Framed!

Hope you all had a great weekend! I want to show you this big ol' frame the hubs and I made. We had some good directions from D.I.Y rock stars and artists, Jamin and Ashley Mills of the Handmade Home. Their publisher sent me some of their books and I thought it would be fun to make some frames from the book to see how easy/difficult it really was to make. 

Excerpted from Handmade Walls: 22 Inspiring Ideas to Bring Your Walls to Life Copyright © 2013 by Jamin and Ashley Mills (thehandmadehome.net) and published by F+W Media, Inc. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

 In the book, there are thirteen examples of frames rated easy to difficult. There is a supply list, cut list and cost estimates for each project. They have come up with some unique D.I.Y frames that really could change the way you design or decorate a room. They are all beautiful! When Steve and I saw the 'Wills' frame, we knew that was the one we wanted to make. It's a statement piece.

  

 We put the 'Wills' in our twins room since I knew it would look a bit grander than what they had up there originally.

 Here's what the twins' room looked like not too long ago (with the silly girls striking a pose).

We used to have two lamps and because there was an accident (no names shall be mentioned in this post) we are down to one. This room needs more lighting at night so now I'm searching for two matching lamps again. 

I thought this photo of our girls would be perfect in the frame. Our dear friend Ashley Anderson (Unfortunately, she's overseas for a few years, we miss her!)took these pictures of them and I adore this one. 

To style their dresser a bit more, I found this pedestal stand at a thrift store and gave it a fresh coat of red spray paint to pop it up a bit. 

The pedestal now houses a plethora of colorful beaded necklaces, of course!

I'll give you directions on how we built the 'Wills' frame tomorrow. We did a couple of things that were slightly different than what they do in the book.  I highly recommend anyone who wants to try to make some unique frames to go out and get it. What do you think- would you build a frame? 

The Folding Screen and Silhouette

First of all, welcome to my blog if you are coming over from I Heart Organizing. Glad you stopped here! I'm working on making different projects in our home and this is where I'm documenting it all. Keep coming back to see tutorials, tips and things I'm working on.

Children's bedrooms are fun to decorate especially when you have your children's input about what they want their room to look like. Our daughter Lauren helped me decide on the color and she helped paint her room. When I brought home the folding screen, she helped pick out the fabric too! This girl loves color and is very artistic so we want her room to reflect her beautiful personality. I'm showing only some of the room since this is still a work in progress (some other furniture in here needs to be painted).

Two great projects which have enhanced this room are the folding screen and silhouette picture. I talked about the folding screens in this post.

 You can see we have a gallery started on the wall with some of her artwork up there (more to come). 

Making a silhouette portrait has been on my crafting bucket list for awhile so it's nice to have something done for the new year. Here's how I did it:

                                   1. Take a profile shot with as much light as possible behind the person.

2. I went to the edit section of Picassa and made the picture into a pencil sketch. You really just want the lines of the profile to stick out the most. With editing you could even lighten most of the dark behind the person. In Picassa, you can crop the image and make it a bit larger. 

3. Carefully cut it out and paint or use a sharpie. I painted mine black, but I love silhouettes in different colors too. I did one in pink for my daughter's tea party . Also, using card stock paper is best since it can handle the paint better than printing paper. 

Now for the screen: Here's the before shot when I brought it home from the thrift store. It was cute, but not the color we wanted and the hinge needed to be fixed. I took out the backing and swapped out the pink fabric for the citrus green stripe. When reupholstering, just hold the fabric tight as you are stapling so that you don't get creases. My husband fixed the hinge for us and now all three pieces are together again.

This room is starting to take shape! I really like how these projects turned out. Making a silhouette portrait is a great way to customize your home and bring in some character (it's also a cheap thrill since it won't cost hardly anything). Also, putting the screen behind the bed brought in a great layering effect. Have you ever put a folding screen behind a bed? Or done a silhouette portrait? Do tell. 

Paint- Watery by Shermin Williams
Screen- Thrift Store (I think it was a Pottery Barn Kids)
Fabric on screen- Fabric.com
Owl pillow- T.J Maxx
Garland- Rifle Paper Co.
Quilt- treasured gift from Grandma
Floor lamp- vintage, yard sale find, spray painted white
Bed- Thrift Store find, painted

I'm liking up this post to:
Not Just a House Wife
The Shabby Nest
Thirty Handmade Days