Etsy Mania and a Collage Wall

I love Etsy. I am frequently shocked that more people don't know about it when I mention it. Basically, it's a website that is filled with individual "stores" but all the items are hand made crafts. There is a huge variety available and the range of talent out there is astounding! This would be a great place to both plug a friend and give an example: One of my friends I have trained for triathlons with creates gorgeous jewelry and sells it on Etsy at http://www.etsy.com/shop/whimsydesigngirl.
In the throws of one of my Etsy binges, I decided to take a cue from my favorite home design blog, Young House Love, and assemble a collage wall.
As you can see, on my wall I included some prints and other items from Etsy, featured below, as well as some funky patterns in the same color scheme to frame personal pictures. There's a shout out to each of the cats up there because if other people can put baby pictures of their kids on a wall, why can't I put baby pictures of my cats up? I also found a picture from one of my favorite performers, Michael Franti, on facebook and ordered through Kodak Gallery. One of my favorite additions is a set of mini silver frames that has pictures of my hubby as a kid, representing different holidays: him in a pumpkin patch, him in a pilgrim hat, him dressed as a wise man=precious! And finally, I tossed in a few couple shots, one printed in black and white and one in color. Combined, this wall feels both personal and artistic in a fun presentation.

See the Sassy Side Table hanging out in the corner?????? For my collage wall, I stuck with a mostly black and white or silver frame theme. Because the accent color in the room is such a bright color, turquoise, I didn't want to overwhelm the wall with too much color, too. You see splashes of the accent color along with the patterned black and white frames. However, collage walls are a great way to infuse color into an otherwise neutral room, too. Just choose photos, cd jackets, fabric, and other items that have big pops of color to liven things up.

This print comes from http://www.etsy.com/shop/thewheatfield. I love this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a New Englander who, in my mind, was thinking of my favorite beachy spots in Maine when he came up with this gem.

This clock hails from http://www.etsy.com/shop/makingtimetc. The shop owner uses plates to create clocks and a lot of funky colors and patterns.

I actually snagged this at a flea market in Vermont a few years ago for $5. People don't think of it often but most couples portrayed whether in art or even on greeting cards are the same race. Being married to someone with a different skin tone makes it hard to find visual representations of our coupledom. I liked this piece of art because the couple are racially ambiguous; I mean neither of us are yellow and orange so it all works out!

Finally, this piece is actually another $5 find. I got this at the Christmas Tree Shoppe and it's a wood canvas. The room has a sub theme of birds and trees or birds IN trees so this fell in line with that.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sassy Side Table

 

Since the blue paint on the bookcase went over well last week, I thought today I would share what I did with the rest of that blue paint. As mentioned in my last post, the whole point of the blue paint on the bookcase was to add some color to a bland room. A bland room that also needed a side table next to the bed. So I went to Savers, which if you don't have these near you (they are new in my area) is kind of like a Salvation Army store. It's filled with donated, second-hand items at cheap prices. The table above is part of a set of TV tables that was missing one. I was able to score it for $3!!

It started out as black wood.

For $3, I figured I could experiment and if the result was icky, I wasn't really at a loss. So I slapped some of the blue bookcase pant on the legs of the table!

I had purchased some mod podge a while back  that I intended to used on a mini bookcase turned tv stand in the basement but I never got to it. (I still may.....). The plan for the tv stand was applied to the side table. As a person who keeps a journal and saves mementos as part of that history, I have all sorts of pictures, race bibs, you-name-it laying around. I pulled together a medley of these items to personalize the table and put these things on display. The items I chose included the following: A card a magician had signed with my name on one of our cruises, the cd from our wedding that was given out as a favor, a picture of Pat with a snake around his neck from a stop on our honeymoon, a race bib from the triathlon I am most proud of completing, a bunch of quotes and stickers, a letter for our last name, a room key from our honeymoon cruise, a bumper sticker from when I hiked Mt. Washington, a decal from the school I graduated from, and some pretty scraps of magazine clippings of brightly colored comforters I am not going to buy.

 

 

 

It takes a few coats and looks white and lumpy at first. It is definitely sticky and that's part of the point. However, it did crumple some of the paper items in the process and they had to be removed. It also starts out wet so it created some wrinkles in things I thought would be smooth. I guess that's part of the personal character now!

When it finally dries, it's a glassy, clear coating that seals all the items in place like a lacquer. You can see that the painted legs work really well with the comforter.

A few practical and colorful accessories later and it functions as a real side table!

And there it is, all happily completed! The rest of the clutter is another blog post.....let's just say the pictures are now on the wall, as are the little mystery squares sitting on the pillows. To be continued.....

Don't want to paint the whole room? How about the bookcase?

So last week I gave an intro to my home so I could start posting about some of the projects I have or want to undertake there and it wouldn't be coming out of left field. Then work got really busy and I forgot to post ANYTHING. Sorry about that! 
This project is one of my favorites because I love the bright color involved. Most of our walls are painted with very neutral, bland colors ala HGTV's "Designed to Sell". The idea is that buyers want to be able to picture themselves in the space you are selling so you want the colors to be kind of ho-hum, nothing striking that really screams "you".
The challenge is that once you move in, you either have to settle into your neutral, adaptable colors or you have to do a lot of painting. I had never painted prior to moving into this home and I fell into the paint can when I painted my bathroom this very lovely shade of yellow. As a result, a lot of our walls have remained blank canvases and I have tried to add color through furniture, art and accessories. 
Inspired by the amazing blog Young House Love and some creative pictures from Pinterest, I decided to infuse some color into our guest room by painting the backdrop of the built in bookcase (which had been painted to match the tan walls-not by me, by the way).

This is the color I chose because it so closely matched the comforter of the bed.

I loved this comforter so much that, even though I was trying to be fiscally responsible and not buy unnecessary bedding, I kept thinking about it and had to run back to the store to make it mine. It's just so cheery!! And I like the pattern a lot, too.

Voila! Here is Picture #1 bland bookcase reinvented with turquoise paint. I love that it's just the backdrop so the color isn't overwhelming; it just pops some goodness out from behind the books.

The bottom line: It was easy and quick and fun. Now, this otherwise dreary space has some excitement and it's one of my favorite features...maybe in the whole house!