I started with an Ikea frame we already had.

I checked to see what the backing to the frame looked like. Turns out, it was a nice smooth board. Perfect for some chalkboard paint

As a kid, I always loved playing school and writing on the blue chalkboard I had in my room. I was always the first to volunteer to write on the board at school and I loved trying different types of handwriting (my middle school speciality was that I could write on a chalkboard just as well with my left hand as my right). With the chalkboard trend making the rounds, I have wanted one for over a year. We’re planning on making one wall of the office a chalkboard wall, but I got impatient. Need. Doodles.

While I was taking an initial look at the frame, I broke the glass. It was a total accident that actually worked out for me because I felt bad wasting it. Now the only part I wasn’t using was the mat, which I ended up placing behind the board to keep everything fitting tight. Whew?

I used Valspar’s chalkboard paint in black and rolled it on with a foam roller we had hanging around.

Each coat took me about… 1 minute. I waited maybe 10 minutes between each coat and ended up doing 3 coats.

I let it completely cure overnight, then I rubbed some chalk over the entire surface. The Valspar can said nothing about doing this, but I had seen it all over other blogs. Better safe than sorry.

Once it was all done, I got to writing. In the past, I’ve watched some YouTube videos of professional chalkboard writers and took some hints. One of these days, I’ll try something elaborate with proper spacing and planning but for now, this is what I did in a total of 10 minutes.

Needs work, but not bad for a first attempt at chalkboard art. I then stuck it on the mantel, which is still a work in progress.

We’re waiting for some Christmas prints of Easton to arrive to fill a frame or two, then I might add some wrapping paper to the remaining ones. Once that happens I can take some decent daylight pictures of our Christmas mantel.

I planned this post out in my head and then jumped in the shower. It didn’t feel right to me to not fully address what happened in Connecticut, though I really don’t feel like I have the right words to say. “Making Spirits Bright”, while positive, still felt like I was being cold.

So I just ran downstairs, erased my chalkboard, and changed it to this.

Twenty little hearts, for twenty little hearts.

Because a picture is worth more words than I could string together.

I didn’t plan the gallery wall before Easton was born because I really didn’t know what to do with it. Then I decided to pick up a shadowbox from Michael’s to house one of Easton’s super tiny newborn onesies.

They didn’t have white frames, so I went with black with an awesome gray fabric and decided to paint it white. I used this as a starting point for the rest of the wall and just started playing with frames we already had. Note: this all initially happened back in like, July and all pictures were taken with my iPhone.

This was the first configuration I came up with and I thought it looked good. I then just had to figure out how it would look on the wall. I decided to use tissue paper as a template because a) the sheets were large enough and 2) I literally paid $1 for a whole huge pack of it. It was more flimsy than using say, cardboard, but it was cheap and easy. I just traced over each frame and cut the tissue paper to size.

Once on the wall, I wasn’t all that happy and felt like I needed just one more frame to the left (and some tape on the corners of that tissue paper, which I added after the fact)

So I started to play around once again. First there was this…

Yep, I actually added two more frames to the mix. I swapped out a few of the smaller frames and ended up with this…

Once the tissue templates were on the wall, it passed the test for me.

The only thing that I wanted to change was to hang them all slightly higher, which I figured could be done when they were really hung. No sense in messing around with tissue paper more than necessary.

Now all I had to do was make all of the frames white and plan what I wanted to go in them. Easy, right? RIGHT?!? No.

First, the simple frame spray painting. Instead of using what I’ve used in the past, Rustoleum Universal spray paint, I went with a basic Valspar one that chipped a million times. I sprayed the frames literally about 3 times because I kept chipping them by moving them or placing them in the garage.

Second, that shadowbox. It may be the death of me. I didn’t realize that the glass doesn’t come out. The fabric? Yes, totally removable.

Then I had the genius idea to tape off the glass and spray paint it (with shoddy spray paint mentioned above). I spent way too much time on this Corn Flakes box turned shadowbox drop cloth.

The spray paint not only ended up chipping like the frames above, but the coverage on the black was awful and it oversprayed onto the glass. I decided I wanted to hand paint this bad boy.

The strangely easy part of all of this gallery planning? Deciding what to put in the frames. I made a little sketch of the frame arrangement I went with and then doodled what I wanted to put in each to make sure I liked it.

Included are some photographs, fabric, some word art and a little painting that I made. Those all took no time. But painting frames??

Take several coats of spray paint that failed + returning to work and you have me, 3 months later with tissue paper still on my wall.

There is hope though, I recently picked up a can of the good spray paint and hand painted a coat of paint and primer in one on the shadowbox (plus I did a little sanding). Hopefully this neverending project ends soon or I may lose my mind. I am dyiiiing for a final nursery reveal.

At the end of my desk I have this little pile going. It looks like this…

There’s some countertop paint, white spray paint, spray primer and a can of chalkboard paint. Each one is for a different project.

I always keep track of my to-do list and goals in my glorious Erin Condren life planner. None of the items on the to-do list and goals for August got done. Not a single one.

So, I naturally transferred them all over to September. That is where all of those random paint supplies come in!

Before I went back to work, we were in such a nice groove with Easton sleeping that I felt like I had some nice time to myself to do fun things. Then I went back to work and the concept of free time disappeared. We started so many projects that we haven’t even touched in weeks. I am determined to make some time (ie- give up sleep) to tackle that little list. So here’s the (September) goal list in a little more detail…

1. Finish Easton’s room.

This “project” is like a major thorn in my side. It’s so close to being done but I just can’t get there. Ever have those dreams where you’re trying to get somewhere but you never actually make it? Am I the only person with those dreams? Anyway, this is what the nursery feels like. I wanted to have it done by now but I keep hitting road blocks. Spray paint frames? Can clogs and need a new one. One week later get new can? The paint chips as you’re carrying frames into the house from outside. Make print to put in frame? Shutterfly cuts off part of your text. So that explains why the gallery wall still hasn’t been hung since I started it two months ago. The spray paint and spray primer belong to this action item.

We plan to hang some hooks in the little area behind the door of Easton’s room, which is a small project, but one we can’t do when he’s asleep.

That corner behind the door is the one I’m talking about. The picture is not the most recent, but you get the idea.

2. Work on new office

The goals here are to caulk and paint trim and paint a chalkboard wall. For weeks, the new built-ins have been sporting the raw wood look.

It’s one of those things we finished only about a week before I went back and I’ve been itchiiiing to get some paint on these things! But first it needs caulk, which isn’t as fun. I’m hoping to get some time after Easton is asleep this weekend to pretty it up.

We decided a few weeks ago to paint one wall in the office with some chalkboard paint. It’s this little wall…

We bought Hudson Paint chalkboard paint in So Stone, which is a darkish gray color. The other walls need another coat of paint, so if the gray doesn’t look that great with the blue, we can always change things up. I’m so excited and anxious to get this one done! But first comes the caulk, primer and paint for the rest. Boooo

Okay, so maybe the list only had 2 main items with additional bullets, but I like to think that means it’s manageable. I’m setting realistic goals, even if they have to be pushed back again. Let’s face it, I can barely keep my eyes open long enough to type this (I’ve dozed while sitting up twice now!), so I think a few small paint projects is enough.

Oh wait, what’s that can of countertop paint for? You shall see

(from Tar Paper Crane via Pinterest)

It got me thinking about painting our front door, which is currently the same brown color as our shutters (this is an old picture from the fall).

Then I saw this picture on Pinterest and I loved the blue door with the blue hydrangeas.

 (from House of Turquoise via Pinterest)

So I started thinking that color could work because we also have blue hydrangeas. I love them, so why not make them stand out a little more? Btw, look at how big they are now after just 2 years!

After teaching Mike what robin’s egg blue was, I did a little Pinterest search to find some more inspiration. Why not share, eh? Since I don’t have much time for projects, I spend a lot more time brainstorming and googling for ideas these days

#1. Love this blue gray color, so classy

(from Pink Wallpaper via Pinterest)

#2. We’ve even talked about putting some numbers on the door itself, sort of like this (I also love the door itself but buying a new door is not in the plans…)

(from House of Turquoise via Pinterest)

#3. This looks nothing like our house, but fabulous none the less

(from Katy Elliot via Pinterest)

#4. Nice and clean, and looking more like our door

(from Desire to Inspire via Pinterest)

I’ve been itching to spruce up our front porch (replace the lights, get a bench, do some cleaning). Why not add another goal to the list? We just started giving Easton bottles, so maybe once this heat wave ends I can spend some quality time out there. I mean, it’s been almost a year since I pulled a weed myself

(from Free Home Decorating Ideas via Pinterest)

My previous post covers how I went from planning this out using paint and canvas, to printing on canvas, to finally just making it a print using Photoshop.

I’ve said this before, but I am no Photoshop expert. In fact, I have no clue of what I’m doing 99% of the time. When I posted about deciding to make the art using Photoshop, I figured Mike would make it because I was lacking the skils. Well, throw in a late baby, a husband who is busy with his own work and me spending hours in bed and guess what? I did it all by myself

I camped out in bed the last days before Easton came and one of the things I did was whip up a little art on my laptop. I started as just playing around to give Mike an idea of what I wanted, so that he could then do it better. As I played around, I realized I could do it on my own if I just kept tweaking it. It ended up being far easier than I thought!

I started with a rough draft… all I did was type some letters in Photoshop and change the font, color, size and location of each individual letter until I liked the way it looked. I was surprised at how easy this part was since each letter was it’s own layer and I could go back and tweak whichever letter I didn’t like.

My first attempt looked like this…

I liked it for the most part, but there was a lot of dead space. I had to figure out how the letters would look in the frame and make sure there wasn’t too much white space at the top and the bottom of the letters. We had picked up a large Virserum frame from Ikea before even starting this project, so that we were sure that we could size the print properly to fit the inexpensive frame. You may remember seeing the frame hanging around in some pictures…

The frame is 30 ¾” x 41 ½” and the mat opening is about 27 ½” x 19 ½”. I mentioned in my previous post that I saw on Shutterfly that I could order a print as large as 30″ x 20″, which was perfect. I would just have to make sure that my text was centered around the  27 ½” x 19 ½” size of the opening and that I made the image large enough pixel wise to print clearly.

So I set my Photoshop canvas to the size of the print (30″ x 20″) and began to tweak my first draft. A little bit of making fonts bigger, a little bit of overlapping letters and just playing around, then my final product looked like this…

I ordered it and it cost me a whopping $15 to print through Shutterfly. It was supposed to take over a week to come, but it ended up arriving in a few days and coming the day before Easton was born. If you remember from my birth story, I was already in labor at this point so Mike ran it upstairs to show me how great it printed. He put it in the frame just so I could see how it looked, but I didn’t snap a picture of it.

The large canvas size I chose worked because the letters were not at all blurry.

We planned to put it on the wall in between the giraffe sconces.

Since the sconces are white, the dresser is white, the frame is white and the mat is white, I thought it was too much white. It would look nice and clean, but I was just looking for a little more fun and contrast on this wall. So I decided to spray paint the mat navy blue.

I picked up this can of paint while I was in labor. I figured walking around Lowe’s would help, though I was in such pain that I could hardly walk and I had to stop and sit on a pile of wood. Whoops.

Finally this week, I decided to take the hour I had in between feeding, burping and cuddling to run outside and spray the mat. Hello backyard, I haven’t seen you in a while.

I just laid the mat on the grass because Mike was due to cut it anyway. The blue will be gone with one pass of the John Deere

It took several coats to make sure there were no white spots. My hand started cramping since the Valspar trigger was really hard to push down, so Mike took over.

Once we were done, the grass looked like this (which was actually really cool looking)…

But the mat looked like this!

Fast forward a few days after it completely dried and I had another baby nap to put the mat in the actual frame. Sidenote: Mike’s been spending most of his spare time working on the built-ins in the new office that we abandoned to work on the nursery. So I’m usually on baby duty and can’t work on projects, but I can’t complain because the built-ins are looking awesome

First I wanted to make sure the blues looked good together. The lid of the spray paint can looked more bluish than navy, but it was the most navy one I could find. Thankfully, it dried much darker!

I put it in the frame and I was surprised that he “glass” in the frame is plastic. No wonder why Ikea can sell such a large frame, with a mat for just $29.99!

We couldn’t find the hardware that came with the frame, so I just leaned it up against the wall to see how it would look.

And I love it. I’m shocked at how well the colors match the color scheme of the room. I really just tried to incorporate the blues of the bedding/curtains/ceiling, the greens of the bedding/closet/bookcase and the gray of the walls. This artwork was meant to be the glue that brought everything together, and I think it does.

The plastic “glass” of the frame made for some awful glare, so it was hard to capture pictures. I may actually just remove it when we mount the frame, at least to take better pictures for you guys

Though the glare does allow you to see the other elements in the room with the art, like how you can see the chevron curtains hanging out in this picture…

One more picture from the other side of the room!

Not to shabby for $15 for a DIY print + $29.99 for a large frame and mat. Oh and a couple of bucks for spray paint!

Since this post took me 3 sessions to write, Mike is actually at Lowe’s at the moment picking up some stuff for the office and some hardware to hang this bad boy. Hopefully this weekend we can both have time, at the same time, to hang it since it’s a two person job. Then we’re one step closer to actually being ready to give you a full nursery reveal and tour. I’m so excited

Update! Since I just completed this and I didn’t have time to tackle a new project, I decided to use this as project as my summer Pinterest Challenge entry, hosted by Young House Love, Bower Power, Centsational Girl and Ten June, all of which are some of my favorite blogs. 3 out of 4 of my Pinterest Challenge projects have been some form of wall art, guess you can tell what I like to do for fun…

Oh and we did get around to hanging this print on the wall, which I posted about here.

Tada!

Fast forward like, 5 months. We ended up taking much longer than expected on the nursery and after painting the ceiling a dreamy blue, I decided that I didn’t want to stencil it. I focused my stencil attention on the green closet instead.

It took us a while after we painted to get to the closet, but this week I was finally able to spend some time on stenciling. Cutting Edge Stencils sent me everything I could possibly need to tackle this…. the stencil, a foam roller, a brush and a level.

The stencil also came with detailed directions, which is how I realized that I was supposed to remove the stencil from the shipping tube immediately and store it flat. Whoops. But, like I said the other day, I flattened it with some books for a day or two and it was fine.

The directions stated that you could use spray adhesive to stick the stencil to the wall. Since I started this at night and didn’t really have an open space to spray it, I decided to just use Frog Tape to stick my stencil to the wall. Please excuse the mixture of night time, day time and iPhone pictures for these in-progress shots. I had to work on this over 3 days in small increments because you know, I’m kinda really pregnant at this point

Yeah I taped the heck out of that first stencil. Since I started in the bottom corner of the closet, I decided not to use the level. It snapped on easily and worked well, but I quickly learned that the closet is not at all level! The baseboards are uneven, the side of the wall gets more narrow at the top and the level showed that it was slightly off. So I just started by lining the stencil up with the baseboard, as close to the corner as I could get and then just aligned the rest of my stencils based off of this first one.

For my method, I first started with the brush. I just personally prefer holding a brush rather than a roller so I dabbed some paint on the first two rows of dots. It was looking a little sponge painted, so I decided to try the roller on the next rows. Here is the difference between the two finishes.

I decided to go with the rolling for a more consistent paint application. You can also see from the above picture that my stencil is not completely touching the wall. I was worried this would be a problem with bleed through and that I would need the spray adhesive but it did not cause any problems! Once I rolled over a dot, the pressure applied pushed the plastic stencil flush to the wall for a clean line.

The absolute key to this process? Don’t overload your roller. I did two very thin coats of paint on each dot– too much paint at once will cause bleed through.

Once it was time for the next stencil, I just overlapped the top row of the stencil I just did with the bottom row of the one I was about to start.

I also gave it about 5-10 minutes between moving the stencil so that the outside was not soaking wet with paint when I peeled it off the wall. Mostly to protect my shirt, since my belly protrudes and pulling the stencil off made it smack into my body. It also gave me a break in between rolling. I even had Mike do most of the repositioning and taping so that I got a good 15 mins between each rolling session. I had no issues whatsoever with paint being on the back of the stencil, so I didn’t have to worry about it being completely dry when I moved it.

The halfway point (6 sheets of stencil)…

I repeated sheets like this until I got to the point where I could no longer fit a whole sheet. Then, I just overlapped the amount of dots I needed to get as close to the corners as I could.

Once I got to the top, I only needed an extra row of dots to hit the ceiling.

So I aligned my stencil with the existing dots and only had to paint the top row.

Then, I was all done!

Before…

After!

The stencil was really pretty much fool proof to use. My dots came out clean with minimal effort. This particular stencil was extremely forgiving when it came to aligning and overlapping areas.

The dot color is the same paint as our trim in the room– Olympic’s Crumb Cookie in a semi-gloss finish.

I’m so happy that I decided to stencil the closet and I can’t wait to see it with the closet organization system all in. Hopefully that piece that we’re missing arrives soon so we can get this all settled and packed with clothes!

Special thanks to Cutting Edge Stencils for sending me the stencil, roller, brush, level and inspiration. I would definitely recommend their stencils to anyone interested, the options they have are seriously endless and droolworthy.

Repetitive disclosure: I received the supplies necessary for this project in exchange for a product review. All opinions expressed are 100% mine.

I’ve discovered that my threshold is 6 full sheets of stencil a day, which is 270 dots, which is what you see above. After that I lose steam and need to stop, even with Mike doing the aligning, taping and removal for me. This giant thing makes it hard for me to move in a small closet…

Tonight I even poured a tray of paint in my lap, while sitting on the floor, without even realizing it. So I did what any helpless person would do and screamed for my husband, who supplied me with paper towels, helped get me off the floor and washed my paint covered pants for me. Oh and I got paint all over my feet in the same incident and proceeded to walk around the nursery. It was wonderful.

So this is taking me a little longer than expected, but I am determined to finish it. I’m going to have to do a little less typing, a little more painting and hopefully I can finish it tomorrow. Stay tuned for more pictures and details!

Remember the baby shower that my mom, mother-in-law and sister-in-law threw for me last week? Well, I wanted to give them something to thank them. They all like wine, so I knew I wanted to do something wine related. My friend Laura came up with the idea of giving them each a bottle of wine with a note that said “Grandma’s Bottle”. I loved the idea and decided to take it one step further…

I decided I wanted to give them each a fancy painted wine glass (sippy cup) to go with their bottle. I know those fancy painted wine glasses exist, but I figured the chances of finding one that said “Aunt Jen’s Sippy Cup” were slim to none. I headed to Michael’s to weigh my options and see if I could find some glass paint to whip up a design. Once I finally found the glass paint, I saw it came with a warning that said “CONTAINS A CHEMICAL THAT HAS BEEN PROVEN TO CAUSE BIRTH DEFECTS AND/OR FERTILITY ISSUES”. Um… pregnant person here, creating a baby themed gift, to give as a thank you for throwing a baby shower. I decided using the traditional, bake in the oven, glass paints were not a good idea.

As I was leaving Michael’s, I walked by a display for Martha Stewart non-toxic craft paint that was good to use on glass. The label said that it was microwave and dishwasher safe after curing for 21 days. Jackpot!! I picked up 4 different colors… aqua, orange, hot pink and lime green in high gloss. They had several different finishes and a bunch of colors available.

I also found some clearance wine glasses at Bed, Bath & Beyond. They were marked as part of a set that was opened, so they were less than $2 each. Jackpot again!

I followed the directions on the paint bottle and cleaned the glass with rubbing alcohol before painting.

Then I wrote out what I wanted each glass to say on a post-it.

Then I taped each post-it inside of the wine glass as best I could so that I could trace the letters.

It only took me a few minutes to trace the lettering with a thin paint brush on each glass.

I added some random polka dots and doodled on each stem a little. Here they are after the first coat of paint.

The bottle recommends leaving an hour of drying time between each coat, but I gave it a day.

Ta-da! All done!

I paired each wine glass with a bottle of wine with a little tag on it.

But then something happened. I took these quick after pictures right before I left for my shower. I even took what I thought was a cute picture of Macky admiring my work…

Do you see where this is going? Macky liked Nana’s wine glass a little too much and it ended up on the floor as I foolishly trusted him. I don’t have a picture of the shattered glass since I was worried about little paws, but by some miracle, the painted part stayed intact…

So Nana was given just a top of a wine glass to open. Thankfully, my mom has 5 cats and understood (especially since I had photo evidence), but it was still so frustrating that my hard work ended up on the floor. I have to make her a replacement thanks to my dear son, though I even apologized to him after the incident. He actually was being quite sweet that morning and just wanted to do the kitten facemark on my wine glass and yell “MINE!” He totally didn’t mean to knock it off the counter, he was just being my biggest fan

I guess I’ll let the pictures do the talking?

Wait, quick interruption already. We ordered a silver tipped light bulb to see if that reduces the glare of our diffuser-less light fixture. When we switch the bulbs out, we’ll be sure to rotate the shade so that the seam is not smack in your face when you walk in the door. Okay back to the pictures!

No post is complete without a photobombing cat. That’s Mowie, you don’t see her often and she thinks she’s finally getting a room away from her two brothers. Oh another note, the floors still need to be cleaned from all of the construction in here…

You probably noticed that we took the closet doors off. We’re planning on hanging curtains and installing a closet organization system.

Kitten tested, kitten approved! They’re loving the 75 degree weather we had today

Here’s a quick recap for anyone interested…

Paint Colors (all Olympic paints):

Ceiling- Comes the Dawn D52-2

Walls- Gray Ghost D17-2

Closet- Lettuce Alone B68-3

Trim- Crumb Cookie C20-1

How-To:

Paneled Wall

Crown Molding

Overall, we are very happy with how everything turned out. It took us a little longer than usual to settle on the perfect gray for the walls, but we’re very happy with our final choice (which is one of the colors from our office stripes!) Mike loves the green closet and I’m still adjusting to the bold color, but I know once it has a white wood closet system on top of it and some curtains it will be less of a solid green mass. Plus I am likely going to stencil it, once I do a trial run to confirm. Now it’s on to buying furniture and adding details! Fingers are crossed for smooth sailing from here on out…

Which was way too light and way too blue for our taste. We rummaged through some of the 8 million swatches we picked up once again and chose another gray.

We pulled out Gray Goose and decided to (wisely) get a tester this time. But we put the color on the walls and it wasn’t what we expected…

It was too brown and had some funky purpley/pink undertones in the room. I scratched my head for a bit trying to think of what color we actually wanted. Gray was too gray, taupe was too brown… was I losing my mind? But then I started to feel like I’ve been down this road before in the search for a perfect neutral. I mean, most of our house is painted in varying shades of gray…

I had all of these shades of gray to look at right on our own walls. I thought our entryway color, the middle color in the top row, might give off the too brown/pinkish tinge in the nursery though it looks normal in the entryway. Then I thought that the first gray in the second row might be perfect. It’s Olympic’s Gray Ghost and we used it for the lighter stripe in our office…

By some sort of miracle, I stumbled upon the swatch while I was getting dressed in our closet on Tuesday morning. I apparently stash swatches everywhere and it was one of the neutrals we considered for our bedroom (which has yet to be painted). I immediately brought it into the nursery and held it up to the wall to see how it worked. I also held it up against the bedding, curtain fabric and my dark gray leggings which represented the glider we’re planning to buy. Everything looked promising, but since we’ve been there, done that (twice!), we wanted to try some paint on the walls. I figured we had to have some left over from the last time we painted but even better, we still had the tester we used a year ago (already!)

Mike put some of it on the wall and sent me pictures while I was at work (since I never make it home before dark)…

There is is on the bottom of the corner, with the Gray Goose above it and the Gray Beard in the background. It’s definitely much better than the other two!

You can see here that it doesn’t have that purpley/pink thing going on that the Gray Goose did.

Nor is it blue, which you can see from this picture where the Gray Ghost is on top of the Gray Beard. The testers only come in satin, hence the sheen in this picture.

After a journey through what felt like any color that Olympic started with the word “gray”, I think we have a winner! We don’t have enough paint leftover from the office to cover the entire nursery, so we have to pick up another can this weekend. Hopefully then the painting will be completed because this little set back has cost us a week of time!

Maybe rather than a bad joke, Beard, Goose and Ghost can make some childhood game. Like duck, duck, goose or rock paper scissors? I want to be a paint color namer when I grow up…