Kitchen Wall

I've been wanting to paint a wall in the kitchen for a few months now. I like the color scheme but it was lacking a certain something. The cabinets are white and the walls are beige, so I wanted to throw another color in there that flowed with the rest of the house. We had a gallon of paint downstairs that we got for free. It's a shade similar to hot chocolate - not something I'd typically pick out but since it was free we figured we'd make use of it. Last spring we tried it out as an accent wall above the mantle. It took a little getting used to, but now I love it. Here's the mantle decorated for winter - thank you to my talented + thoughtful sister Andrea for making me the "Maranatha" banner (which means "Come, Lord!" in Aramaic) for my birthday.

So when I had a hankering to give the kitchen a bit of a facelift, it made sense to use this color again.

Very blah. Clearly needed something.

Ok so the change is subtle. But the contrast of colors (the beige in the kitchen is the same as the color on the window walls by the mantle) makes it feel a little more thought out. I also added some things to the wall.

1. I repainted this picture frame (that was sitting in a box in the basement) 

a shade of gray and filled it with a picture of London.

2. Another basement box picture frame that I took the backing out of and used as a dry erase meal planning board. I have some fabric I might use as a background instead, but for now this works.

3. A letter holder of my parents' that they no longer wanted. 

I also repainted this a shade of mint green.

All together, this project cost me $0 to do! I'm telling you - it's all about using what you have lying around the house and re-purposing/repainting it. Speaking of painting - thank you Tim for doing the hard work and painting the wall for me! And with only a brush as your tool!

Homemade Christmas

I was pretty crafty this Christmas. I say that because it's rare I have the time or energy to do a whole lot of DIY projects. It probably has something to do with the fact that Tim is off school for a month. In any case, I got a lot accomplished in the way of making things myself instead of purchasing them. I made two strings of garland: one with paper doves + one with dried oranges. I was too lazy to take a picture of my own, hence the link.

I also did a handful of drawings for people who requested them for others
+ a couple people in my family.

For my sister - I still owe her other drawings! But I thought she might like this too.

For a friend's gift to her sister & brother in law.

For my brother in law's girlfriend. They live in San Francisco and this is a shot from their balcony. I (obviously) super imposed the image of the boy holding balloons (original source unknown) and added the text myself.

DIY Forts (an Ode to Pinterest)

Ok, confession. I was all "I'm swearing off Pinterest" and then I literally signed up for it (a second time) the same day. Sure enough, I spent about 40 minutes pinning tons of ideas that I'll probably never get around to implementing.

Here's the thing: I've said before that I'm terrible when it comes to coming up with creative ideas for fun activities to do with my kids. Pinterest is great for that. Hello homemade finger paint and glow in the dark bubbles!

My main reason, however, for re-subjecting myself to such a time-sucking website is that I really (really) want to create some permanent nooks around the house for Jack and Moses to hide away in. Jack is already in love with forts but I find them a bit of a pain to set up and tear down (laziness, straight up.)

Teepees are the trendy hipster thing for kids these days.

(source)

And what's not to love? They're cozy, they're spacious, and they blend well with surrounding decor. That said, they sound like an absolute pain to DIY - not to mention you have to be a sewer. Of course, you could always buy one on Etsy - for like two hundred ridiculous dollars. So, as much as I would love, love, love to have this be what my boys play in, it's just not practical at the moment (re: space, time, cost).

Thankfully (because Pinterest is the place for Plan B's and C's) there are some other options out there that I think I'll try to recreate. The first is totes ingenious!

Um, obviously I'd change the color scheme to be more boy-friendly. But this is created with just a few tension rods! Naturally, there's no link to how to make it step by step, but I'm sure I could figure it out. And we have a perfect spot in the living room that would work for this! Exclamation points unite!

This I would put in their bedroom. It's more open than a tent or a teepee, but it's still a neat little spot to go and sit. Not to mention, it's probably super inexpensive to create (I might try using some spare curtains to create this). Apparently all you need is a quilting hoop. I say apparently, because yet again there isn't a link to the original source on this image. However, here's a link to something similar, using a hula hoop instead.

Man, I really hope these things don't turn out to be expensive or time consuming to create. Of course, if anyone feels like making me a teepee - we would probably be best friends forever.