Easy Art

As I mentioned in this post, although I love our cozy TV room, the decor strikes me as a little on the college side of things.  You know, too small art that we bought at the local poster sale...  Sadly, moving the furniture around really highlighted our decor problems.

The biggest problem area is the spot where the couch now sits.  Before, this wall was easy to overlook with our too-cramped furniture lay out.

See not so bad...  With the lamp and dresser the wall decor doesn't look so bad.  At that time I had even thought about adding some really tall something to fill in the space below the middle picture.

But once the couch came to live on this wall...

Yikes...  Clearly with the size of the couch, those sweet little college purchased prints were just not going to work.

I totally loved Sherry's cheap-o idea to use paint chips to create something lovely.  However, I didn't have a big ole basket of paint swatches lying around and I didn't think my local Lowe's would appreciate me grabbing paint swatches just to make some art, so I figured I could paint something.

I started by gathering my supplies- cheap-o canvas, 10 monochromish  paints, a paint brush and some measuring implements.  I measured my canvas into 2 inch squares...

I know those marks a bit hard to see, but I did want to keep my pencil lines on the light side so I would be sure that my paint would cover them.

I didn't want this to look at all patterned, so I just got to work filling in squares...

2 colors down...  You can see on the edges that I went over my lines a bit.  I wanted to be sure that my mat and frame wouldn't show any white spaces on the edge of the canvas, so I eliminated the white space.

Just about 1/2 way done.  You can see that I added some metallic gold.  LOVE.

3/4 of the way done and I've added a bit of metallic bronze.  I was careful to make sure that the gold and bronze squares didn't land next to each other.  That seemed like it may be too much.

FINISHED!  LOVE LOVE LOVE!

And framed.  LOVE LOVE LOVE X 1,000,000

I really am thrilled how this came out.  I don't have the steadiest of hands, so I was concerned about painting outside the lines.  My lines are far from straight, but by moving slow and using a small brush, I did a-okay and I love that it isn't absolutely precise.

All in all, this project ran me about $30, but the frame and mat were $20.  All in all, not bad for some cheap-o art and a fun afternoon of painting.

Tune in next week to find out how it all looks on the wall!

Raw Kale Salad

Now before you go all, "eewwww raw kale" on me, I promise you that kale, raw or cooked, is delicious.  If you haven't tried it, you should (yes, mom, I am looking at you).  And if you have tried kale, try it this way.  You'll love it.

This recipe comes from Happy Health Life- Thanks Kathy!

Start with a nice big bunch of wash and shredded kale, make sure you remove the tough stem in the process...

Kale, Yum!

Now mix up some dressing...

This dressing is:
2 1/2 tbs tahini
3 tbs rice vinegar
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbs olive oil
2 tsp maple syrup

Next toss your dressing and kale together and add toppings....

Based on the recipe I added:
3 tbs sunflower seeds
1 granny smith apple
1 avocado
1 tomato
1 can of juice packed mandarin oranges
1/2 red onion

Arranged all pretty like...

And a close up of all the prettiness....

In the slightly annoying words of Rachel Ray, YUM-O

The Closet Saga Continued

When last we touched on my obsession with shoes and a too small closet, I had coerced Seth into helping me install a second shelf for shoes.  Catch up on that fun here.  Clearly that was a step in the right direction, but far from finished. 

A couple Saturday's ago, Seth had planned a day with at the cigar store and I seized my opportunity to finish updates to my closet.

I started by pulling everything (except some shoes) out of my closet...

 YIKES!  This is why I waited until I know Seth would occupied all day long....

 No hangy stuff to get in the way...

The plan was to bust out those back shelves and add 2 new hangy racks, thus freeing up a ton of space.  So that I did...

Goodbye nasty shelves!

From there, I popped in a way back hangy bar.  To get the right distance from the back wall, I took a hanger and placed it on the wall, providing me with the amount of distance from the wall I would need to have enough space to hang things.  Did that sentence even make sense?

Installing hangy bars is super simple.  You can buy the little cuppy things that the bar sets in from Lowes for super cheap.  They just screw in and you can set your bar in.

In no time, I had my new hangy bars in.  Now, I know what you're thinking, how is this gonna work?  Two bars?!  How will I get to the back bar?  Strategery, my friends, that's how.

I packed the back with items I rarely use, like my wedding dress and the prom dresses my mom sent to live with me.  If I do ever need these items, I can push the items on the first bar out of the way.  Not terribly easy to do, but it'll work.

As I lost valuable shoe space by knocking out the shelves, the second hangy bar got a hanging shoe rack and it also currently housing all hoodies.  Once winter rolls around, I'll probably switch out the hoodies for sun dresses.  So easy and organized.  I swear, I impress myself sometimes.

And finally in the front, I added a hanging sweater thang, as they were previously living on a shelf.  The bonus is that my sweaters are much easier to access now and as sweaters are a year round thing for me, this is good. 

Just as an additional reference point, the old shelvy area/new hangy area, would be to the left of the closet.  Not a great design, as it it totally inaccessible.

This project was actually completed a few weeks ago, and I am shocked, but pleased, to report that this area still looks like this.  Good design is usable and allows for things to easily stay organized.  WIN!