faux bois art

Sometimes, the most satisfying projects are the kind that are "easy, free, & done in under 5 minutes." With how hectic this week has been around our house, this little makeover was just what we needed. Now that we've settled on a new couch for our family room (it'll be here in about 8 weeks) we've been trying to add those important finishing touches to the room. 
A few weeks ago, I took a trip to Ikea with my cousin and had a few Ribba frames sitting around waiting for art. I decided that it was time to just hang them - whether they had art in them or not!

I found this AMAZING faux bois wrapping paper at HomeGoods the other day and thought it would be the perfect filler until we found some art that we liked. Well... the birch-y wood grain just might stay around for the long haul! We love it :) Here is what we're dealing with now:
EXISTING                                                         OUR PLAN

Our plan is GREY & ORANGE! We are in search of an orange lamp for our entertainment center and some fun fabric so I can finally makeover that chair in the corner (it currently has fabric tucked around it and gets all bunchy and wrinkled. The wood frame needs sanded down and refinished because it's covered in scratches and scuffs).

As for the couch, it's going to be a soft, textured grey. The leafy orange/grey/cream fabric is for pillows (and the fuzzy orange pillow I got from Crate & Barrel). I'm loving it! Orange/grey/cream has to be my new favorite color combination. 

We're on a "home decor" kick so keep an eye out for more transformations that will be hitting the blog soon.
What quick & easy updates have you done lately?

[p.s. this post may be linked to any number of these blogs]

quote art

I've really been itching to make some wall art for our house lately. It might be because of of these little dinosaur pictures or this flower picture... but whatever the reason, I got crafty and ended up with this little guy:

It's only a 6x6 wood frame [which is good - because it's just the right amount of "cheesiness" for our home]. The quote is from a small exert of our wedding ceremony where we planted a tree [which is now out front of our house]. We love it.

photo by the wonderful  heather brincko

Our Service Berry tree

Anyway, back to the picture. 

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Here is what you'll need to make your own:

any size wood board (mine was 6x6 from Walmart)

letter stickers (sized to fit on your board)

ruler & pencil

foam brush

craft paint

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dino art

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend my cousins wife's baby shower this past Saturday. I hated to miss it, but knew I wanted to make them a special gift. When I found out they were planning a dinosaur theme for the nursery I decided to make them some wall art.

I'm absolutely thrilled with how they turned out [and I hope Mikie & Patrick like them too].

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Here is what you'll need to make your own:

Wood frame

fun paper

scissors

Mod Podge

foam brush

computer/printer OR hand drawn design

small foam roller

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air plant "art"

We've been slowing decorating the 1950's home we purchased last May and our fireplace might be my favorite thing in the whole house. We loved that the fireplace remained untouched by the previous owner, so we have be trying to find a non-obtrusive option for over the mantel. That is what led us to this plan...

My husband got me 5 of these glass globes for Christmas and has been bugging me ever since about what I wanted to do with them. I absolutely LOVE them, but they've been sitting in our office for a month in a box waiting for me to do something with them...

I got the hint when a "surprise" package showed up in the mail the other day containing air plants. They were the perfect thing to put into the glass globes (I've seen this done before and actually recently pinned this on pinterest as a potential idea). I knew it was time to do something with them...

Now I will say, this was not 100% my idea... Adam had just as much of a part in this idea as I did (I thought I'd mention this so his feelings weren't hurt ;)....) Ok...enough chatting...here is what we did:

We took a trip to Home Depot to pick up a few items we knew we would need to construct the frame:

6 feet of 3/32" galvanized wire rope (which was WAY more than we ended up needing)

2 Ferrule & Stop Sets (one set for each side of the frame)

3' steel flat plate (don't know the technical term for it so I took a picture)

click on picture to enlarge

 A 2-pack of screw in hooks (for the ceiling)

Some hemp twine (we actually ended up using a thicker twine we already had on hand)

We already had the tools we needed and the globes/air plants so we were set!

We started by figuring our which holes we wanted to hang out plants from.

We wanted them evenly spaced, so we measured and counted holes. 

We marked them with pieces of a sticky note.