Painting and Smiling

If there is one thing that I find peace doing, it is decorating our home. Whether it be adding a photograph, or rearranging furniture, I LOVE DECORATING.

An unlimited budget makes decorating even more sweet- although this is not a reality- ever! So, I try to find deals when decorating. AC Moore always has 50% off coupons- Z Gallery in North Lake mall has sweet deals weekly and beautiful (unique) products.

Just a snippet of a decorating project I did (over a year ago...but the only one I have photos of) is Gage's nursery.

I started with an empty room and lots of ideas. The first step in decorating is establishing a color pallet and/or theme. With Gage's nursery I did both. I found the bedding I wanted and then I stuck to the greens/browns/blues within that bedding to create the other pieces added to the room.

I knew that I wanted to have large paintings hung instead of painting the room- why? Because the paintings can be taken down within 2 minutes. The walls would take weeeeeeeeks to change and I'm an impatient person! I started with VERY large canvases- 20 x 30's I think- and I took them to Auntie Janna's work (she's a teacher) and blew up photos on the overhead to trace onto the canvas. From then, I painted and painted.

I also knew that I wanted book shelves- however, knowing that I would have one messy/into EVERYTHING child, I took precautions and decided to go with floating bookshelves that are far too high for him to reach (as of now). This not only reduces messes, but it also reduces the hazard of him using the bookcase as a ladder to crawl into the heights of the sky! On the top of the bookshelves, I wanted to add his name in those cute block letters; but who wants plain white letters? So, I used painters tape to create cute patterns on these letters to spell out his name.

The room turned out fabulous; and it's still comfortable and clean (keeping the decorating clean and not cluttered adds to a less stressful environment). A few focal points are much more strong than overwhelming knick-knacks everywhere!

One of my paintings of a lion...

The finished nursery...

Soon I will add more ideas on decorating; perhaps I will put up information on how to choose appropriate frames and groupings for professional pictures....another LOVE of mine.

Happy decorating!

Erica