Pastels and Egg Shells

Easter is a mere 2 weeks away, and for us it even seems to be coming sooner because a few of our most key family members are going to be on vacation over Easter so we'll be celebrating early with both sides of the family most likely. Pinterest is especially thrilling around holidays I've found, all of the pumpkin flavoured desserts and wreath DIYs around Christmas...and now Easter, with hip new ways of egg dying and Easter mantels. I didn't know people decorated so much for Easter! This year our house is definitely too crazy to host any kind of Easter gathering, but maybe next year. In browsing the internet for ideas, I definitely wanted to get an Easter centerpiece going! Maybe something like this...

Here are some of my favourite Easter decor ideas I've come across lately.

Martha Stewart shows these beautiful egg ornaments, so elegant for Easter eggs!

One day when we have a frame gallery in a hallway somewhere, it'd be neat to switch out some of the pictures seasonally, and at Easter I like the look of this. 

These cute Easter eggs to use in an Easter advent are such a cute idea for kids. I would even think about doing 40 of them as a Lent/Easter countdown activity with tasks we can do as a family along the lines of Lent. 

This article on Real Simple explains some of the Easter traditions
we've come to know and love. 

If you're hosting an Easter dinner, what a cute way to fold napkins! 

What are your Easter plans? Ours is a little bit non-traditional this year so far, my parents will be away as will Philip's brother and his wife, so we're having a Friday night Easter games night with my cousins, and potentially having lunch with our friend and his dad. We'll also have Easter with Philip's family but that isn't planned yet. Is Easter a big deal in your household? As Christians, it's one of our major holidays, but my family hasn't always had a huge celebration dinner. As kids we went to my grandparents and had an Easter egg hunt, but as we've gotten older and everyone has their own families it's kind of fizzled out. Glad my sister is planning something though because it's always nice to spend the holiday's with family, maybe we can even relive our days as small kiddo cousins where we'd have an older cousin teamed up with us helping us to find the eggs in the yard to fill our ice cream pails. Those were the days. 

Next Monday we'll share a few more Easter themed ideas as we countdown the days to a beautiful Spring and Easter celebration.

A Productive Weekend - Part Two

On Monday, I wrote Part One of the story of our last weekend, which was epic to say the least. You can read about our closet shelving installation here, so that you're all caught up for today.

Part Two: The Christmas Tree

While Philip and his dad solved the closet issues we were having, Philip's mom and I decided to set up the fake tree I inherited from someone in my family (it's still under debate - I think it might have been my aunt's and she gave it to my Oma who then gave it to me). I have never had a fake tree, and neither has my mother-in-law, so we were sort of in the dark as to how to best put it together. 

We got through it, despite initially  missing the middle portion...a pretty important segment. It looked ridiculous, just a top and base, and neither of us having seen the tree set up before were very confused at first. I ended up finding it in the garage, and we got it put together easy enough. 

Then came the lights.

My father-in-law is usually in charge of the lights, and so we were both pretty clueless. My parents had given me their old Christmas lights, and luckily they're clear which is definitely my favourite. I had already retrieved the ornaments from downstairs and set them aside a couple weeks before when we were moving things around, so that part was easy enough. The only problem is that there are only 3 or 4 ornaments of Philip's, and the rest of the tree is all me. I always got an ornament or two for Christmas growing up, and usually still do, so the tree is easily filled by my yearly ornaments.

The last thing was the tree topper, which we didn't have. I had thought I'd just go the next time I was out and get one, but my mother-in-law and I decided that we should just power through. We went to Superstore, which is open 24/7 and it was 1 AM at this point. I picked out a beautiful star tree topper (even though I've always had an angel and so a star feels somewhat pagan - but Philip keeps reminding me of the star in the Bible story), and this one even lights up. It has kind of a rustic vibe with the collection of children's ornaments, the glittery star at the top, and so as a tree skirt I wrapped a cream coloured afghan around that my Oma knit for me. It looks really cute! 

Our First Married Christmas Tree!

So that was the second task we completed last Friday night. It involved some serious tree branch fiddling, some reminiscing, and a 1 AM trip to Superstore for a light up star tree topper (which has now gone on sale for half price I noticed yesterday). 

Does anyone else feel weird changing their tree-topper-traditions (alliteration ftw)? Did your mom give you all your childhood ornaments so that she could start fresh with beautiful matching ones like she's always wanted?

DIY Paintings (without any paint!)

Last week in your Friday Phil, I outlined some strategy to picking artwork from my in-laws, with the caveat that we had never really put it to the test. The reason was, for most of the significant pieces of art we've acquired, we made it ourselves. I promised then to let you in on our secret of how we do that.

Now, let's be clear: I love colour and art, but am by no means an expert on painting or photography. I've heard the names Ansel Adams and Annie Liebovitz. I could recognize Whistler's Mother and that one with the melted clocks by Salvador Dali. But I am by no means an art critic or could even consider myself an aficionado.

(Side note: have painters ever considered doing mash-ups like musicians sometimes do? If so, how do we not have the "Screaming Mona" or "An American Gothic in Paris"? Well, we do now! And somewhere an art historian is convulsing uncontrollably.)

Are these the only painting inspired by Linkin Park and Jay-Z's Collision Course mashup album? If so, you're welcome, art world!

But I love colour, I love art in so many forms, and I love being creative, and here's a few ways you can achieve interesting results that fit your space without breaking the bank.

Idea #1: Actually get good at painting

Watch a lot of Bob Ross. Practice with The Joy of Painting (maybe even buy the 10-DVD set!). Buy canvasses in bulk to save on per-unit costs and practice your happy little trees. (Bonus points if you get into it and grow a majestic afro.) As a result, you'll have gained a really cool new skill AND you'll have made a new friend, may he rest in peace.

Idea #2: Find somebody who's cheap and good

Commission a painting from a struggling artist or a friend who dabbles. This way allows you less control over the creative process, so make sure you have a solid discussion at the outset in which you lay out your requirements. The result is a little less DIY, but you'll get a real original piece of art and have supported the local economy and/or a friend in need.

Idea #3: Photoshop 'til you drop

The following is the strategy we promised, which we've used twice to results we're very happy with:

Step 1: Go through your art store and find an theme you like. Maybe it's a picture of a carousel, maybe it's a famous landmark in your hometown, or maybe it's morning light filtering through a hazy forest glen. 

Step 2: Search the Stock.Xchng or EveryStockPhoto for a free or cheap stock photo that suits the theme you're looking for. Pay close attention to your rights as a user of the photo, particularly if you are considering selling your work.

(Alternative to Step 1 and 2: Skip this whole bit and find a photo you've taken in the past that you love.)

Step 3: This step requires Photoshop or a comparable product, which could easily be the most expensive part of the whole process if you need to buy it. (I've seen great results for free out of GIMP, but have never used it myself.)  

Import the photo, resizing it so it's at least 300dpi and the dimensions you want for your final piece. Then, save this as a separate file to preserve your original in its pristine, untouched state. (Why do I recommend this so strongly? I couldn't provide you with the step by step instructions of what I did both times we used this process because I didn't follow this advice myself.)

Step 4: Copy the base layer and start experimenting! 
Want a painted look? Try working with the Watercolor and/or Paint Daubs. 
Want an ink drawing? There's a filter for that too.
Want to keep the photographic look, but isolate a specific colour? Photoshop's Magic Wand or Magnetic Lasso Tools are great for that. Or (spoiler alert) do what we did in the bedroom, and take a black and white photo and add colours to it that suit your room!
Be warned though; most filters don't immediately produce distinctive, original results; experiment with different foreground and background colours until you get results you like.

If you're really brave, create a new layer above your artwork, select an appropriately sized/shaped brush, and try to recreate the photo. It's a little like Paint By Numbers meets The Internet. (If you try this, I recommend creating a new layer for every colour you use.)

Step 5: Once you're happy with the look, find someone who will print "photos" on gallery-wrapped or framed canvas. Groupon used to sell coupons for a bunch of these kind of printers, but for our money, we always used Costco Photo because they were very competitively priced, offer a 36"x24" size that we wanted (most don't go that big), and we can pick it up at our local store 10 minutes away.

Show and Tell

Now, this is useless unless we show you what we did. Unfortunately we don't have the original photos we used, nor a snapshot of the "paintings" in progress; at the same time, the process of experimenting with what looks good doesn't always yield linear progress conducive to step-by-step instructions. That said, here are the final products"

Our first fake-painting using this method.

For the first piece, we were inspired by the aforementioned idea of dark tree trunks in a vivid forest. I was hoping for more of a Monet-ish painted look (i.e. a natural landscape or image but not aiming for photographic realism) so I used the Paint Daubs filter a bit, and because we wanted it to fit in our living room, I worked in the espresso browns of our living room furniture as well as the blue of our condo's living room's feature wall (now the darker blue in our office). The result hung in our dining room at our condo; we haven't decided where it'll end up in Grandpa Joe's House.

Our second, calmer fake-painting. (Actually, more of a faux-tograph perhaps?)

The second piece we did we wanted to have a more calming influence. Inspired by a photo of the aforementioned forest glen, we filtered the photo (that was originally black and white) less heavily. I added in extra mist, but apart from that, the most I did to adjust the photo was add some blurring (as much to hide pixellation of a smaller photo as anything) and added the colour to the grass and tree. The finished result will hung over the espresso fireplace in our bedroom in the condo, and when we picture that in our house, we still like that idea.

One Way to take it to a whole. 'Nother. Level.

As a final note, if there's something a gallery-wrapped canvas print lacks, it's--no, not a soul, although some "real artists" might argue that point (and who am I to refute them?). It's texture. But I saw a Thomas Kinkade 60 Minutes feature (that you can watch online) once that showed the Painter of Light in a whole new, well, light. His was a very commercial enterprise that offended many art critics who felt that art should be about creativity, not formulaic cash cow exploitation, while Kinkade's defenders used a variation of the "subjective nature of taste" argument to justify the value of his endlessly-reproduced work; I'll let you decide where you stand on that.

But one thing I saw that I've been reminded of recently is that he had a crew of people who would take prints of his work and add spots of real paint to various sections (maybe highlight the snowcapped trees with some real white paint) to add texture and increase the value of the works when sold.

Thinking about it now, why couldn't I do that to some of the prints I've made? Not to add to their monetary value per se, but to add texture and make it feel more "real." I could match some real paints to the colours in the print, grab a brush, and spread it on thick. I've stocked that idea away for a rainy day, but we'll be sure to let you know how it goes, for better or for disastrously worse!

How about you? Have you created a painting for your home and get any interesting (perhaps even Pinteresting) results?

The Art of Selecting, well, uh.. Art

For this week's Friday Phil, I want to talk about selecting artwork. Now, we're no experts on the matter; I'm not sure we've ever actually selected any artwork per se, which is why I want to talk about it.

See, my inlaws have a theory about this, and if they actually use it, it's worked for them. My father-in-law explains it something like this (not exact quotes): 

The thing you can't do is say "I like this," or "I don't like this." You need to say "This inspires me," or "This doesn't inspire me."

Well, you might say, isn't this just replacing one word, namely "like," with another, "inspire." And you're mostly right. But as far as I can tell, the primary difference is this:

Art is so subjective that what one person likes relative to another is often so inconsistent as to appear random. When we say "I like this," or "I don't like this," we pronounce personal judgment on a piece of art that, if your partner has an opposite opinion, represents your active disagreement.

However, if we put the responsibility on the piece of art to inspire us, then whether it does for one person or not is not their fault. If the Mona Lisa doesn't inspire me, my wife can't say "Oh, he's just disagreeable," she'll just have to blame ol' Mona's half-smile or Da Vinci's forgetting the eyebrows.

Or you can blame Dan Brown.
It's your call, really.

Now, that sounds like high-falutin' psychology. Truth be told, we have only halfheartedly tried to test this strategy in the past. I have to admit, the subtle distinction between liking and being inspired by art makes it seem almost laughable to put it into practice. That said, we haven't exactly been loading up on the art using our own methods. Maybe if we did put the theory to work, we'd be walking out of galleries and decor stores with so many paintings under our arms, you'd think we were auditioning for a part in Ocean's Twelve.
 
No, so far our strategy for selecting art and decor (primarily decor to this point) has been less evolved. To illustrate, we're going to do some mad-libbing, so need you to pick:

• a type of material (wood, stone, fabric, etc.)
• the name of an animal or religious figure (I guess in the case of the ancient Egyptians, this could be both)
• a verb meaning "love" or a word meaning "hate"
• an actor from the 1992 film Glengarry Glen Ross (or the original 1983 Broadway stage production, if you have to be different)
• a facial feature
  

Got yours all written down? Don't peek down before you have!

Good. So our strategy for selecting decor goes something like this:
 
Cass says "How about this [material] [animal/religious figure]?"
I say "I [verb for love or hate] it. Doesn't it look a little like [Glengarry actor]'s [facial feature]?"

 
I would say our method inverts the old 18th-century marriage proposal system, where "man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal," but this blog relies on Friday posts to bring the testosterone, and quoting Jane Austen doesn't exactly fit that bill.

Quick, gotta recapture the male audience's attention. Ummm, okay:
"Yo dudes, who's hotter, Jane Austen (above) or Mona Lisa?"
Okay, yeah, never mind.

I digress.
 
One thing that shopping for art has done is helped me realize how difficult it is to find art that both of us like that compliments the furniture and decor we already own. So my solution on a pair of occasions has been as DIY of me as I get: I make my own art (sort of).
 
Next Friday I'll share with you how I do it, but suffice it to say, if you've got Photoshop and a bit of a printing budget, you can make beautiful canvasses that you, your significant other, and your space will love.  

With or without eyebrows.  
 
Until then, do you guys have any strategies for selecting art and decor? How did your mad lib turn out? (Mine: Cass says "How about this Mahogany Platypus?" I say "I canonize it! Doesn't it look a little like Alan Arkin's jowls?")

In case you thought, hey, I'd buy a mahogany platypus.
Note: They're not mahogany, nor do they look much like George Aaronow, in case that impacts your buying decision. That said, they don't NOT look like Alan Arkin...

Would You "Tues"?

As you know, the poll was extended after last Thursday's post. This is because I remembered a fun tradition my friend and I had, which was that every Tuesday we would ask each other a poll-type question and call it "Would you Tues" (pronounced to sound like choose - or in this case something like Tch-yooze). 

The results are in, and most of you are further than we are in holiday preparedness, but there are a few procrastinators out there.

Here's where we're at in our decking of the halls:

Tree: 
Last year we didn't have one, we'll see what happens this year! I'm a "real tree" person, but I do have a hand-me-down fake tree in the basement that we might use this year. As of right now every nook and cranny of our living room is filled with books/gift wrap/wall art/etc. that is meant for the two rooms that are being reno'd right now; as soon as those are gone I'm getting that tree up! Boxes of books everywhere doesn't exactly scream beautiful Christmas party decoration.

As for other decorations, they really add up so I've been trying to slowly accumulate them this year. Last year I got a few ornaments from relatives, this year I've made my pine cone craft, and I just purchased this cute light up white tree decoration from Ikea (I don't know the scientific name for it which is why it ended up with that long run-on name), hopefully I can keep building on that until I have a proper Christmas collection!

For this year, our tree will likely look something like the below, with a variety of homemade when we were in elementary school ornaments, and no general theme of any kind. Definitely homey and much like what I grew up with at home, although as soon as I moved out my mom was ready for a beautifully put-together tree with ornaments that all came in a set together. Stay tuned for a beautiful tree photo, hopefully it happens this week!

Probably still better than how our last-minute Christmas Tree will look.

Gifts:
We have 20 gifts to buy this year, and so far I am completely done 6 of them, with 2 others started and 12 with no progress whatsoever. Hopefully after we're done these bedrooms and have the bathroom underway I can focus on shopping. I do love Christmas shopping and thinking of things for each person, but 20 people is a doozy! Also no idea what to get for Philip this year (we greatly lowered our budgets since we've been buying a lot of new things lately) so if anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate them!

Events: 
This past weekend was our last weekend of freedom before we commence 2 parties a weekend for the entire month of December...ay caramba. I'm really looking forward to the festivities and all the parties will be fun - but it also means 4 weekends of not a lot of house productivity. The other main event planned for Christmas (we have to reevaluate this plan as some things may need to be ordered and not come on time) is completely gutting and renovating our bathroom. My parents have work off over Christmas and offered their labour over the week, so we're really pushing to be ready for them while we have the help. This coming weekend we start with my mom's side of the family and our church young adults group (this is the one we're hosting), followed next weekend by my friends and my dad's side of the family, followed by the real deal Christmas Eve and Christmas immediate family celebrations. In amongst that we'll also have our church services for Christmas Eve, which Philip is pretty involved in on the drama side so there are a lot of practices and things like that added into the mix. 

General Christmas Cheer Levels/Emotional Preparedness: 
Cassondra: As far as being stoked for Christmas, I'd say that my level of Christmas cheer is moderate. I'm really excited to put up decorations and for all of the events that we have planned, but that is being slightly crushed by the lists and pressure to finish these two bedrooms and get the bathroom planning into high gear. I'm just hoping that we can get this all under control to some extent by the end of this week so that we can focus on family time and relaxing a little bit over the Christmas break. Luckily Philip gets a week off at Christmas so that will be really nice, as long as it doesn't get totally taken away by bathroom gutting. 

Philip: Philip is busy caulking in the bedroom right now so I'm taking the liberty to write this for him after walking over there and asking how excited he is for Christmas. He is primarily in denial, as house stuff and church drama production things are sort of stressing him out. I asked him what he's most excited for though and - Cass family shout out - he said my family gathering on Saturday. That shows you how great my family is, that a gathering at the in-laws is the thing he's most excited for at Christmas time so far. We'll have to tell you a bit about our gatherings sometime, they are definitely unorthodox - and as a sneak preview you should know that this Saturday at our family gathering we are to come dressed in '80s workout attire (add going to Value Village for neon coloured spandex to the Christmas to-do list). 


In case you're one of the procrastinators out there, just remember, "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." Try it out sometime, I imagine it's effective. 

This week, tell us what you'd like to receive for Christmas! I have to admit so selfishly that I am looking forward to getting gifts more than ever this year. I know this sounds terrible...but it's just the truth. We've been so busy with house stuff and constantly on a budget that being able to bask in some free treats that I may not have been able to buy for myself sounds glorious. Next Tuesday when we wrap this poll up we'll share a few of the things on our Christmas lists too, Philip is a very in-depth Christmas list maker so it should be pretty easy for him. Make your votes people - and as a reminder, we've learned that iPads don't allow comments or poll votes, so get your computer out!

The Original Pinterest

In the words of Arthur the aardvark, having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card!

Last Friday I took a trip to the public library and found a treasure trove of DIY resources. Some of the books I took out even had pictures I've seen on Pinterest since. There's something wonderful about flipping pages in a book and marking them with a good old fashioned Post-It note (or--not that I've ever done this to a library book--a folded page corner). Here are some of my favourite finds after just reviewing two books. I'm definitely going to go back!

Better Homes & Gardens 501 Decorating Ideas Under $100 

Ceiling Medallion Wall Art
I saved this first one because I originally saw it on Pinterest a few weeks back, and remembered it. Such a clever use of a typical item that isn't that pricey, it would definitely add some visual interest to a wall.

Chalkboard Paint

If there is one major trend on Pinterest it has to be chalkboard paint.

I loved the idea of a dresser painted with chalkboard paint in order to label drawer contents. Perhaps for a playroom or craft room?

Another chalkboard paint use that I'm definitely going to try someday is painting the top of a table as a games table or for a kids colouring/craft area.

Canadian Living's Create, Update, Remake

Floor Cushion

Making some hassock pillows for the floor in my living room is an idea I love. We could use them for when we have big groups over or for watching movies. 

Knit Bolster Pillow

I'm dying to make a knit pillow of some kind, this one especially tickles my fancy and includes a pattern!

Anyone else rediscovered the library lately? I'll leave you with this, I don't know how I remember this song so vividly but it was from an amazing musical episode of Arthur forever burned into my memory. Easily the best animated hip-hop video about the merits of library card ownership.

Procrastinated Pinterest Challenge

In case you aren't an avid home improvement blog reader, you might not have heard of the Pinterest Challenge. It's hosted by Bower Power Blog, Young House Love, Ugly Duckling House, and Our Fifth House. I read Young House Love more than once a day (Philip has to remind me from time to time that I shouldn't talk about John & Sherry as if I know them in real life - it gets weird), and through their blog I also started reading Katie Bower's posts. I would recommend them both! 

So the challenge was to stop pinning and start doing, by creating something inspired by Pinterest with the deadline of Tuesday, October 30. I'm obviously late...but better late than never.

I had planned to make the monogram holiday wreath I've been drooling over from Our Unexpected Journey but have been encountering difficulties with finding supplies.

Determined to come out with something, my friend Brittany and I continued our search at Dollarama. Having given up on this beautiful wreath (for now) we ended up coming home with some canvas and craft paint. I don't have a lot of craft supplies so we bought everything, but it only cost $5.32 and future projects will cost even less as I accumulate some supplies!

The project was inspired by this splatter painted chevron idea by Baby Black Bird. 

Brittany and I both decided to make one so we got started with taping. I only had one roll of masking tape that I could find (a lot of our stuff is still packed or just randomly strewn around the house) and so Brittany used the masking tape and I tried my hand with good ol' clear scotch tape. I am one of the least patient crafters around, so I very quickly gave up on trying to make them all even. We were also limited because I couldn't find a ruler. In the example above, the lines were all carefully measured and beautiful, as you can see below mine weren't quite like that. If you have a ruler, definitely measure, although I kind of like how mine turned out a little wonky and homemade-esque. You can see how some of the gaps are super small and then they are suddenly bigger in other areas. 

Instead of the mess of splatter painting, I just started putting dabs of paint in different colors anywhere I wanted. At first I really did not think it would turn out. Definitely thought it would end up in the thrift store pile by today based on the first few minutes.

We had bought primarily pastel type colors, but then I borrowed a bunch of paint from my mom as well and so it started looking a little more aggressive than I had intended.

I added some more pastel colors on top and then forced myself to quit because it was just getting to that point where I kept adding for the sake of adding and it was going to be terrible. At one point I started painting up and down the whole thing smearing them together into a browner shade than I'd like and freaked out a little.

Still looks crazy right? Oh my...also just noticed a foot in this picture...that looks strange. Anyway this is when I decided to call it quits and let it dry as-is, no idea how it would turn out.

Brittany ended up doing hers more ombre style, with different shades of blue. Looked super neat!

While waiting for those to dry we painted some wooden letters spelling J-O-Y with white and glitter paint, that's why you'll see those in the background of some of the tape peeling off ceremony photos.

Once the tape was off, this was the finished product. I must admit, I'm super pleased with it. Not quite sure where I'll put it yet, I'm thinking either the bathroom when it's renovated, the mail organizing place once that's set up (it'll be kind of my work station in Philip's office), or maybe in our hallway frame gallery. None of these things exist yet, but they're pretty vivid in my imagination.

The finished product! Now I just need to either paint the sides a solid color to cover those nasty staples, or put some ribbon or a frame around. That's for another day.

Anyone else finish any projects they saw on Pinterest? Share the link in the comments!