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<\/a><\/p>\nBut they were expensive.\u00a0 Especially considering how small they were.\u00a0 We’re not going to discuss how expensive they were because The Other Half subscribes to this blog (Other Half: Please note that I did use a Groupon.).\u00a0 But ever since I got them I have dreamed of having some very large gallery wrapped canvas prints to hang downstairs on the family room walls.\u00a0 I want the prints to be pictures of the trees surrounding the house in various seasons.\u00a0 Most of our property is wooded, hence the name Woodland Pond farm, and the trees form the background of our lives.\u00a0 So why not the background of our living space?<\/p>\n
I even began taking lots of photos of the trees and keeping them in a digital folder for later use.\u00a0 Photos like the trees in fall….<\/p>\n
and winter….<\/p>\n and summer…..<\/p>\n and, somewhere, the dogwoods and redbuds in spring.\u00a0 Apparently those photos didn’t make it into the “TREES” folder.\u00a0 Which means at some point I am going to have to search the 8 million photos on my hard drive to find them.\u00a0 Or probably wait until next spring to take new ones.\u00a0 The latter will be the faster route, I’m sure.<\/p>\n After all, I’m not in a big hurry.\u00a0 I want the canvases to be very large—approx 30″X40″—and I won’t be able to afford 4 canvases of that size for a while.\u00a0 Especially since I save money about as well as I sort photos into digital folders.<\/p>\n So I sighed when I was looking over my New Year’s resolutions.\u00a0 If I couldn’t mange to check off “Finish Home Decor Projects” then I was forced to move on to “Butcher Extra Roosters,” “Prune Fruit Trees and Wrap in Deer Netting”, and “Pay Electrician to Fix Wiring.”\u00a0 Which put me dangerously close to “Lose weight” and, really,\u00a0 I just wasn’t ready to go there yet.<\/p>\n Which is why I refused to let the dream die.\u00a0 I went into the craft room and perused my supply of half-finished home decor items.\u00a0 Out came the Laura Poss note cards I bought last December in the hopes of framing and displaying in the hallway.\u00a0 I love her artwork, particularly her watercolors of the birds<\/a> that are frequent visitors to our yard, and had been holding them until I stumbled onto a great arrangement idea.\u00a0 Good thing I received a bunch of ornamental cardstock for Christmas that, combined with cheap photo frames, turned the note cards into this:<\/p>\n And an idea off Pinterest turned some spray paint out of the closet and a couple old plate racks that I purchased for $1 from Goodwill into a whole new look for the downstairs hall.<\/p>\n While I had the card stock out,\u00a0 I put Pretty and Big to work mounting the signs I made last year<\/a> reminding the kids to keep on their homework and off the computer and away from the TV.\u00a0 We even hot glued some ribbon on the the back and then hung them on the entertainment center.\u00a0 Once they were hung up, Big and Pretty said they were extremely distracting when trying to watch the television.\u00a0 Um,..exactly.<\/p>\n I suppose it all would have stopped right there.\u00a0 But then I found Curbly<\/a>.\u00a0 Which is kind of like Pinterest on steroids.\u00a0 Because instead of showing an idea which you have to click on or google a thousand times to track down the original creator and the instructions to make it, Curbly has the link to the creator and the instructions right there.\u00a0 All the home decor ideas are amazing and inexpensive and organized into categories.\u00a0 Probably the only thing I don’t like about Curbly is that it doesn’t shut down and kick you off after 2 hours.\u00a0 No, it just lets you keep looking and looking, bookmarking and bookmarking, until the kids get home from school and you haven’t been to the grocery store, washed and changed the sheets, carried out the bags of feed to the barn, or harvested the spinach.\u00a0 Because you’ve been Curblying.\u00a0 And if it wasn’t for the fact that you end up consuming an entire pot of coffee while Curblying, you’d never get all that stuff down before dinner.\u00a0 So, be warned.\u00a0 I’m just sayin.’<\/p>\n It was on Curbly that I discovered this project of framed tree branches<\/a>.<\/p>\n And I thought to myself.\u00a0 That’s soooo ridiculous.\u00a0 Who frames fake tree branches from the craft store?\u00a0 And then calls that art.\u00a0 I mean, really.\u00a0 Why would you do that when you could use real tree branches from the back yard OMG<\/strong> ISN’T THAT PERFECT!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Unfortunately, I only had a couple old frames on my shed. Which didn’t suit my idea of 4 framed projects for the family room. \u00a0 Fortunately, we are very blessed to have an indoor flea market store with 50,000 square feet of bargains that are perfect for crafting and only about 20 minutes away from the farm.\u00a0 Even better they accept donations as well as sell items for great prices so you can empty crap out of your house at the same time as buying replacement crap.\u00a0 That maintains the balance of the universe, people.<\/p>\n In this case, that store was perfect for old artwork that I bought just for the frames.\u00a0 I bought more than I needed because they were only $1 or $2 each and I wanted to give myself a lot of framing options.\u00a0 Plus, I couldn’t resist the deals.\u00a0 Plus, if you’re going to spray paint 4 frames black, you should probably spray paint 8 or 10 frames black.\u00a0 Because spray painting is awesome fun.<\/p>\n While the frames dried, I collected tree branches, cut them to size, and arrayed them.\u00a0 Then I attached them to the frames using the hot glue gun.\u00a0 Because I didn’t have a large stapler and cheap frames aren’t going to withstand the pounding of poultry staples.\u00a0 Also, the hot glue gun is awesome fun.<\/p>\n I ended up with this:<\/p>\n But that’s not all.\u00a0 Wandering around looking for sticks inspired me to collect all sorts of nature.\u00a0 Which went perfectly in my extra black frames.\u00a0 Like pampas grass.<\/p>\n And miscanthus grass.<\/p>\n And hydrangea.<\/p>\n And even the stash of wild turkey feathers we’ve been keeping.<\/p>\n So even though I didn’t cover my family room walls in expensive gallery wrapped canvas, I did mange to cover them with reminders of the woodlands all around us.\u00a0 Which only cost me about $10.\u00a0 In natural hues which matched quite well with my couch.\u00a0 And also, matched my dog.\u00a0 Bonus!<\/p>\n I used the remaining black frames, some scrap material, and some silverware (again, from the flea market) to copy an idea from this website.<\/a> My version looked like this:<\/p>\n And I hung them next to the kitchen clock.<\/p>\n Inspiring all the males in my house to ask, “Why is there silverware next to the clock?”<\/p>\n To which I replied, “It’s art.”<\/p>\n And Little followed with, “Are you sure?”<\/p>\n Great crafters, like great artists, are so misunderstood.<\/p>\n While I was putting away my craft stuff, I found a frame I forgot to spray paint.\u00a0 Which was fine.\u00a0 Because it gave me a chance to experiment with something else I found on Curbly.\u00a0 Button letters.<\/p>\n The kids loved the idea of button letters.\u00a0 But they didn’t understand the sign I made.<\/p>\n “Why does it say ‘Wash Me<\/strong>‘?” they asked.<\/p>\n “Because,”\u00a0 I said proudly.\u00a0 “I am going to hang it above the mirror in my bathroom.”<\/p>\n “Why?”\u00a0 they asked.<\/p>\n “Because then you look in the mirror and it says ‘Wash Me’.\u00a0 You know, ’cause when you’re in the bathroom it’s time to wash.\u00a0 You’re dirty.\u00a0 Kind of like when people write that on the windows of dirty cars, you know?\u00a0 Get it?\u00a0 Here, it makes more sense when it’s hung up.”<\/p>\n “Get it now?”\u00a0 I asked.<\/p>\n Crickets.<\/p>\n Which kind of made me want to take back all the times I have raved over 3 legged dog sculptures they brought home from art class.\u00a0 And the times I read\u00a0 Mother’s Day cards that said “Your the Best” and refrained from correcting their grammar.\u00a0 And all the times I had to carefully congratulate them on a beautiful drawing without indicating that I had no idea what it was supposed to be.\u00a0 Art appreciation is apparently almost as gone as cursive writing.<\/a><\/p>\n To end off my home decor projects, I finally put up the photos in the wall hanger that I bought myself for Christmas.<\/p>\n And painted a section of the wall next to the bookshelves with magnetic paint to display the overflow of photos from the fridge.\u00a0 I was thinking that wall would give me enough room for a couple years worth of pictures.\u00a0 Too bad I only have about a foot of space left.<\/p>\n And then when The Other Half was getting ready to order an expensive custom made frame for our portrait of Julia (which is not actually Julia but a Nubian that looks exactly like Julia, therefore, it is a portrait of Julia to me) he discovered a black $8 frame at Michael’s that fit perfectly.\u00a0 So we could finally put it on the mantle.<\/p>\n Which goes to show that men may not be crafty, but they know a good deal when they see one.\u00a0 And until gallery wrapped canvas prints enter the “good deal” category we’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got now.<\/p>\n So now that I’ve knocked “Finish Home Decor Projects” off my list, we’re spending this afternoon in the barnyard.\u00a0 I’ve agreed to take the kids to see Here Comes the Boom<\/a> at the $3 theater.\u00a0 In exchange they will help butchering the roosters tomorrow after church.\u00a0 Now we just have to catch those buggers and keep them crated overnight.\u00a0 Look out, boys, this train’s on a roll and it ain’t stoppin’ for you!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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