the other wall behind the chair).

Oh, if you’re wondering how it’s hung – it was pretty easy. The letter was still wired with lighting, but we’re not planning to get all Novogratz up in here by actually using it as a light (at least not anytime soon due to the cost of wiring the wall). So I carefully disconnected the two giant nubs on the back that would’ve required it sit out from the wall about an inch and stuffed the wires into the 7 for possible future use (we can fish them out with a coat hanger if need be).

Once those big metal things were removed, I was left with two holes – plus some others at the top – that were perfect for hanging it. I just put a couple of anchors and screws into the wall where I wanted ‘em, and hung the 7 in place.

A big thanks again to Lesley and taking the time to deliver it us (and for temporarily forking over the $25 to pay for it). Yup, the guy raised the price by $5 since Labor Day. Oh well, still totally worth it.

Psst-We’re over on BabyCenter sharing one of the most creative kids’ birthday parties we’ve ever seen. Seriously, it’s so imaginative and fun.

Psssst- We’ll be back with a kitchen update this afternoon. No dust flying yet, but very very soon… 

• one giant piece of art on each side of the window = too symmetrical for our taste, and too repetitive with the big rectangular window in the middle (so it would look like three big boxes)
• open shelving = too much shelving since there are two walls of it thanks to the dining room built-ins (it would be shelving with more shelving beyond it)
• mirrors = too much, since we already have a large framed mirror hanging over the file cabinet on the opposite office wall

So we decided to use frames that we already had in a balanced-but-not-completely-symmetrical arrangement. And as is the usual agenda, we tried to go with things that have meaning, feel personal, and make us smile. Are they perfect? Nah. But perfect is overrated. They just make us happy like our chipper green office chairs. So in a way, the fact that it’s not perfect is kind of perfect for us.

We liked that we had a “John’s side” (the right) and a “Sherry’s side” (the left) so since John loves maps, typography/handwriting, travel, and high-contrast geometric shapes, he ended up with this little medley:

Not only does it represent a bunch of things he loves (type, maps, travel, geometric shapes, etc), it’s also personal because:

• the map is a typographic map of Richmond by a local artist (it’s actually made up entirely of words, more on that here) – I just painted the Ikea mat with the same gray paint that we used under the chair rail to help it pop
• the handwritten/typed item on the far right is a blown up copy of a tiny comment card from a meal that we shared in Alaska during our Honeymoon (we wrote things that we ate and what we saw on the comment card and kept it as a souvenir to remember that day)

On my side I knew I wanted Clara to paint me something (everything she makes is my favorite thing ever, what can I say?) and I liked the idea of framing a textile that I loved (some fabric leftover from Clara’s weekly project, which I also used a few years ago to reupholster a bench that now sits in her nursery).

It doesn’t hurt that the lattice shape of the fabric ties in with the lattice detail on the chairs… and also seems to relate to the high-contrast geometric print on John’s side. Gotta love happy accidents like that. To us that just screams: meant to be.

As for how we approached the whole office art thing, here’s the order of this whole project (although we’ve done this multiple ways so there’s definitely not one “right” formula):

1. Went through our existing frames to see what we had to possibly work with (and found the five that we used for a grand total of $0 spent)
2. Laid the frames out on the floor in groups until we hit on a balanced but not symmetrical arrangement that we liked
3. Hung the frames without anything in them, just to get a sense of how they’d look on the wall instead of the floor
4. Began the art hunt (we figured we could trim/blow things up to work with the frames we had – although sometimes art comes before frames for us – it varies)
5. Pulled our typographic Richmond map out of the playroom since we knew it was one of the things we wanted to hang (and painted the mat for that frame with leftover wall paint from under the chair rail)
6. Went through our “memory box” full of movie stubs and love notes (it’s just a shoebox-sized container full of keepsakes), which is where we found the comment card from our honeymoon (which we blew up 420% at a copy shop to fit the frame)
7. Dug up some sentimental fabric that I loved (which was also used here and here)
8. Found a high-contrast print in my little file o’ art from years past that worked nicely on John’s side (it balanced out the handwritten comment card and the detailed type-map)
   
9. Stripped Clara down to a diaper with some water-based Crayola paint and had her go to town on a large sheet of paper that would fit the frame I wanted to use with it
10. Ran to Michael’s to grab some large colorful sheets of paper to create “mats” for some of the art (to better fill the frames and tie in some happy color since the office is our cheerful little bubble of unicorns, rainbows, and puppy dogs)

It definitely feels mixed & matched yet balanced enough for us – and it’s bold & happy without giving us a headache. We like that the color palette is diverse (Clara’s painting is full of color and there’s a black & white print, so it’s pretty varied). Even with all those colors/styles, the dominant tones (like teal and grellow) relate to the chairs and the dining room curtains – and the white frames help unify things. We definitely plan to play around with room accessories in other colors though (some pops of orange or coral on the desk might be fun) so we’ll have to see where things go…

Oh and here’s the view from the dining room. I love that the office is so light-washed and the dining room built-ins are so dark. It really helps keep the spaces from blending into one big rectangle-fest. Oh and I’m on the hunt for a new runner that’s not so matchy (plum could be fun – or even textured burlap).

As for how much this entire update cost us, since we already owned all the frames we just spent around $9 at Michael’s on the large colored paper “mats” and $4 at the copy shop (FedEx Office) blowing things up. So that’s a total of 13 bucks for five pretty big pieces that we get to stare at whenever we’re not gazing at our laptop screens.

We still have other office things on the agenda, like: getting a permanent rug (most likely longer, not as wide, and darker), adding more permanent art to the other side of the room…

… hanging some window treatments (probably homemade roman shades), and adding a proper lamp and side table for the leather chair corner, etc. But for now we’re just grateful to have something on those have-been-blank-for-the-last-ten-months walls. Can’t believe we have stared at blank walls for almost a year. The shame! Especially since the frames were just sitting around in our playroom and it was only $13 to fill them with some happy-go-lucky stuff.

But enough about us. Have you guys ever blown things up at a copy shop like a comment card from a memorable meal? How about stripping down your toddler and “commissioning” some custom art? I thought I was going to be really Type A about colors and design but I just gave her every color of the rainbow and watched her go to town. My little artist…

Psst- Here’s another post about a ton of sentimental things we’ve framed around the house.

It’s a bicycle from Public Bikes that was disassembled and shot for this in-store display (thereby they’re not for sale). I thought they were pretty darn good looking. I’m more of a bike admirer than an actual bike rider (apologies to my cycling enthusiast father), so I feel like a bit of a poser saying this, but… I really want those posters to hang in our house. Not sure where, but somewhere. Here’s a better shot of one of the panels from the Public Bikes blog.

I talked with the manager at my local Gap and they “made a note” to call me when they’re done using them for display. This was promising because I expected to hear “sorry, we’re not allowed to give those away” (which I’ve heard at other stores when I’ve asked, like Target). But it wasn’t totally confidence inspiring either – because it sounded a bit like a “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” So I also decided to randomly tweet about wanting them once the store is done with them, and a Gap manager elsewhere heard my plea and is going to try to snag me a set once they’re bumped for holiday decor. Oh the power of Twitter. Who knows if it’ll actually work out, but I gave it the ol’ college try.

Is there any store display out there that you’ve been admiring (or thinking about recreating/DIYing)? Perhaps something at Anthropologie? Have any of you used actual store decor in your home? If so, how’d you go about getting it? Was tweeting involved? Or just regular old fashioned in-person asking? We always hear about folks who just get a call weeks or months later when the store is done with something (like friends of mine who got movie posters from Blockbuster when they were finished displaying them as new releases). Fingers crossed…