Baby Room Wall Art

I can NOT believe that I never got around to posting the cute wall art I hung in baby E's room! He's only, like, 14 months now. Think I need to do a post on finding balance here soon...

Anyway, my dear friend Brit made the cutest wall art for her son's room using her Cricut. I just HAD to have some for E's room, so I picked a cow, hippo, fox and frog to match some of the things we already had for his room.

She did such an amazing job!!

I knew I wanted white frames, so I found some chunky ones on sale at Michael's, along with four corresponding pieces of scrapbook paper.

I simply used sticky tabs on the animals (incase I ever wanted to use them elsewhere) and framed them without the glass.

I had the hubs hang them in baby's room -- one on each side of the window, and one on each side of the door.

Now E's old enough to recognize the animals, so it's become a morning ritual to say hello to each one. Love 'em!

Love Frame

For my parents for Valentine's, I tried to find a cute picture frame for them to add to their collection of a million baby photos. I was going to get one that said something about "grandparents", so I bundled up baby and went to Target. All of the grandparent frames were a little too modern or gaudy, and all of the Valentine's were -- of course -- hot pink and red. I wanted something they could display year round, so I decided to make my own. Had I planned it out a little better, I would have gone to Hobby Lobby and bought a plain DIY wooden one. But I didn't, so I picked up a hot pink one to paint.

Using paints I had on hand, I painted the back brown...

...and the front / sides an airy blue. {We have horrible lighting upstairs, and the flash was too bright.}

I then went around all the edges with a distressing ink pad to give it a more worn look.

I'm thinking the ink is more for paper because it took forever to dry. I ended up using a hairdryer to help speed things up a bit. While I was waiting, I tried Googling quotes about grandparents, but couldn't find any I liked {though I found a million after I was done!}.

So, I decided to keep it simple -- I painted some white letter stickers brown to spell "love"...

...added a key...

...and a lock at the top.

I thought it turned out SO pretty.

And, I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the final product!! I ended up making a copy of baby's footprint heart keepsake in black & white, then cut around the heart and glued it to some vintage-y looking scrapbook paper with the same blue. It looked soo cool, I want to make one for myself! Maybe I'll sneak a photo next time I'm at my parents' house :).

Linking up to:

www.craftytexasgirls.com

Footprint Heart Keepsake

My extremely creative friend Brit put together a Valentine's craft at our last playdate. She painted each of the babies' feet, and stamped them on scrapbook paper in the shape of a heart.

We started decorating but the kiddos started getting fussy for naptime so we took them home to finish. I did manage to cut the heart shape and glue to another piece of scrapbook paper.

I was originally going to turn it into a Valentine's card for J, but he saw it before I could finish it. So, I decided on a keepsake for baby's room (and, later, his baby book). I dug out all of my craft stuff and finished it off with stuff I already had, like adding the ribbon to the bottom, bronze brads in each corner, and a sticker quote.

I also marked the occasion on the top of the heart, with his name, first V Day and age. Of course, I'll be confused later in life when I look back at this, since he was 6 months when he did the heart, but he turned seven months last Saturday. Ohwell!

I then attached ribbon to the back...

...and was going to hang it in his room. But, to spare another nail hole in his wall, I hung it on his door instead.

Cute, huh? Happy Valentine's Day!

Linking up to this fabulous party:

Baby Room Letters

Finally getting around to a project post!!! These letters have driven me insane for awhile. Simply because I wanted them finished before baby E was born in July... and it's now February... better late than never, right?

So I had the idea of making letters for E's room, thinking it would be a quick project. But I got caught up in work, baby and everything else and these got put on the back burner for awhile. Now that I have work off my plate, I finally got them finished. Did they turn out exactly as I pictured? Not quite. Am I super excited they're done? Definitely!

I started with plain white letters I got on sale at a craft store (can't remember if it was Hobby Lobby or Michaels).

I thought they might look small on the wall, so I wanted to attach each to a canvas.

Using baby's bedding as inspiration...

...I drew out an idea of how I wanted to paint each canvas.

And then I started painting...

And then I took a few months hiatus, where they sat in this spot on a table up until a few weeks ago. After finishing the canvases, I painted the edges of the letters before attaching them with non-toxic craft glue. I also used a few adhesive stickies on the backs just to make sure they didn't fall off.

I am soo glad to see them done and finally up on the wall!

I think they look small in the picture, but it does take up a nice chunk of wall space. And I think the colors turned out great -- for some reason, the A is my favorite.

I think for the next kid, we're going with a vinyl wall decal ;).

Linking up to this fabulous party:

Super Easy Candle Re-do

Well, the cleaning schedule is going so-so. As the blogger clearly states, your house can't be a total wreck for it to work. And, well, my house IS a total wreck. For now anyway, although it's slowly (and I mean s-l-o-w-l-y) looking better.

While I've been home with baby E, there's a candle that I never really noticed before on top of our armoire in the living room that was starting to drive me nuts. It was one J had before we got married.

Not particularly crazy about the yellow one, either, but thought I'd start small. So, I rummaged through all of my scrapbook paper and found a brown & blue print I liked. I laid the candle on it to figure out how much paper would cover it, cut, then folded the paper around and ended with a little tape on the back. See? I said "super easy"! Because this one sits up high, I didn't have to worry about what the top looked like.

My mom saw it and said she loved the new candle. Ha! :)

Gallery Wall

I can finally mark one of the projects off my "Forgotten Projects" list. Back in October, I started the gallery wall that I was super excited about... then completely forgot about it until a month or so ago. Okay, okay, so I didn't really forget ~ more like I shut one eye every time I walked past the half-complete project. And then, when the frames started falling off the wall, I decided it was time to just finish the darn thing.

So, we have a huge blank wall between the bedrooms upstairs. I always thought it would make a cool frame wall. My first attempt? Not so great.

Yeah, a little pathetic. And it made me realize the vast size of the wall. It was going to take a little inspiration to fill that sucker. I found this spread in the Potterybarn catalog and fell in love.

I just love the mixture of frames and random objects. So, I went around collecting random frames. Some from a Garden Ridge sale...

...some from the Target clearance section...

...and a few that I saved from the trash at work.

I also wanted to incorporate some random stuff, so I just starting laying it all out on the floor and included a couple of small cabinet doors I found at the Habitat Restore awhile back. I did measure the wall between the light switch and the AC control so I'd know how much space I had to work with.

After several rounds of arranging and rearranging, I came up with something I liked:

I even found a use for the black shelf I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby a year ago. The hard part: getting everything from the floor to the wall. J was out for the day, so I was a little scared to start hammering. He's usually the one to perfectly measure everything, and make sure it's all even and aligned. But I figured I could manage. The first nail is always the hardest, right?

I measured and leveled each one as I went along, but of course I got off at certain points. I even thought I'd be smart and use the sticky tape that says it'll hold a frame on the wall so I wouldn't have to contend with the little double-eye hooks on the back of several frames. And I got to a stopping point before I thought I was going to go cross-eyed.

Not bad, huh? Even J was impressed when he got home. And then it sat. For weeks. And months. And then the frames that were up with the sticky strips began to slowly fall off the wall. Seriously, I'd almost pee my pants in the middle of the night 'cause I'd hear a horrifying crashing sound. Luckily only one frame broke, and I never really wet the bed.

I digress.

Fast forward to several weeks ago. I was sooo tired of looking at it and stepping over the mess in the hall, that I just picked up a hammer, some nails and went at it. Because I was pretty frustrated with it at this point, I didn't take any pics. But I ended up using wire to hang the frames with the double-hooks. No measuring tape this time, no level ~ just me, a stepstool and a hammer. The result?

Not exactly the pattern I had planned, but I like it. I even included a clock we got as a wedding gift years ago that I could never quite find the right spot for in this house. I'll eventually paint the small cabinet doors, and I still need to re-mat some of the frames. Oh, and select pictures!

But I do think it fills up the wall nicely, and it gives you something to look at as you're walking up the stairs.

Once again, the before:

And the after:

At least it's {almost} done!

Linking up to these fabulous parties:

Saturday Nite Special @ Funky Junk Interiors

Sunday Showcase @ Under the Table & Dreaming

DIY Project Parade @ The DIY Show Off

Creative Bloggers Party & Hop @ Homemaker on a Dime