Changing It Up

A couple weeks ago I shared that Chris was in Alaska and my parents took the boys for a few days while Adelyn and I enjoyed some quality time together at home.  I loved it.

I love my sons deeply and dearly, but oh my goodness, I get so much accomplished when they are away! 

I have been wanting to get some new pictures up on the walls. I had enlarged a few months ago, but never took the time to go frame shopping and just knock it out.  Poor Adelyn only had one framed picture of herself on the wall in our living room.

I have also been wanting to get some curtains up in my poor kitchen window. I hated walking in there at night time and having that huge bare window showcasing us in our home.  I felt like the entire neighborhood was watching!

Here are a few pics of what I, with a lot of help from my daughter and mother, was able to accomplish:

I went through my closets and dug up all the old picture frames that we didn’t use anymore.  I bought a piece of sandpaper, some primer, and a can of spray paint and I went to town!  For some reason lately I am in love with this teal and my entire living room has been taken over by it!

That big H I bought at the local craft store and there was a tutorial hanging alongside it to cover it with batting and fabric.  My intent was to put it on the fireplace mantel, but I ran out of room, so I thought I’d stick it up on the wall!  I like how it turned out.  Chris says it’s “wild.”  Haha.  Yep, we get pretty crazy around here don’t we?

Here is the fireplace mantel as it stands right now. The canvas I got off from a company in California. It was one of those daily deals I get in my inbox every morning.  It is my first gallery wrapped canvas and I love how it turned out.  It’s a 16x20.  The silhouettes I made using the tutorial I found here. 

Adelyn is on the walls!  Welcome sweetie pie!

I made this huge poster using Picasa and the images that I took off of this site.  I just scoured and scoured and scoured his flickr page for the letters I loved.  It was so hard to choose!  I then created a collage in Picasa and had this printed at our local Sam’s Club.  It is massive.  It is 30 x 40.  I mounted it on a piece of foam board and stuck it up on the wall in our entryway. 

And the last project was my kitchen window.  With the help of my amazing, and talented!, mother, I made curtains!  I haven’t sewed since middle school and couldn’t even figure out how to thread my machine that my wonderful Mother-in-law gave to me, so instead I packed everything up and went to my Moms!  (I am looking forward to my MIL’s visit next month when she can show me how to use her machine! No pressure Mom H!)

I am so thrilled with these curtains and proud of them!  My Mom saved the day though. You have no idea how many ways I would have destroyed these things if she hadn’t shown me some tricks.  I lined them with some muslin so that they wouldn’t be so see through hanging up in that bright window.

Here is an up close of the fabric.  It adds a pop of color to the kitchen and livens it up in there a bit. It also gives me a lot of colors to work with in decorating other parts of the kitchen.  It even has teal in it!