Party Prep

This past weekend we invited our entire condo complex over for some Pok-e-Jo's BBQ. We've lived here a little over 6 months now and wanted to do something to help us meet our neighbors. In the next few weeks, I'll post a little more about the party itself, but this week, I want to show you 3 things we did to get ready to have everyone over. This party was the perfect thing to kick me into having to tackle many projects that I've put off for way too long.

The first one was to hang some metal letters I got from Target many (many) months ago. They were a maroonish-brown, not my fave, but I thought they would be a good addition in the kitchen above the door to the laundry room.

Since I didn't love the color, the first step was to spray paint them. Luckily I already had a can of the color I wanted sitting in the garage. Back when I made our wedding menu, I bought a can of teal thinking I would use it to spray the border. In the end, it was too bright and felt kind of juvenile, so I stuck it on my workbench shelf waiting for the right project to come along.

I was under a little bit of a time crunch (I sprayed these the day before the party) and I get a little impatient when it comes to spraypainting anyway, so I sprayed the backs first knowing that if I flipped them over to spray the front before they were completely dry, it wouldn't matter if there were imperfections since that side would be against the wall anyway.

After one decently-thick coat on the back (which is not a method I generally recommend... since it can lead to disasters drips and bubbles), I waited about 10 minutes and then flipped them over and did the front. Later that night, I put in a few finishing nails and hung them up!

I think they fill the area nicely, and their hollowness keeps them from being too in-yo-face. They look a little odd in the picture because you see each line twice, which is because they're 3D. You'll just have to come over and see them in person. John jokes that he wants me to put nails to the left of the "T," so that at the end of our meal we can move the "E" over and have it say "ATE." Isn't he clever?

With some leftover wedding gift card money, we got two pieces of art from Crate & Barrel. The first piece was meant to bring in lots of color and a little bit of warmth to the loft which is feeling mighty cool these days (other than the randomly placed yellow lamp, which I'm looking to replace). See how bare and sad the couch area looks?

Well not anymore! We hung up the watercolor print and I think it adds a lot of life and interest to that side, plus some reds, oranges, and yellows which keep it from feeling so chilly.

Once I find a new lamp I think the loft will be pretty well rounded out. 

I bought the second piece of art with the intention of hanging it over the guest bed, but once I got it home I realized that that plan wasn't going to work. Since the bed sits a whopping 3 feet off the ground, plus another 2 feet of headboard, that leaves only about 3.5 feet of wall. Putting any decent-sized piece of art up there is going to make it look like I'm trying squeeze way too much in.

Plan B actually worked out quite well. The wall opposite our bed in the master bedroom has been waiting for the right art to come along, and it turns out this was it!

We hung it up in no time flat, and I think it helps break up all of the grey perfectly.

The painting is called "Gator," and you can definitely see why, but it's just abstract enough to still be nice and friendly looking.

So, what do you think? These projects have been on my to do list for the past couple of months, so I'm thankful I got the kick in the pants I needed to finally tackle them! And, of course, they weren't as time-consuming as I thought they would be. That's one lesson I just keep learning and re-learning... things are never as hard as you think they'll be. But conversely, many times the simple ones end up being a headache. 

Next up will be some exciting developments in our entryway, which was by far the most empty and barren part of the house... Until now! Stay tuned :)

25 Frames

My latest dilemma has been where to hang pictures of ourselves. There are tons of wedding pictures and pictures from other events that I want to display, but I don't want our house to look like the Museum de Claire et John. I just have visions of people coming in and seeing us left and right, high and low. That would be weird. 

My friend Amanda mentioned that they hang most of their pictures of themselves in their bedroom, because she sees that as being their space. That makes total sense to me. When we're in our room, we can look at pictures of ourselves. So, that has been my plan for a while, and worked out perfectly because our bedroom wall has been begging for something to be hung on it.

See, the wall was begging.

After I figured out what I was going to do, it took me forever to actually hang anything because it turns out that frames are ex.pen.sive. and are not all created equally. Luckily, we had gift card money leftover from the wedding that helped fund most of the 25 (twenty five!) frames I needed to do this project. 

Target has super cute frames. Who knew? Between Nate Berkus and Threshold, they have it going on. Anyway, as to what to put in them, I just chose our favorite pictures. I was planning to hang a big, kind of "central" picture over each of our nightstands, and then float other, smaller frames around those. I wanted to do a few quotes, some pictures of us, and then pictures of people and things we love. I picked mine out and then tried to get John to pick his out, but he basically has no opinion on anything (read: I chose all of his for him, less two). 

As far as the quotes, I printed out part of our vows and made one version for my side, one version for his. 

I also included a quote by Albert Einstein that I love. It helps us remember that we're both good at different things, and that that's a good thing :)

The last piece was something I made John for Valentine's Day (inspired by YHL) that's been sitting in a frame on his nightstand.

First up was to put pictures in frames and get them organized. The guest room bed has been taken over by this for the past two months or so because I was adding adding adding. My collection is on the left, John's is on the right.

After I got them organized the way I wanted them, I transferred them to some cheap wrapping paper. I used the same method as when I hung the frames in our living room, where I traced the frames and then marked where their nail needed to go.

Next, I transferred the paper to the wall and taped it up where I wanted it.

I used medium-sized finishing nails for most of them, and a larger finishing nail for the two biggest frames.

I'm kinda bummed looking back, because I like John's side a lot more since it's not quite as linear and has more height to it. Hindsight is 20/20, right? I can always add and move things around, but for now I'm fine with it. 

My side has our vows, pictures of us, my grandparents, my parents, my bridesmaids, and my sorority sisters.

John's side has our vows and the quotes I made him, plus pictures of us, his groomsmen, his parents, his brother and sister-in-law, his grandparents, and me. The pictures of me are the only thing he would decide on, so I'll take it. 

So whatcha think?

I think it's perfectly fair to be just a smidge vain in our own bedroom, right? I just didn't want to line the walls of the rest of the house with pictures of us gazing longingly into each other's eyes smooching... that's just too much.

So, where do you hang pictures of yourself? Because, I must say, when I go to other peoples' houses, I do really like to see pictures of them displayed out and about, so I don't know why it feels so weird to me to have pictures of us out for other people to see. What's your take on it? Maybe just a few, but just not tons?

Collectibles

John and his brother, Lee, went to Columbus to see USA play Mexico earlier this week. Go team! We won... 2-0... or so I hear. Look! John's famous!

There is nothing I could ever do to get such an enthusiastic reaction out of him. This joy is saved purely for sports.

Anyway, back to business. I've had a small collection of frames and plates that I've been wanting to hang, and I finally got around to it when he was out of town because I didn't feel like sitting around on the couch. I had two plates (both from Crate and Barrel), two mementos from our trip to NYC, and a picture I took a few years ago in Hawaii of the sky through some treetops. 

I was deciding between these two arrangements, and I ended up with the top one. To make sure I hung everything in the right spot, I set them all on some paper and outlined each one of them. Then, I hung up the paper and put the screws and nails in their appropriate places (sorry these pictures are so grainy... it was dark and I was trying to avoid using my flash).

Then I hung everything up!

Here's the living room as it currently stands...

I couldn't get a good picture of them straight on because the windows that are on the opposite wall made some crazy reflections. The square frame on the top right has a map of NYC cut into an apple, the frame on the bottom left has a postcard drawing of NYC, and the white frame is the picture of the treetops.

It's kind of hard to see the treetops picture above... here's the original. It's one of my favorites that I've ever taken because it sort of reminds me of snowflakes.

So, what have yall been up to lately? Hanging any art? We bought a really large print to hang up... hopefully we'll do that in the next few weeks and help round out one of our barest looking rooms. Can you guess which room it is? I feel like it's the sore thumb of the house, so hopefully the new print will liven it up a little!

Flower Power

Oh gosh. Long time no see, guys. Sorry about that... there have been some fairly large life developments lately that have totally put projects and blogging on the back burner. I'm totally swamped, but in a good way, so hopefully in the next few weeks I'll write up a little summary of what's been going on. I'm pretty excited about the direction things are going, so hopefully you'll be interested to hear about it!

With that said.... our living room is nearly finished. We spend the majority of the time we're home sitting on our couch chatting, doing things on our computers, reading, watching TV, etc., so it's been nice to have it 90% of the way for so long. What's lacking are some curtains, a clock, and much needed art over the couch. That big, open wall just feels so expansive and bare.

Some of you may remember that when we were tearing out the tile floors back in January, John commented on the "museum lights" in the living room and wondered what kind of museum-quality art would be hung under them.

Sorry to disappoint, but the Mona Lisa will not be making an appearance. Instead, I found three canvases from World Market (the place where all good things come from). Generally speaking, I wouldn't say my style is all that floral or girly, but I do love flowers and I was very ready to get some art on the walls. While the first and second ones could get a little too feminine for my taste, I love the third one and figured I could make it the focal point to calm down some of the flower power.

These pieces were more than I was willing to spend, but when I got an email that all of their art was 40% off and I had an additional 10% off from being a member, I figured I wasn't going to find a better deal. I dropped by and bought them, then got home and set them inside. Then a few days went by.... then a week... then a month. Yep, it wasn't till around the 45 day mark that I finally worked up the energy to hang them. And let's be honest... my real motivator was that I was tired of worrying about Roomba smacking into them while he did his cleaning route.

One night I got John to help me hang them up. I knew I wanted two screws per canvas, so I found the center of where I wanted them hung and screwed my screws in 6" apart. I did a tape trick I learned from John & Sherry where you make a little shelf out of painter's tape to catch the drywall dust that falls when you screw things in.

What made this kind of tricky was that the two floral paintings were square, while the artichokey-succulent one was rectangular and taller than the other two. I wanted the bottom of the canvases to be flush which meant that I needed to hang the top of the square ones lower than the top of the rectangular ones.

I just measured the difference in their height, dropped down from the first screws by that amount, measured how far over I wanted to go, had John hold the laser, and screwed them in. Really, the toughest part of this process was that the couch was in the way and we didn't want to move it because it has three interlocking parts and rubber non-slick pads to keep it in place. It was a pain getting it there the first time and we didn't want to deal with that again.

Luckily, my measurements were decently on target and the bottoms were pretty much level.

To hang the last one, we just shot the laser level over from the right set of screws and put in two more. Boom. Done. And thanks to the tape shelves, there was no cleanup necessary.

Isn't it so much more cheerful with something on the walls? I love having some red and yellowish greens in there to pull in the warm colors from the kitchen, because the living room has been feeling a little too cold for my taste.

I have to say that my favorite thing is that all three paintings have some metallic gold accents in them, and when they catch the light the glimmer just a little bit.

Ahh. We are near completion! Shall we call it 92% done now? Next I have to work up the nerve to hang the curtain rods which is going to be quite a challenge if I don't move the couch. High ceilings are awesome until you have to climb on a latter to get to the top of them! Does anyone have a trick on how to get a ladder over the couch? I've been dragging my heels on these curtains for way. too. long. Thinking about it makes me realize that I don't even have curtains to hang... just the rods. I guess I should look into that before I get too far into the process! That's the thing with high ceilings, though, is that you usually have to order longer length curtains online rather than being able to pick them up in stores. Darn you shipping and then inevitably hating them once they come in!

Hung Up

Somehow all of my titles are ending with the word "up." Better to be up than down, I suppose?

I spent my down time over the weekend making four more watercolor maps, for a total of five. The collection now consists of Austin, Honolulu, Staunton, New Orleans, and Vancouver, which is the short list of places John and I have been together. I don't think the list is going to get much longer in any hurry, so I'm thinking about making a world map on a canvas that we can put little pins in to show where each of us has been individually, since that list is significantly longer.

I used the exact same method as I did on the Austin map to do the others. I also built up the courage to write the name of the city on the map. I went through some fonts at dafont.com looking for ones that captured the feeling of each city. dafont.com is an amazing website that has a gazillion free fonts. You just install them on your computer (it's super easy) and then you can use them like you would any other font (in Word, Photoshop, etc.). I literally spent night after night looking through hundreds of pages of fonts this past semester. Sad, I know, but I really love fonts.

For Staunton I wanted a font that's classic but cute. The city is small, has gorgeous historic buildings, is really green and cute and has a slow-paced earthy lifestyle. I wanted Vancouver to be interesting but not over the top or crazy. We loved it there--it was clean, gorgeous, everyone was very friendly, and the taxis were all Priuses! It wasn't too eclectic though so I wanted to keep it pretty simple. I wanted Austin to have a little more flair because we are a fun place, after all! The font I ended up with just so happens to be the main font on our wedding invitation because that's how much I love it. I wanted New Orleans to be a little more off the wall. Lastly, Honolulu, which I wanted it to be cute but laid back and not too frilly. So below is what I chose for each of them (and under each of them in white is the name of the font, incase you want to find it).

The next decision was how to write the city name. I considered using water color, but it's hard to control and I was worried the brown I had wasn't going to be dark enough. The other option was Sharpie, but I was worried it would bleed, so I got a scrap piece of watercolor paper and put some green on to test it out. To my surprise it didn't bleed much! I decided to go with that... but now I was really nervous, because if I messed up it would be permanent. The pressure was on.

I printed the fonts out for reference and got to it. 

Staunton is easier to see in person... in case you can't tell it's in the bottom right hand corner.

New Orleans is also easier to see in person... it's in the middle of the largest rectangle, which is actually Audubon Park.

Two things you may (or may not) have noticed. First, Honolulu and New Orleans are portrait instead of landscape. The reason for that is that for each map, I really tried to pick a part of the city that was sort of iconic in my eyes. The part of Austin I used has Zilker, Barton Springs, and my mom's house, and it's just a fun part of the city. For Staunton, I used the main part of the city where John and I spent a day walking around going to a farmer's market, antique shops, and dinner with my aunt and uncle. The Vancouver map is centered around the hotel we stayed in and all of the streets we explored. The reason I went portrait for Honolulu is that I wanted to show a lot of the beach, and I thought it looked strange in landscape. I originally wanted to include my grandparents' house, but they're a little bit north of where this map ends and I would have either had to ditch some of the water or zoom out. Zooming out would have meant teeny tiny squares, plus it wouldn't be the same scale as the other maps. So, I opted to include a lot of beach plus some other places we always go to when we visit. Once John pointed out that I needed to add New Orleans to the list of places we've been together (I had forgotten until just he mentioned it a few days ago), I figured I should do it in portrait to even things out a little. It let me include the majority of Tulane and all of Audubon Park, plus some water.

The second thing is that the lines on the colored squares in the latter four maps are much crisper than they are on the Austin map. I think I must have used a lot less water once I got the hang of using the paints. On the Austin map I was constantly finding myself with too much water on the paper which made the colors lighter and more washed out looking. I can't decide which way I like better, but I'm sort of glad it worked out this way. The Austin map stands out as being a little different, so when we (theoretically) have a wall full of these maps your eye will always be drawn to home.

The next task was putting them in frames and getting them up on the wall. I went back to Michael's a few days ago planning to use my 50% off coupon to get the floating frames I love. They were actually on sale for 40% off, and the coupon was only good on regular-priced items, so I just went with the 40% off. I did a little rendering in Photoshop so I could figure out how I wanted to arrange them on the wall. I wanted balance but not symmetry which turned out to be pretty tricky. After a few tries I ended up with this.

The next step was to trace the frames on newspaper and mark where the nail would go. This is an awesome method YHL uses that lets you put the paper on the wall and play around with exactly where you want everything before you drill holes/nail things in. After you get things where you want them you know exactly where to put your nail/screw because you've already made your hole! Here's my arrangement taped to the wall.

After I got everything evenly spaced I drilled my holes, screwed in my nails, and hung 'em up!

The walls look really obnoxious in these pictures because there's zero natural light in our upstairs hallway where these are hung... it's more of a soft light blue-seafoam green. It's definitely not so neon-BAM-in-your-face.

Anyway, after allllll of that watercoloring (and boy was it a lot), I'm happy with the end result. I love having all of them next to each other and seeing how differently all of the cities are set up.

Next on the to do list is either a world map or maybe a watercolor of our house? Who knows. Either way, I think my hand needs a little break.