Hallway Project Part 1

I had to go back to work today... I've been on summer break since June 4th- just enough time to get used to sleeping in and doing nothing all day really comfortable. Actually, I had a pretty productive summer. I was able to clean/reorganize the house, do some crafty things, go to the gym pretty frequently, go camping... oh, yeah, get married and go on a honeymoon. :)


But going back to work means no more of this...

More importantly, no more of this...

Not getting to hang out with that face all day is probably the worst part. But although 2 months is a very nice break, and I totally could see myself being at home every day, eventually I would run out of things to paint and I suppose I would get bored. So back to work I go!


This whole week is meetings, so no new and fun stories about the kids yet. Too bad, because meetings are B-O-R-I-N-G. I hate them.

I made sure I brought a pad of paper with me and I was pretty much making lists of things I need to do the entire time. Well, switching off between that and playing solitaire on my phone. Don't worry, I was listening too!


Today's meeting was for the coaches and it was all pretty much common sense stuff. There were some inspirational quotes that I liked that you may see popping up here soon. And we watched this video (which made us all laugh out loud because it's so true)...

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But enough of the work stuff and back to the fun stuff... as you can see in my chicken scratch drawing above, I have plans for the hallway going upstairs and I started this project yesterday. It's already an improvement from this...

It was funny how the project came about though...


It started off with this 16x20 canvas that our photographer gave to us a wedding present.

Look familiar??

It's one of my favorite pictures of us- we both have our eyes open, I'm hiding my muffin top behind him, you know, important stuff like that. Really though, we both look happy and playful, and that kind of sums up who we are. Oh, and I really like the colors. Yellow is one of my favs. But nothing around the house is yellow. And I don't want to scare people with a gigantic picture of us greeting them every time they come over.


So I was looking at this canvas and trying to figure out where the heck to put it. I was lost. So I put that down and decided to work on a project that I liked from The Chronicles of Ruthie Hart where she made a silhouette of her dog. Using her basic instructions, I created this little guy...

Before I put a back to it and framed it, a thought occurred to me- I could make a collage with the canvas and some frames I already had. I grabbed some green scrapbook paper and this frame, and put this Kevin silhouette together. Love! Then, I painted another frame with with a yellowish green accent (grellow, for those of you YHL followers) and searched for a picture to put in it. I knew I didn't want a picture of the dog right next to his silhouette and I knew I didn't want a picture of us since I had our gigantic 16x20 grills paired up with this frame.


After looking through so many wedding photos on websites and in magazines these last months, I've learned that a lot lies in the details. So with that in mind, I looked through our honeymoon pictures for two things- greenery (in Hawaii, that's easy to find) and details that would bring back memories. The winner was a picture we had taken while we were on a hike on the Road to Hana. We were overlooking a HUGE canyon and I wanted a ring shot. And if you know anything about out honeymoon, this was after The Incident, so our pictures were important and few and far between.

I played around with it on Picnik a little bit to make the colors a little more artsy and matchy-matchy.


I was just going to hang up these 3 pictures, but I thought that would be boring. Then I remembered some black shelves I had from Target that I haven't used yet. I though it might be fun to rest the canvas on a shelf and hang the other frames.


Then while in the garage putting laundry in the dryer, I looked up at a frame that the previous owners had left almost 4 years ago and I had never touched.  

Epiphany!!! What if I used the frame to enclose my little picture collage? Done. So I brought it in, dusted it off, slapped some black paint on it, and less than a half hour later, I had this:

 I had originally wanted the bottom frames to be lined up with each other and contrary to my Sorry Dad posts, I had actually measured these goofy little frames. But this turned out to be a happy little accident. Forced to find something to fill that empty space on the bottom left, I spotted my collection of starfish. I nabbed one that fit the area, painted it white, and done!

It makes me happy. And this is the beginning. I have more plans for the rest of the hallway going up the stairs!


What projects do you guys have going on right now?

Do you have any art or pictures that you love, but just don't go with the rest of your house?