styled Book Shelves For Spring And Summer

I made it!  I made it to Friday!  I knew I could crank out this post!

Weeks ago I styled my book shelves for the spring and summer season.  I felt inspired to add color.  In fact I wanted to add “blue”.  I’ve never had the color blue in my house.

Today is the day I’ll share how I added color.

I’ve always tried to keep things neutral in my home.  Mainly because I don’t have the budget to keep changing it as styles and or colors fade. 

But this is easy!  I gathered up things through out my house.  Nothing was off limits.  I rounded up things from the girls’ room, sitting on the chest of drawers in our master bedroom and even wrapped and tucked away in boxes of the basement.  I collected everything that was blue or in the blue family.  Books, boxes, vases and little trinkets were among the gathering.

I have to admit the styling part of each shelf and for each shelf to flow with one another was not easy.  It took several tries and several days.  Soon I liked it and it all was cohesive.  My advise to you is hang in there.  Keep moving things around.  Prop items up or lay them flat.  Layer items in front of other items.  And don’t forget to bring back some green!  Eventually it will come together.  If you’re stuck browse the web.  Pinterest is an awesome source of images.  Just type in book shelves and an abundant collection of ideas will pop up.

I’ll do a post sometime soon on the art within the book shelves.  All the art was done by me.  Some I did in my college days and some I did just recently.

 

I’ll try to do a DIY post on my abstract painting.  I did not take any progress pictures….I will try to recreate it.  It took me probably 20 minutes to complete.  I really feel anyone could do this one!

I added pops of dark pink faux flowers through out.  The dark pink along with white, blends well together with the shades of blue.

Nothing was off limits.  My daughter's peacock she made in 4th grade was a fun unexpected choice.  Since this picture I’ve added my second child’s art pottery project to the shelves.  They were very excited to have their pieces displayed somewhere besides their bedroom!

On the other side of the room I simplified the entry cabinet with faux flowers, books and a few trinkets and of course accessorizing in the color blue.

The little blue trinket container was made by my Grandma, who has since passed.  I dug it out of a box of things my parents packed away for me.  It was once displayed on the shelves in my room as a child.

I’m thinking I will keep this look until fall.  The color blue reminds me of the sky found in summer.  It’s such a bright blue.  Everyone wants to be outside enjoying what summer has to offer.  The warmth on our skin and under our feet always makes people happy.  Why not bring a little of that outdoorsy feeling inside. 

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now.

Has It Really Been That Long

Oh my!  Has it really been 2-1/2 months since I’ve last written?! 

School is nearly over for the summer and soon I will have a 7th, 5th and 1st grader.  That doesn’t seem possible!

Today is the ideal weather for Nebraska.  It’s a comfortable 67 degree with bright blue skies and just a few fluffy white clouds. 

Everyone in Nebraska would agree….this weather doesn’t last long.  It soon will be very hot and shortly after that it will be extremely cold.  In fact a lot of our trees, shrubs and flowers have had a delayed budding season due to the late coldness.

I have the windows open and a fresh clean smelling air is blowing in.  And for some reason I felt compelled to blog once again.  With school winding down and our schedules becoming less busy, I want to give this blog thing another go around.

Several weeks ago I took pictures of my restyled book shelves for the spring and summer.  If you believe it or not, I added color!  Here’s a sneak peek of a picture that I’ll blog about this Friday.

Have a wonderful Wednesday and hopefully your weather is just as nice.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now.

DIY Black And White Abstract Art

Howdy!  It’s been awhile since I’ve last written!

My oldest child recently turned 12!  It’s impossible to think that 12 years have gone by so quickly.  It seems like only a few short years ago she was a baby and I rocked her to sleep.  I can remember the snow storm we had a few day prior to her birth…and the waiter telling me that my spicy dish would sure send me into labor the day before…and my blood pressure sky-rocketing when I was admitted into the hospital.  Now my little baby has become a honest, truthful and caring young person.  She wears her emotions on her sleeve.   When something’s not right or if she has a QUESTION she is not embarrassed or afraid to ask or tell me what’s on her mind.  I’m pretty sure I don’t want to discourage that! 

Happy Birthday to my sweet beautiful baby young person!  She secretly will always be my baby and I think in her heart she feels the same way!

With all the birthday preparations and celebrations over with, I thought I would share my latest DIY project. 

black & white abstract art

After browsing Pinterest, design magazines and blogs, I have noticed a lot of black and white abstract art out there.  It was art that I shied away from in the past just because I didn’t like it.  The more I saw it the more it started to grow on me.

I thought I would try my hand at it.  I knew I didn’t want anything too big, like pictured above.  Mainly because I still wasn’t completely on board with this type of art yet. 

I was on a hunt to find a small canvas.  Then I remembered I had these.

In my community on Facebook, I am part of a group that you can buy and sell gently used items.  I had planned on selling these….but “Wait a minute” these would do.  These could be my small canvases.  I knew my kiddos didn’t want these hanging in their rooms anymore, so I decided to give these a whirl.

I painted them an off-white instead of a pure white.  I don’t know if I necessarily like the sharp contrast of black and white.  So maybe my post should be titled “black and off-white abstract art” instead. Ha-ha!

 

I didn’t take any during progress pictures…because let’s face it…I redid one the canvas probably 4 times!  No one really needs to see all that mess and my frustrations!  Luckily the first one I was happy with right from the start.  Don’t give up!  Paint over it if you’re not totally happy with it.

And if we’re being totally honest I painted these several months before Christmas.  I didn’t like them!  So I put them away.  I even considered throwing them away!  I know it’s weird…I just have this thing if I’m not liking it I just want it gone.  BUT…..I stuck with it and just recently pulled them back out.

Enough with all of my needs on it being perfect!  Here’s my process I went through.

I took the above “West Elm” picture and focused on smaller aspects of it.  Since these canvases measure 10” square I knew I could only fit a small portion of it.  I even did some quick sketches on paper on how I wanted them to look before I started painting. 

I blended the two areas together around the edges and it created shades of grey.  I rather like the grey.  It lessens the blow of how sharp the contrast is between the black and white for me.  Plus is seems more “artsy” and more like a “real” piece of art.

I wanted to frame it, but the pieces of wood I had did not lay flat against the side and it looked funny.  I didn’t want the edges to stand out in this particular situation so I just painted them black.

Then for my second canvas (the one I just couldn’t get right), I have sitting on one of my book shelves.

This project costs me nothing.  I reused canvases that I already had along with black and off-white paint. 

This project could have easily been done on a piece of heavier paper and then framed.  Or if you or someone you know are handy with power tools you could even cut a 10” square from a 10” board.  And for that matter you could cut any size square or rectangle from what you have available.  The possibilities are endless!

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now.

a little bit of this and a little bit of that

Oh my gosh…I been busy, busy, busy!  I’ve started a new daycare child and it leaves me with no time for extra things at naptime.  There are things that I HAVE to get done and once those are usually done baby will wake up from her nap shortly after.  Naptime was usually the time I sat down and was able to write or start a blog post.  Now I need to reevaluate when I can write.  I am SO not a night person mainly because I’m wiped out from the day I can’t think straight.  I already get up early I don’t know if I could do any earlier.  So I need time to think what will work mainly because I do like this blog thing and sharing.  How can I get it all in?  I just need a few more hours in the day!

Anyway, over the past 2 weekends I have gone to the Goodwill.  I like going there and seeing what treasures can be found.  My trips usually take me awhile to comb through the items on the shelves and what they possibly could turn into. 

I went into the furniture section of the “slinkiest” Goodwill (as my children call it) and I came upon this chair.

Since we installed our bookcases, I thought a side chair in a wood finish would look nice.  It’s a barrel chair with a cane back and sides.  I absolutely love the texture it gives this little space.  My thought at the store for it was that it could act as a side chair but then be pulled around to use at the computer.  It was a nice thought but the seat height is too low!  It had a small cushion attacked to back of the cane that I cut off.  The seat cushion is a grey woven fabric.  At first I was not in love with the fabric and thought I could sew another cover.  But the grey seat has grown on me and seeing that I would like to incorporate more of that color it will stay.

My second purchase was this picture.  What caught my eye at first was the gold-copper frame.  But as I walked closer the artwork was really quite nice.  It looked like something that I might have drawn in my rendering class in college.  The mat was discolored and I simply just painted over it as close as I could get with one of my acrylic craft paints.  I’ve never painted mat board before and who-knew it would turn out good!

I rearranged a few pictures in our living room and BOY! handy-husband was not pleased!  There were holes that needed to be patched and painted.  It definitely was not something he wanted to do on a Sunday afternoon. 

I got a second pair of antlers from my Dad that I have hanging above my new Goodwill picture.

The deer antlers had a red velvet fabric covering on the plaque.  Well red just would not do.  I changed it to a gold crushed velvet that works much better in our living room.

This past weekend I took a trip to my Grandma’s house to pick up a few more books for my bookshelves, (I’ll show that later as I’m restyling them for Christmas) but I picked up a few unexpected items.  One was this picture…

I really love the frame but don’t know if I’m exactly in love with the artwork.  In an odd turn of events, handy husband was in love with just the opposite.  I really shouldn’t say love for him, because I don’t think he could be in love with artwork.  But in other words he didn’t like the frame – way TOO much for him.  Well we hung it anyway.  Don’t tell him this but it probably will come down in awhile, we’ll just see.  Here’s a close-up of the detail on the frame.

I also got this brass faux bamboo coatrack.  I wanted something to fill both sides of my entry cabinet to give it more of a presence.  I think this is working for one of the sides, plus it gives guests a place to hang their coat. 

In the mist of all this rearranging and shuffling of pictures I took down all my fall stuff.  I’ve never started this early decorating for Christmas.  December has always been a busy month and I want to be able to enjoy it!  I don’t want to be hanging Christmas ornaments one night and then the next going to a holiday program.  Last year I didn’t have ANY posts in the month of December.  I want to enjoy my children’s excitement and not be bogged down with trying to get something done.  I don’t have my trees up but here is a sneak peek at my entry table.

I painted a bunch of curly branches last year and stuck them into glass candle hurricane holder.  So simple but it adds height and just fills out the space.  I added a few ornaments and sitting next to it is a gold cone beaded tree.  The mirrored vanity tray was once on my dresser in my childhood home.  I brought it out onto the entry table and placed a grouping of white, gold and silver ornaments within a decorative bowl.  Again so simple and sparkles so much whenever I walk by.

I hope to be back soon with a tutorial on how I made my fabric covered Christmas ornaments.  I’m shooting for Friday but it more likely be on Monday.  So let’s just say Monday.

I started this post on Monday and geez….it’s now Wednesday.  I guess I will just have to piece my time together and write when I can and when I’m not so tried and feel mentally ready to write.

Thanks for reading.

Bye for now!

girls’ bedroom art

I was doing some wishful thinking on art. 

I love art!  I once wanted to be known as an artist.  All I wanted to do was paint.

I still do but I want to do more.  I want to design plus paint. 

Gosh there just isn’t enough hours in the day to do it all.  And if you’re a painter you need a lot.  So I guess that’s why I’ve never made it as a painter.  I just don’t have the hours to succeed in it.

I’ll do some occasional paintings here and there but nothing full time. 

I created a design board on art pieces for the girls’ bedroom.  My collection is sophisticated with feminine details.  This collection is not too little girlish which is something I’m all about in redesigning their room.  Mind you…..nothing has taken place in the redesign of their space.  Simply just wishful thinking on my part.

1. janethillstudio / 2. ParisPlus / 3. rebeccaplotnick / 4. LeighViner / 5. HeidiCarlsenRogers / 6. janethillstudio

I want to create a gallery wall that has some photographs, some fine art giclee prints and some abstract drawings to counterbalance more of the traditional feel the room will have.

I love all of pieces together.  Each one brings a different story, a different color and just a different way at looking at something ordinary.

As far as picture frames, I envision a mix of warmer woods that will tie into the dresser/nightstand that will separate their beds.  Plus gold frames in various widths that will tie in with the accents found throughout the room.

I you missed my earlier post of the color scheme for the girls’ bedroom you can find it here.  My “jumping off” fabric is this found here.

Hope you enjoyed my wishful thinking.  It sure was fun and maybe some day it will happen!

Thanks for stopping!

Bye for now.