Making the piano feel 'at home'

When we first moved in to this house, there were whitish walls everywhere, and a seemingly endless array of surfaces in need of decorating love. Meet my piano in the early stages of living here:

And, with a little tweaking and some much-needed height. (This wall is open to the second story, and it is tall!)

My two favorite people putting on a little Saturday morning concert:

I am a bit fickle when it comes to my house. The window frame and star found a new spot above the couch, and the vintage hat (was my grandma's!) is now on the mantle. Here is the piano as it stands today, complete with painted walls. (I love this color! It's kingsport gray by Benjamin Moore. We've found it to be plenty rich without being too dark.) The little motorcycle guy was my dad's, the quilt pieces were made by my great-grandma, and the coffee tins were a hand-me-down from my aunt. I am especially drawn to objects that carry some sort of meaning or sentiment. It's what makes me happy!


Check out these places for more cool ideas:

Home

It's been busy around here lately! I feel so blessed to have had so many wonderful people drop in for a visit at oh write. If you're a recent follower, thank you! It really is an honor to share parts of my life with you.

You know what's funny? I haven't even been 'here' for an entire month. Maren and I have been in Michigan visiting family. I did spend a bit of time on my computer, but mostly we've been doing this:
And this:
And some of this:
We came back home to Colorado with plenty of treasured memories. Now I'm busy doing laundry, cleaning, working on some new things for my Etsy store, and putting together a few new tutorials and some fun decorating posts. I'm also working on some guest posts for a couple of lovely blogs.

Thank you again for joining me on this fun little endeavor, and happy summer!

Making a Bird's Nest

Remember this post? My poor melting candles needed to be replaced with something able to withstand the hot morning sun. Jennifer suggested a bird's nest, and I set out to create something just right for my hanging lantern. (*Confession: I was hoping to find a pre-made nest for purchase, but had NO luck. This turned out to be a good thing, as I'm quite tickled with how this one turned out!)

To make a nest, you will need:

• A small grapevine wreath
• Moss
  
• Cardboard scrap the size of your wreath
• Eggs or stones to paint as eggs
• Paint (if you plan to paint stones to resemble eggs)

I had the paint, stones and cardboard on hand. The wreath and moss were both 1/2 price at Hobby Lobby. I NEVER pay full price for anything at Hobby Lobby. I just keep a list of things I need, and almost always find the items on sale sometime over the course of a month or two.

1. Cut your cardboard to the size of the wreath. Make sure there's enough overlap to hot-glue the cardboard to the wreath without having the cardboard extend beyond the wreath's edges.

2. Run a bead of hot glue around the edge of the cardboard. Be generous!

I had to apply pressure to the cardboard for quite a while to ensure the glue was doing it's job.

3. My stones were already a pretty color to resemble eggs. If you're using rocks and need to paint them light blue or green, do that before you begin the rest of the project. To attain the speckled egg look, I used watered-down paint and an old toothbrush.

Dip your brush in the paint, and use your thumb to flick the paint. Test the technique out a couple of times on some scrap paper first until you are pleased with your results.

Now transform your rocks into little speckled eggs!

4. I must have skipped taking pictures of how I applied the moss. I just used hot glue to apply the moss in a random way on the wreath/cardboard. I continued to layer the moss until I had the cardboard completely covered. I was sure to leave enough of the wreath visible, as it's what makes this look like a more genuine bird's nest.

5. Now nestle your eggs into the moss, and admire your work.

Here's my nest in it's new environment. I think it's the perfect solution to my melting candles conundrum.

I love the pops of blue and green added by the rocks and moss. I think it makes just enough of a statement in my hanging lantern.




I'm linking to these wonderful parties this week:

Magnetic Pin Holders

I found these cute miniature teacups at Goodwill a few weeks ago for $0.50 each and thought they'd make cute holders for straight-pins.

Here's how they looked when I brought them home:

I used spray-paint I already had on hand to give them a fresh look.

It took 3 light coats to completely cover the flowers.



For this project, cups with larger indents on the bottom work best. These two were the perfect size to accommodate the magnets.

I used plain old super glue to adhere the magnets to the bottom of the cups. I bought extra-strong magnets in order to be sure they'd 'grab' the pins inside the cup.



See how the pins 'stick' inside of the magnetic cup? I love this alternative to a traditional pin-cushion.

I decided to keep the more decorative cup plain, and I painted cherries on the simpler cup with acrylic paint. I intend to spray a coat of polyurethane on the cups to seal the paint and to prevent the insides of the cups from scratching, but I don't have any on hand right now.
I'm sure you could use any smaller cup or container with an indented bottom for this project. I'd love to see your ideas if you make your own!

Looking for some more fun ideas? Stop by these parties: