Wood Photo Project

I am very big about decorating with photos in our house.  Too big, in fact, because I never seem to have enough wall space to hang the photos I want to display!  But sometimes I like a photo so much that I make some concessions with my other décor, and make room for it!

 

This photo is one of those times.  I took it about 6 months ago while we were camping, and I just love it- the lighting is so gorgeous!  So I knew I wanted to hang it somewhere, but was just waiting for inspiration to strike.

 

I'd heard about printing on wood, and I thought that would be the perfect treatment for this particular photo, just because it would add even more warmth to the image.  So, luckily, I got an online coupon (through Living Social or Groupon or one of those- I can't remember) for a print on wood!  I ordered it, and this was the result- if you look closely, you can see the wood grain in the light areas of the photo, as well as in the texture.

 

So then, the question became 'how do I want to display it?'.

 

Enter this pile of reclaimed wood in our garage!  A couple months ago, I bought a whole bunch of reclaimed wood off of craigslist.  Not for any project in particular, but I knew I'd find lots of uses for it! (Oh, and no judgement on the messiness of our garage- that's Hubby's territory- in fact, I'm lucky he's even letting me store this wood in there!)

 

I cut the edges with the mitre saw, and made a frame for it. (It helps that I used to be a custom framer!)  If you look closely, you can see some imperfections with the wood lining up at the corners, but it doesn't bother me a bit- you take what you can get when you're working with old wood!

 

And here it is hanging up.  The chippy wood frame really accents the photo nicely.

 

I love it!

Easter Decorations

 So I've never really decorated for any holidays other than Christmas.  But I do love vintage Easter decorations, so I thought I'd see what I could gather to come up with an Easter display.

 

 I basically just shopped around my house for anything Spring-y or Easter-y, and I actually came up with quite a bit!

 

Of course, vintage books were the perfect addition!  I was quite surprised at how many books we had that fit the theme!

 

 I got these nesting wooden eggs at Target several years ago, although they look like they could be from the 50's!

 

 The lamb above used to be a nightlight in Avery's room.

 

 The angel girls are probably for Christmas, but hey, angels and lambs are perfect Easter images, too!

 

 Sweet baby lambs!

 

 A collection of plastic bunny rattles...

 

 More lamb planters and a sweet vintage fuzzy book.

 

I absolutely love the bunny with the embroidered face in the back!

 

 How perfect is that Mr. Grabbit book?

 

 Doll furniture has a place in any holiday decorating, don't you think??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there you have it!  It's a happy little display that makes me smile whenever I look at it.  And now I'll have to start keeping my eye out for vintage Easter as well as vintage Christmas-just what I need, another reason to buy things!!

 

A Little Re-Arranging

The open shelving on either side of my fireplace has always given me problems when decorating.  The shelves aren't symmetrical, they're very deep, they seem to detract from the fireplace, etc., etc.  I'm just never able to come up with a solution for them, it seems.

 

 At some point, we decided to build shuttered doors to cover them up (except for the TV), so that's been in the planning stage for quite a while.  So, with that in mind, I kind of decided not to worry about them until that was done.  Above you see the way they've looked for the last year or so- mostly just storage for photo albums and games, but not very pretty.  

 

But, I guess I've realized that the shuttered doors probably aren't going to happen anytime real soon, since there always seems to be a more important project waiting.  So I finally decided it was time to do some re-decorating in these problem shelves!

 

 And here's the result!  Yeah, there's still  a big, black TV sitting there and a whole shelf-full of games, but at least the rest if it looks a little prettier now!

 

 Lots and lots of games...

 

 My husband insists on the long, black speaker on that second shelf, but at least the frames on top of it detract a bit from it!  And you know I love those black cords hanging down there....!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here it is again.  It makes me happy when I look at it.  Maybe it will actually stay this way for a while!