What I Made Wednesday {Spring Home Decor}

Happy Spring! I wanted to open my house up to you, friends, and share some of my home's spring decor with you. Whether you celebrate Easter, Passover, or simply the start of spring, this time of renewal and rebirth is worth embracing.

Are you ready?

What I Made Wednesday {Christmas Home Decor}

Welcome, friends. Put on a kettle, grab a cozy seat, and stay awhile; let me share my home with you this holiday season. Browse around some of my Christmas decorations scattered around my humble abode.

 My son is getting excited as the big day approaches. Admittedly, I'm getting excited, too!

My most favorite Christmas decor is our nativity scene. I'll share that with you tomorrow! What is your most favorite Christmas decor nesting in your home this year?

*The O Holy Night printable (center photo) is available from oneartmama.blogspot.com 

What I Made Wednesday {Thanksgiving Home Decor}

 Our home has been in the spirit of Thanksgiving since the Halloween ghosts, witches, and goblins retired into their storage containers for another year's rest, replaced with turkeys and all-things autumnal. I photographed the seasonal areas of my home decked out with decoration; some I bought, some I made, but I did not spend one penny this year Hubby are you reading this?. 

Whether I'm in a Pier One Imports or not, holiday decor is "speaking to me" all the time, as the commercial suggests. While paper mache'd pilgrims and wire cornucopias vie for my attention and my wallet, I found a new strength against all the tempting trinkets this year. I've accumulated enough "stuff" over the years that the only new holiday decor additions this year included handmade items like the Fall Paint Chip Bunting (I took out the Halloween pennants) and Thanksgiving Framed Rock Art.

I'm so happy to share my Thanksgiving decor with you. I think my favorite item is the real deer antlers. Did you see them?
 









Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving decoration?

It's All Good

"Do not let your hearts be troubled." - John 14:1

This pillow in my foyer helps keep things in perspective for me.

We're living in tough times. It's difficult to stay positive in a world with so much upheaval, so much hate, and so much strife. Prices continue to rise at the pumps, at the grocery stores, and in our tax bills and our paychecks just don't follow that same increasing pattern. In fact, staying the course and not going in the other direction is a small victory.

Do not despair because all of these things have been the same for centuries. I'm sure our ancestors would attest there is never enough money to do everything you want to do or buy everything you want to buy. I'm not an economist or a financial expert, and I struggle each month to keep in-line with my own family's set budget. But the one thing I absolutely know is that worrying about it is not helping anyone and the stress of worrying only hurts the person doing the worrying. Think about a time where you worried about something that never even ended up happening. Make a decision today to be wise about the world around you and stop worrying about a bleak future that may never come to pass. Instead, make adjustments if you need to in order to take care of the present. Keep calm and carry on.

Favorite Wall Art

This is the painting in our living room. Artist Don Breckon.

I was sitting in my living room just staring at this piece of art we had on the wall. When we painted our cream white walls to its current deep red, the living room transformed into a study-like atmosphere exuding warmth and welcoming comfort. We had a blank wall that was crying out for some art. I went into the basement and found this piece of art that came from my husband's side of the family. I put it up because I thought the red trim around the painting was a good accent to the wall color. My husband was leery of my art choice for the room and I shrugged off the piece as just a mere placeholder until we found something better. Secretly, I stopped looking for something better because this piece of art was perfect for the room. It gives a sense of movement if you stare at it long enough and it adds a masculinity to the room that tricks the mind into thinking you're in a mahogany-lined library found deep in the chambers of a century-old, stone mansion somewhere in the hills of England (one can dream, can't she?).

This hangs in our dining room. Painting by Thomas Kinkade: The Garden of Prayer

So it got me thinking about the other pieces of wall art I have in my home. Each piece, I am happy to say, was not chosen as a "place holder" for a blank wall but rather holds a place on our wall and in our hearts. I think anything that goes into your house or onto your walls deserves being there because you love it or it has special meaning to you.

This piece of art was made by my husband's recently deceased Grandmother, a very talented woman. The photo does not do it justice but the art is 3-dimensional. It is hung in our loft where we have a huge wall of books and I absolutely love it.

Take your own tour around your house and study each piece of wall art you have hanging. If you don't absolutely love it or if it doesn't stir any feelings in you, then take it off its hook. Store it away, give it away, but don't keep it up on your wall. Then, keep your eyes open for something that really tugs at your heart. You'll know when you've found it. You'll buy it and hang it up. And every time you see it, you'll be reminded that your true self pours out of every aspect of your home and is not just something filling up space.

What are your most favorite pieces of wall art in your home?

Everybody Makes Mistakes

Making mistakes is part of life. The real question is how much those mistakes we make cost us. My latest one, about $1,000. It all started off innocently enough. Our master bedroom cried out for a small renovation project. Our home was built in 1986 and I've worked really hard over the past 15 years we've lived here to not make our rooms look like 1986. There really isn't a room in the house we haven't renovated in some way (some minor and some major) to really make our house the home we enjoy daily. But through all those projects we've entangled ourselves with, the one room we really didn't touch was our master bedroom. So, needing a project, because that's just the way I operate, I decided to tackle the master bedroom on a very small budget. Small budget meaning remove the wallpaper myself (thanks so much Dad for doing most of the work helping). To all you novice renovators out there here's a tidbit I'd like to pass on to you all. When removing wallpaper that has been there for decades and you plan to paint, you MUST coat the walls with an oil-based primer before painting with latex paint. Why? Because when you remove the wallpaper, I don't care how much you wash down those walls, you'll never get off all the glue residue from the wallpaper. So, to make a new clean wall surface for your room's paint, you must apply an oil-based primer to the walls first. I was going with a dark room color so I actually got the primer tinted, as well. I highly recommend this! Also, oil-based primers smell to high heaven. Be sure to buy the "odor-free" kind. It's really not odor-free but it's a low odor that allows you to still breathe while you work.

You can try to take the easy route and not prime your walls and the room will look decent for about 6 months. But after that, you'll start to see bubbling of the paint for no apparent reason. That, my friend, is the wallpaper adhesive seaping through your paint, trying to bust out like a deathrow inmate from Alcatraz.

Back to my story...I removed all the wallpaper and was ready to begin painting on the primer. I put down my drop cloths (old bed sheets) and then it happened. What many wives who want new carpet would call an "accident" happened to me - but I swear not on purpose. I spilled the can of primer on the carpet in the middle of the room. The bed sheets soaked up the primer right into the carpet. (Note: Do not use bed sheets as drop cloths, use plastic tarp.) Did I mention it was oil-based!!! So, that was that. My $100-just-buy-some-paint project turned into a $1,000 getting-new-carpet-but-not-wanting-to-spend-the-money project. Hey, it happens, we all make mistakes (thanks for saying that line to me,sweatheart), and the carpet was original to the house so it probably needed replacing anyway. Always look at the positive!!! Now we have to get all the furniture back into the room, but at least we have new carpet.

Thought about doing nothing but it happened to be in the middle of the room (open space where we walk).

I love the new carpet smell wafting through the house when the breeze blows. Serenity now.