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.

Spring Gallery Wall

Well...this post was going to be on how I made my silhouette pictures, but it has turned a new direction.  I want to makeover my oldest daughter's silhouette with her hair pulled up, but I haven't gotten around to doing so.  It's super easy - no photo editing program involved.  Unless you have one - which would make the process easier.  I simply took a profile picture of my children and then traced around their outline onto black card stock and then cut it out.  I taped the silhouette onto scrapbook paper and taped it under a picture mat.  When I make her silhouette over I will show the process. 

My title gives away the subject of this post.  I am going to show how I have laid out pictures on my gallery wall. 

I can remember looking at the pages of Pottery Barn while thinking to myself, "What crazy person changes the pictures hanging on their walls according the to seasons?"  I can now say....I am one of those people.

This is what it looked like back in October 2010.  No shelves and no coordinating of pictures.  Just pictures grouped nicely on the wall.

I tend to be more of a symmetrical girl.  This arrangement is not symmetrical but it is all balanced out.  You can see in this picture that photos are hung at the same height on the wall.

Here is what it looks like today.

It is very unsymmetrical! 

My poor handy husband repaired a lot of holes of me moving pictures here and there.

All of these frames with mats and 2 different sizes of shelves came in a kit, actually there are several kits pictured here.  I can't remember where I got them originally maybe Bed Bath & Beyond? 

I started with pictures of last year's Easter of my kiddos, except for the one shown of them sitting on the couch. 

I didn't want the wall to be so picturey.  I wanted to add other elements in it.

I started with my bunny.

I iron transferred the bunny on burlap and then stapled in onto a square piece of wood.  This is quite a close-up and I'm noticing the fabric is not so straight.  It's propped up against a family photo.

I printed the same bunny off from my printer onto the same scrapbook paper as the silhouettes.

I like the consistency of the images.  Before, I would have found different pictures of bunnies.  But why?  I like the image why not use it in another way.  I have used the nest picture and the bunny picture in other areas of my home.

The picture of the nest and the definition of nest are printed off onto a linen textured card stock paper.

And there it is!  I love how it's casual; pictures propped up and the different textures of fabric and moss and the decorative eggs.  I'm happy with it!

I've already started thinking about what I will do for Summer.

One more thing......this chair!

If you don't recognize the chair it's from Pottery Barn.  First time I saw it, I fell in love.  I fell in love with the basket weave!  I just had to have it.  And so when money was given to us, I made the trip to the PB store 50 miles away, purchased it, put it into our Suburban and drove home. 

This chair is detested by my handy husband with a passion!  Not only does he dislike the look but the comfort is somewhat undesirable.  He also dislikes how it came to live inside our home.  I used some, or I should confess, all our 5th wedding anniversary gift money to buy it without fully consenting him.  He knew I was going to be buying a chair.  What he didn't know that it was THIS chair and the actual price.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bye for now!

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Revised Spring Tree

  I was not completely happy with my flowers on my spring tree.  I came across this wonderful blog that made tissue paper cherry blossoms that I decided to give a try.



Sarahndipities

Her flowers look so real..at first I thought they were!  She has a tutorial on how to make them found here.

Well I got out my tissue paper and got to work Saturday night. 

My new favorite color is ivory, cream, off-white whatever you want to call.  I knew I wanted the outer part of the flower to be ivory with a light pink center.

I ripped off the old flowers and hot glued these on along with my ribbon leaves. 

I didn't care so much on how they would typically grow.  I randomly placed the flowers on the branches so that it all balanced out.

I'm lovin' this new look.  The flowers are bigger and adds more spring color to the space.  It also pulls your eye downward to my crepe paper balls.  You can find the ball tutorial here.

Thanks for stopping.

Bye for now!

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Crepe paper flower tuturial

Today I thought I would show you how I made my crepe paper flower balls that I have pictured in my spring tree post found here.

They are a little time consuming, but super easy to make. 

I started with these things:

Hot glue gun with lots of glue sticks

Scissors

Crepe paper (make sure you have a large amount - whole roll)

Ball of any size (I got mine at the Dollar store - 4 for $1.00)

Just a side note - some stores have smaller crepe paper rolls.  I would plan on getting extra so you have enough to finish.  In my earlier versions I noticed dye lots have a variation in color even from the same store but bought at different times.  I got mine at Walmart and I have enough left over from the first roll that I could even make another one.

I started with a strip of crepe paper about 3 feet long.

I cute the strip in half.

I crumped up the strips.

Then I uncrumped it.  I did this so that it would not be so straight.

I started rolling it to make the flower's center.

Once I had a center, I started twisting the end around.

I added a dab of hot glue to secure the end.

Then used hot glue to the bottom and applied it to the ball. 

Be careful!!!  If you use a ball like mine some of the hot glue will go through the holes and land on your fingers!  Ouch!!!  That hurts!!!

I wanted a smushed flower look so I smushed the flowers down a bit.  But that's optional.

The great thing about working with crepe paper is that you can mold it into certain areas.  Once the ball gets covered you end up with odd spaces.  The flowers can be molded to fit those areas.

There it is!  I love how it adds a shot of color to my kitchen window sill.  For my next project I want to make a flower topiary for my bathroom, but haven't come across an ivory crepe paper.  Still searching.

Thanks for stopping.

Bye for now!

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