DIY Painted Twig Letters

Lately I have been a color enthusiast. I'm having a hard time reigning in my thoughts on how I can bring more color into every room of our house, specifically the dining room. Our living room has curtains with lots of color, our kitchen is a hodge-podge of blues, yellows, greens, and reds...but our dining room has been a dull mix of gray, green, white, black and gold.
First, I took down the curtains (which I still love) and replaced them with the curtains in Finn's nursery which are a white sheer with jute strung through.
This helped...there was now a lot more light coming through the windows, and I got rid of color boundaries and opened the room up to endless possibilities.


The At Table sign I created a while ago definitely started looking drab to me, so after seeing an idea on Pinterest and in the newest Parenting magazine that magically arrived out of the hands of our postman, I got to work. By the way, I love that the postman walk in our neighborhood to deliver mail!


First, I took the dogs out back and let them prance around while I collected sticks...this didn't take long, since we have a 10 foot pile of limbs and branches sitting at the back of our lot waiting for the city to (hopefully) pick up.

I took my coffee and grabbed my hot glue gun, breaking pieces of twigs apart and arranging them into letters. By this time Finn was up from his morning nap and out to join us.

After arranging and glueing, I set up the words on a window ledge on our little shanty shed (that is soon to be a spiffy garage!) and admired.

Then, I took a break and gave Finn another outdoor bath in the rubbermaid...in the back this time at least! The dogs might have drank out of his bathwater. I still maintain that this is old-fashioned rather than redneck.

After Finn was down for his afternoon nap, I pulled up the rest of a really ridiculous movie called Lost in Austen and got to work painting the sticks.

First, Green Tea(Americana), then Blue Sky(Martha Stewart), followed by a thin line of Deep Sea(Martha Stewart), and to finish it off, Love Bird(Martha Stewart) at the tips.

And there you have it! New life for the words that hold so much meaning in our dining room.

Am I becoming an old lady? This table runner was purchased Wednesday....it is the second embroidered item I've bought recently, and I have countless plans for more embroidery, doilies, etc....woops!

They remind me of what you would create during craft time at a kid's summer camp. And I love that about them. I kind of want my house to look be that, a place where creating happens. Even in a dry macaroni and Elmer's glue sort of way...

Here's a comparison:

These letters would be a fantastic baby shower gift...and SO cheap to make! Just takes a little time and creativity. I want to make a huge one for our back patio that says HOME or something ridiculously sentimental like that.

Read more about the meaning of these words here.

Have a fun weekend!

Allison

Work With What Yuv' Got

Ok, before you begin, I highly suggest you listen to A Minor Swoon on Spotify while reading. Thanks Caroline!

Click on the picture above to listen if you don't have Spotify, but seriously, get Spotify.

As many of you know, we've been working to renovate our master bathroom for almost two years. Yes you read that right, two years! I'm not ashamed of it or embarrassed to admit the reality of the situation (well, not at this moment anyway). This is life, and I'm a real person, this blog was never meant to make something of myself, my home, or my family that it's not. 
I hope there's someone out there that reads that and feels a sense of relief from it. Maybe you've been stuck in the middle of a project for what seems like a lifetime. Maybe you're constantly putting unnecessary pressure on yourself to accomplish something.
I enjoy making something new out of a space or an object in our home when there are no added "musts" and "have to(s)".
There are times when you get stuck. Our bathroom is one of those times. But, my good friend Amy once told me something like this "just put a curtain up and close it off, then work on the rest of the space that you can actually have some control over, make that what you want it to be."
In other words, work with what yuv' got!


So...it only seemed logical to give our other bathroom a facelift! That was something I could accomplish. Paint, check. New shower curtain, check. Repaint accessories, check. Spend birthday money on great things to make it even better, check!!

I painted the room in one evening. Although it's hard to tell with the bad lighting, the new color, Cypress Grass from Glidden, adds a lot more color and brightness to the small room. I've been wanting to use this color ever since I saw it in this laundry room from House of Smiths.

Today I wanted to show you want I did with these metal frames purchased from Pier1 in my college days...

Notice the paint swatches :)

I decided almost all the accents in the bathroom would be white, so I got my primer and white flat spray paint, coated each.

Then, I used my Distress Ink to highlight the details on each frame and to add a little shabbiness. 

When you use Distress Ink for a project like this just rub the pad directly onto the surface you're working with. Distress Ink is found in the scrap booking section of most craft stores. We've only got Michael's close by and that's where I got mine.

I removed the glass (After searching high and low for chalkboard spray paint to use directly on the glass) and cut craft wood to fit in its place. The wood was painted with black chalkboard paint, and I'm seriously considering painting over these with brown chalkboard paint, but we'll see. I originally thought I wanted to keep the leaf idea, so I had my dear friend Kristin chalk-sketch some leaves before I so selfishly erased them...sorry Kristin!

Because I decided I wanted words instead of images. These lyrics from Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors' Live Forever came to mind. I'm not sure how I feel about it though....I literally wrote something about sanity on the walls of a very small bathroom........It could be neat to constantly change.

Come to think of it, these lyrics are perfect right now! Sometimes Steven and I just have to laugh at the state of our master bathroom to keep our sanity!

I'll be updating you with advancements in our lil' bathroom...soon to be my favorite room in the house, and only room that is officially re-DONE.

Also, check out my friend Jamie's new blog Spare Time & Seersucker...her ideas are lots of fun and super cute! You can get a sneak peak of her cute spaces here.

Foxes, Stags, Bears & Birds..Oh, & Burlap.

Now that we know we're having a boy(yahooo!)in August,  I didn't waste another second thinking back and forth between chandelier vs. burlap pendant light.

If this nursery had a theme it'd be....well, the best way I know how to put it is, think less forest friends and more woodland creatures. I'm not much for the traditional nursery garb.

I want this room to spur imagination, not just our son's, but anyone who spends time there. Steven and I are big on epic movies, ones that take you on a huge journey, like The Lord of the Rings. In a sense, this was part of my inspiration for this room also.

My thoughts were beginning to get pretty scattered, so I thought it was time for an idea board for the (hopefully sooner rather than later) upcoming nursery.

To begin, here's the perfect font for the nursery. It's called Zierinitialen2 from Dafont.com. Don't know yet how I'll be using the font...possibly a short quote from Fantastic Mr. Fox?





1. Some type of cast iron animal hooks, preferably including a stag and bird. I love Anthropologie, but still searching for cheaper options...gotta love etsy!

2. A burlap pendant light to hang from ceiling(I'm hoping I can pull this off DIY).

3. A bird mobile. Awesome DIY tutorials for this one at Spool Sewing.

4. Chalkboard banner garland seen here.

5. Did I mention I love foxes and my husband does too? We're (or at least I'm) convinced our son will too. Woodland animal print, preferably of foxes. Love this created by Anna See.

6. Completely bad-a Hobbit poster(I've only been able to find this online on European sites...it's become a must have)!

7. Dark wood crib to match the furniture we already own.

8. Walls will be painted a shade of gray...not too dark, not too light.

9. More woodland creatures on pillows & other accessories. Love this pillow.

10. My quilt! Still debating about whether or not these colors really count as gender neutral.

11. Even more woodland animals, this time, preferably bears. Again by Anna See, I could buy probably 12++ items in her etsy shop. New favorite!

12. DIY fabric book sling...looks so easy! Check out Domestic Adventure for more ideas and tutorials on this project.

13. Letters covered in burlap to spell baby's name. Got this wonderfully rustic idea from The Virginia House.

14. The jute rug from our dining room(which needs to be moved, because our dogs love it too much).

15. The best fox stuffed animal ever from Bla Bla Kids!

I'm also thinking bright colors popping in and out in random places, especially shades of orange and yellow against the gray.

So many things to love and so many things to start learning how to make! Steven's going to want to hang out in our son's room more than ours!

Thanks for letting me get all excited and allowing me to thought vomit all these ideas out on you! Have a fantastic weekend!