Grace

I painted something I didn't mean to last night - our van! {OOPS!} I had pulled into my church office's parking lot just in the nick of time to attend a meeting for nursery volunteers, and I wanted to move the van over just a little bit so I wasn't quite so close to the vehicle on my right. I looked over my shoulder, backed up, and heard a very distinctive metallic crunch. What was that? There was no huge object in my path just a second ago! Turns out the crunch came from me backing into a little red car driven by Sharon, another lady from church who was also attending the meeting. No one was hurt, and there was very minor damage {a small dent in Sharon's back right door}, but I still couldn't believe I had made such a stupid mistake. Laugh now, you people who knew me in high school and rode with me in the Driver's Ed car. And for crying out loud, my husband has backed into both our garage door and our very large garbage can. Why was it me who had to hit someone else's car?!

Turns out there was a lesson in store for me. I gave Sharon my address and phone number, apologized profusely for my mistake, and pleaded with her to contact me about fixing the damage to her little red car. We attended the meeting, and I apologized and pleaded again. I drove home ever so carefully to relay my driving adventure to my husband {not the first driving adventure of mine he's heard or witnessed}, and not more than an hour later the phone rang. It was Sharon, and she told me to forget about the damage. She said she and her husband took a close look at the car and decided it wasn't worth fixing. I told her again that it was, but Sharon insisted that I let it go.

Wow. I just hit someone else's car, and she said, "Forget about it. It's okay." What if we all had that kind of attitude? What if instead of showing anger we gave kindness and pardon? What a demonstration Sharon is of granting grace to someone who needed it. I hope to walk {and drive!} with a little more grace today. Thank you Sharon!

The one thing I didn't mean to paint!

As for the van, well, I'll be trying to unpaint that today.

Your Favorite Artist

My kids are constantly begging to paint {who do they get that from?}. And it's a pain to get out the paints, the brushes, the paper, the cups of water, the old shirts, and so on, so usually I try to think of something less time consuming and messy {Why don't you go collect rocks? Lots of them.}. But who am I to deprive my own children of such a gratifying experience, especially when I needed something to fill the empty space on the top of the entertainment center in our family room? Genius!

The nearest Michaels is about 35 minutes away, and it was worth the special trip to pick up four 18x24 inch blank canvases and some extra paint brushes. Paint was not on my shopping list. I don't know what kind of paint artists usually use on canvas, but my artists were going to use house paint because 1. We have tons, and 2. The colors they'd be using were colors used throughout the house - instant match!

Oh how happy were the kids when I announced our new project. I set out five or six brushes and bowls of paint and gave each kid a canvas. My only stipulation was that I wanted the entire canvas covered - no white patches please!



Pure joy!





Look at the texture in this piece!

The finished product? Happy mom and happy kids and happy wall space!

So for less than a total of $30, I have three pieces of original artwork. And, yes, I did say I picked up four canvases. One is tucked away, waiting for the day Louisa says, "I want to paint something."

How We Mantel

I love our master bedroom. It's in the basement, it's very large, and it's all ours. When my husband and I bought our house, the whole basement was unusable space to us. It was unfinished and had been used as a wood workshop by my husband's grandfather (the previous owner). After a couple years of thinking and drawing and dreaming, we remodeled the entire basement, adding a second family room with a bar and transforming the former wood shop into our master suite.

One problem: we were so busy moving into our new space and putting our furniture in place and our clothes in the new closet (not to mention moving one child to our old master and then having a third and then fourth baby), that we sort of forgot about accessorizing. See that big old empty space above the bed?

A huge amount of empty wall begging me to do something, anything!



Remember the two brand new mantels I scored from Goodwill for 15 bucks a piece? I knew one would be perfect centered above our bed. I originally saw the idea in the latest Pottery Barn catalog and fell in love.

Pottery Barn Decorative Ledge

Rather than fork over $349 for Pottery Barn's version, I decided to create my own. Enter Goodwill $15 Mantel Number One. The mantels had a light maple finish (which would just not fly), so I painted both of them with the same white paint we'd used for all of the downstairs trim. Because I wanted a slightly distressed look (not as drastic as Pottery Barn's), I brushed them over with the warmer creamy white that we used for our upstairs trim and cabinets.

The finished product:

A closeup of the paint to show you the warmer color I used over the white.

I threw a wreath and a candleholder from other Goodwill trips on top of the mantel and then did a little home project framing a W to complete the look.

Stay tuned to see where I used our second Goodwill mantel!

Goodwill Hunting

Here's a little series I will update from time to time, and I'm so excited about this! I love when someone is visiting my home and says, "I love that! Where did you find it?" and I can answer, "Oh that? I picked it up at Goodwill." Everyone's heard of the famous secondhand store, but do you shop there? I get so excited to check out the potential treasures that I can barely stay buckled as we pull into the parking lot. My husband doesn't find it quite as exciting, but he'd rather I spend a couple bucks on a new something or other for our home than $200 (and who wouldn't?).

Most times an item just needs a little cleaning, paint, or nails, and it's good as new, a price I'm willing to pay for something unique to fit our home just right. These are some of the goodies from my most recent trip.

For less than $50.00, I have secured three candlesticks, two (brand new!) wooden mantels, a tiered appetizer platter, a wooden wreath, a new cup for the master bath, a new cup to replace the one that sat atop the water carafe on my nightstand (one of the munchkins broke it way back), a pretty glass tealight candle holder, a cool white cup/dish thing that will look fabulous in the master bath, a pretty silver dish to hold candy, and (not pictured) a huge basket that I plan on displaying in one of the bathrooms to hold towels. Whew! That's quite a haul!

A better look at the silver dish.

Someone received this beauty for Club Woman of the Year in 1969, in case you can't read the inscription on the back. And now it belongs to me! Club Woman of the Year 2010!! Originally marked at $6.99, but purple stickers were half off - WooHoo!

See the new candlesticks in action?

The silver offering plate-looking Woman of the Year dish waits for some of our favorite treats.

The new cup to sit atop my carafe (no, I don't actually use the carafe, but I like it, and it makes me happy).

A bit hard to see, but can you spy our new bathroom cup?

The white dish/vase now sits on a shelf above our master bathroom toilet.

As for the two mantels, large basket, wooden wreath, tealight holder, and tiered appetizer tray? Stay tuned!

The Nursery: Don't Be Such a Baby About It

What gets my heart pounding more than a room to organize and decorate? Just about nothing. So believe me, when my hubby and I found out we'd be parents to a fourth child, I was over-the-top excited about a new room to design. I adore kids' rooms almost as much as I adore the actual kids. Little Miss Louisa was reason enough to celebrate, but her room to decorate was the icing on the cake!

Something I always keep in mind when decorating a child's room is to make the room fit for the child, but also stylish, fresh, and fitting for the rest of the home. Your kid likes Mickey Mouse? Sure, who doesn't? But that doesn't mean you want Mickey all over the curtains in your living room. My advice is to avoid character bedding and decor. After all, kids change favorites about as often as I change my shoes. You don't want to shop for new Transformer bedding next year because Nick doesn't like Superman anymore.

Choose a theme for your youngster's room based on what type of vibe you'd like the room to have. Playful? Soothing? Whimsical? For our youngest daughter's nursery, I knew I wanted a room that exuded style and sophistication. My heart was set on a bedding set featuring icy blues, browns, reds, and a touch of yellow.

Next, build on the theme by selecting colors for walls. Don't be afraid to step out of the box here. Colors for a baby's nursery are not limited to blue and pink. Don't forget about the array of oranges, greens (please, no mint!), soft browns, and yellows. And blue for a girl? I find it refreshing and chic. Looking at the colors in the bedding I had selected for Lulu, I pulled out the blue and yellow to use on the walls, reserving the red and brown for accents in the room decor. Surprise, surprise, in our vast (and I do mean vast) collection of paint, I had the perfect blue and yellow already and set to work painting the wainscoting on the lower half of the walls yellow, saving the blue for the top half. 
Finally, add decor suited to the style of the room. This comes in the form of artwork, blankets, lighting, and toys.

I shopped the house and moved (or rather had my husband and brother-in-law move) an old dresser into Louisa's nursery. After a couple coats of red paint and new knobs, it was ready to hold tiny onesies, adorable cozy warms (my term for footed pajamas), and snuggly socks. I added the beautiful dollhouse from my in-laws to the top of the dresser and flanked it with a pair of clear glass lamps holding shades in a rich brown.

New chandelier wall art completed the area.

Besides the bedding, my one big splurge for the room was the giant zebra rug. It covered our old painted cement floor and gave the room so much warmth.

I painted a small table we already had and added a lamp with a shade in that same rich tone of red. The space above the table was treated to a piece of wall art found at JoAnn's for cheap. You can read more about that project here.

I chose drapes in a gorgeous ruby color and hung them right under the ceiling (rather than the top of the actual window).

We removed the old doors to the closet and added those same drapes, giving the closet area a glam feel.

A cozy table and set of chairs fit perfectly into the corner.

The red rose petal pillow on the child sized chair tied into the sophisticated look of the nursery and will give Louisa a perfect spot for looking at books.

I found these zebra bins at Kohls, and they're perfect for disguising diapers and wipes and all kinds of little baby things.

We shopped the house again and moved two tall bookcases on either side of the changing table. They house books, toys, pretty blankets, and lovies.

 I painted (for maybe the fourth time) a mirror that I bought at Target in college and hung it over the changing table. Wall letters spelling Lulu were spray painted red and adorned with crystals and other pretties before I added ribbon and hung them on the wall.

In my mind, I knew this room was screaming out for a red chandelier. You can read more about that process here to learn how I found a cheap white one at The Home Depot and transformed it into the perfect finishing touch for this nursery gone glam.

And what does Miss Lulu have to say about the finished product?

She's gah-gah over it.