Archive for the ‘decorating’ Category
The Tree: 2009 (Part 1)
Our Advent activity last night was to go and pick out our Christmas tree! The kids had been looking forward to it all week so we bundled them up to go out and brave the cold weather.
We hopped in the truck and headed out. Both Nathan and Sarah fell asleep on the way there!
(The way I’m talking, you’d think we were headed out to actually cut down a tree, huh? Naaaah – We went to Home Depot – about 10 minutes from our house but Nathan and Sarah had not taken a nap and the low hum of the diesel knocked them both out cold before we even hit the main road!)
First, we rifled through the trees to find *just* the right one:
Then Abby and Bruce waited in line to get it trimmed and wrapped:
Then we headed home, excited about our purchase:
This is the first year that Nathan has been big enough to care about what was going on. He was so very anxious to get the ball rolling on the decorating! He probably asked me a gazillion times, “Can we go find the lights now? Can we plug the lights in now? Can we put the lights on the tree now? Can we put the star on now? Can we get out the decorations now?”
When we finally got the lights up and got out the box of decorations, he was beside himself with excitement. He would pull each ornament out of the box and say, “WOW! Look at this one! A blue star! It’s so beautiful! And special! I will hang it right here!”
About 20 minutes into decorating he stopped and said, “Mama – Thank you for letting me help decorate the tree.” (Have I ever mentioned that this boy is the sweetest thing ever?)
We decided to stop decorating for a while so that Abby could help when she got home. (She had TWO birthday parties today!) We stopped to eat some lunch and while we were at the table, we heard an awful CRASH and, you guessed it, THE TREE HAD FALLEN DOWN!
Bruce was not home and I was unable to lift or move the tree by myself. I corralled Nathan and Sarah into the other room and swept up as much of the glass as I could. I tried not to weep over the fact that my favorite ornament in the whole wide world was broken in three pieces, and then I started to panic when I realized that there was now a gallon of water on the floor soaking through the tree skirt and onto our new hardwood floors. (I know, most people would not have panicked over that but if you were fresh off of a 2 week out-of-home experience due to water damage on your hardwood floors, you might have panicked, too!)
I got up as much of the water as I could and then when Bruce got home he moved the tree and we made sure there was not a drop left.
Then, we propped the tree up in the corner and Bruce went back out to buy a new tree stand.
Stay tuned for part 2! (Let’s hope it has a happy ending and an upright tree!)
Oh, and word to the wise: If your tree stand says “This stand will support trees up to 7.5 feet” do not try to put a 9 ft tree in there. 
Happy Thanksgiving!
May you count your many blessings today and every day.
I’ve done a little bit of painting lately:
Hello WFMW‘ers!
Do you have a hallway that’s big enough that your kids sometimes play in it? Why not turn it into a magnetic chalkboard? (What could be better for a multitasking mom?)
5 coats of magnetic paint + chalkboard paint = awesome use of hallway space! (And every school needs a blackboard, right?)
The kids also LOVE using the magnetic foam letters numbers and tangrams!
Sarah loves to play, too!
The entryway now has a chalkboard (Mom helped with the painted frame!):
And far be it from me to waste any paint or a creative streak – With the little bit I had leftover, I painted a chalkboard in the kitchen and hung a frame around it to showcase or nightly menu:
Give me a paintbrush and I’m dangerous, People!
Next up: A Dry Erase Wall!
Do you like the new header?
I made some artwork for Abby’s room (inspired by THIS POST on Design Dazzle) and used the images for the new header. I’m loving that blog!!!
Here are the posters in Abby’s room:
Reading and photoshopping, that is…
So I mentioned that I have been doing a bit of reading – which is true – but I have also been envisioning some art projects that I want to get to around the house. I love to experiment on the computer before I actually put paint on anything and I’ve been busy photoshopping this idea that’s been itching my brain.
Ever since we got the living room painted, I’ve been more motivated to paint a family in an effort to keep us connected with our past. It seems that we live in such a “RIGHT HERE – RIGHT NOW” culture and our past (as in turn, our future) gets blurred and pushed to the back of our consciousness. In an effort to keep our family history alive, I’m putting together a family biography and would like to have something visual to go along with it.
So here’s the idea. A big tree. Painted on the wall. With portraits hung on the branches. Can you envision it? Well, if you can’t, here’s what I’m thinking:
Right now the dining room looks like this:
I love the picture that my cousin painted for me several years ago but it does not seem to “go” with my decor as it has changed over the past few years. It may find a new spot in the house and in it’s place, I’m thinking of doing something like this:
Alternatively, I may do it over the couch:
And for props – here’s where I got the idea.
Here’s the photo I used to create the tree in photoshop:
(Now, if only I could learn to actually edit family photographs in photoshop!!!)
A little face lift.
No, not me – The living room!
A friend in our community group from church is a professional painter. Last Sunday I casually mentioned that I might be interested in getting a quote from him on our living room. He grinned and proceeded to tell me that he had someone cancel on him this week. (He’s usually booked out MONTHS in advance.) He came and looked Monday, gave us a great quote and started working on Wednesday. AND! His wife is into organic food so we traded some beef for the cost of materials. (I ask anyone and everyone if bartering interests them and we have used our hamburger more than a few times to trade for products and services that we needed!)
I didn’t get him to do much of a different color – just a little warmer than what we had before but I am so thrilled that now I can actually WIPE THE WALLS without having the paint come plum off! The type of paint that was on the walls from when they originally built the house was sprayed-on, powdery primer paint and it got SO dirty and when you tried to wipe it down, you would end up with a washrag full of paint. It also did not hold up very well when, for example, little girls put stickers on it. (Not that we would know much about that)
On the wall where my words are, Bill came up with the idea of just painting around the words to leave some of the old color showing and kind of “framing out” the area.
This was our solution to me not wanting to peel the words off and buy them again. (I’m cheap like that.)
Here’s what it used to look like:
Here’s what it looks like now:
And thanks to the power of photoshop, here’s an idea of what it will look like once I spruce it up a little by painting a stripe around the old color:
And look! Thanks to a roll of electrical tape, here’s what it looks like now:
After I photoshopped it and decided that I likes the look, I wanted to see it for real so I took some electrical tape and framed it out. It actually took less time to do that than it did to photoshop it! The electrical tape will probably peel off but it was a super quick solution. I will probably paint the stripe on. Eventually. Maybe. (I think The Nester might be proud of my little shortcut – even if it didn’t involve a gluegun!)
I also had him paint the kitchen area a slightly darker color:
This is the wall that we see each morning as we come out of our bedroom and I have been playing around on the UPPERCASE LIVING website this morning trying to decide which Bible Verse to have stenciled there. (I could aso save a few bucks and do it myself.) It’s a toss up between Phillipians 4:8 and 1 Corinthians13:4-7 or maybe some paraphrase of Galatians 5:19-26. I’d love to start each morning by seeing a Bible Verse that encouraged me lo live a life that uplifts my husband and children and glorifies God.
The paint color is a subtle change. Our lives could use lots of tweaks here and there – more internal than external. A fresh coat of paint is a good reminder that old things can be redeemed and God can make something beautiful and new out of something ugly and worn out. Praise Be To God!
Decorating… in bits and pieces – AND – Advent links!
Welcome WFMWers!
Decorating a little bit at a time is helping me to stay centered this Advent season.
This year I am taking a much more laid back approach to decking the halls. I’m doing it in little chunks instead of all at once.
We’ve got the little miniature trees up. (One in Abby’s room – it’s PINK!), one in Nathan’s room, and one in the bathroom. The big colored lights are on the tree out front. The garland is hung on the mantle and the stockings are up.
The advent wreath has a prominent spot in the great room, the bench in the entryway is adorned with lights and holly berries and poinsettias.
Tomorrow: The Tree! This year we’ll opt for a real one. I sent the mammoth pre-lit tree to Goodwill last season after fooling with 7 new strings of lights that I had to add to it because the old ones had blown out.
Finally, I took a tip from Meredith and got down one of my favorite wedding gifts – a lovely crystal bowl -Â and filled it with fresh fruit. It’s sitting on our table doing double duty. (Once all that fruit gets eaten, I may replace that centerpiece with THIS ONE. Same concept though! And just as pretty!)
The Nativity is set up in the Dining Room and thanks to this more hassle free approach of decorating a little at a time, I’m more able to focus on The Reason why we’re decking the halls in the first place.
Here are some advent calendar links for you to celebrate this advent season with your family in a meaningful way!
Inspired By Meredith
I have been enjoying reading Like Merchant Ships lately and THIS POST inspired me to do something special with the lovely bouquet of flowers that Abby picked for me this evening.
It also inspired an idea for a Mother’s Day gift for our gathering on Sunday! Thanks, Meredith!
Many of my maternity clothes…
…have paint on them. (Don’t worry mamafriends, I am not referring to any clothes from the community stash!)
It occurred to me today that many of the clothes that I have in my maternity stash have paint splatters on them. I guess that is because the only time I get the “bug” to decorate is when I am 8+ months pregnant. The orange shirt I currently don has paint on it from both Abby and Nathan’s painted ceiling projects and yesterday I added to my maternity wardrobe some paint stained pants. Oh! and because I’m all about stuff coordinating lately, I went ahead and spilled some more paint ON OUR NEW AREA RUG AND ONE OF THE DINING ROOM CHAIRS!
I decided yesterday to paint the lamps in the living room black instead of the green that did not match anything I own. The lamps turned out lovely (except for the fact that I have bought and returned 3 lampshades for one of them and still don’t have one that I like!) but in my pregnant clumsy state I SPILLED BLACK PAINT ON THE RUG AND CHAIR!!!
I scrubbed and scrubbed the rug and luckily it’s a funky green shag and you can’t *really* tell but the chair was un-salvageable. I will say that I have contemplated recovering them since I got them about 3 years ago but the avocado green has kind of grown on me. I do have enough fabric leftover from the curtains for 2 chairs so I will recover the 2 that sit against the wall.
Guess that’s ONE way to motivate me to get another put-off-for-too-long project finished!
I’ll post a pic when I get them recovered!
I *did* get the wall words up (Thanks to some help from my Uppercase Living friend Amy!) and pictures into frames!
Look at my Aldi find!
I have recently started visiting Aldi again. The cereal and produce alone make it worth the trip. (Although, at this point, I can’t actually *eat* the cereal but other members of the house can.) And their oranges are so, so good! And CHEAP! For a while a whole bag (with about 8 sweet and juicy oranges) was only .99 cents! Last week they were $1.99 which is still a bargain. Anyhoo – as I was checking out, I spotted roses by the half dozen for $2.99! Now, it was the week after Valentine’s Day so I figured they’d be dead in a few days but they have opened up and turned out to be the most beautiful roses to ever grace our kitchen table!
