Inspired

One of my favorite blogs I read here and there is that of Young House Love. It's blog by a young couple, Sherry and John, and it follows their every house DIY project from nursery room design to new door fixtures, among other posts. It's great for discovering new design ideas for the home. If you read through their blog, you'll see how much renovation they've done and how much they enjoy doing it. I enjoy their commentary and pictures and get inspired by all the colors they incorporate into their home as well as their creativity. Take for instance Sherry's latest wall art creation:



Those are paint color samples arranged according to color gradient. How neat and savvy! And it's totally a recycling project, too. Here's a picture of how she got started:



Here's a photo of how it looks in her home:



I find it simple and sophisticated. And crafty! You can find her whole blog post on this link. I also love her vintage style fan and, in fact, I have been in the market for one for a while now. I'm looking for a silver or black one to use in my decor. Gotta love young house love!

In my attempt to recycle something out of the ordinary into something else, er, extraordinary, I took some scrapbook "scrap" paper and transformed it into wall decor art in our bedroom. But first, here's the scoop on how I decorated an ordinary picture frame with some accumulated buttons.

It was super easy: I took some buttons that were included in a box of scrapbook design materials I found at the store and hot-glued each one to a white 4" x 6" picture frame. I didn't really have a plan but to start at the top corner and incorporate large and small buttons of varying colors as I went. I was sure to glue them as close to each other as possible as to not have a lot of white space in between them. You can also see how I used only one other design material which was some colorful flower-shaped cut-outs to be used normally on a scrapbook page. I used them to add a little bit of something else to the frame and placed a button in the middle of each flower. There are two flowers in the top left and bottom right corners. Insert whatever picture you want, and there you go.

Here is the wall of framed scrapbook paper art in our bedroom (4 total) with extra wall art included. The extras are 2 black and white items from Target while the brown/brassy pictures of Fleur-de-lis buds are from a wonderful local home decor store in my hometown of Central, Louisiana, called Lancaster House. I've always wanted a wall of framed photos or art so here's how I did it:


My scraps of scrapbook paper leftover from another project. I found these designs at Michael's. I took some frames I wasn't currently using (I did not go out and buy new frames but recycled unused ones!) and cut the paper to fit inside them. Here's a close up of a frame featuring the above yellow paper:


Unlike the other framed photos, this one has extra flair. I added 1" hole punched cut-outs of butterflies from a different scrapbook paper design (not shown). In the middle of the picture is another flower cut-out from my box of scrapbook goodies. You can find a 1" hole puncher on the scrapbook aisle of most stores.

My wall art is hanging above my bookshelf and my button frame sits on top of it. Hanging them all was a bit challenging. First, I had to figure out which frame went where so I laid them all out together on the floor to come up with the design. Then, I took the top-most picture first and hung it. After that, I didn't worry too much about creating symmetry though I made sure each frame had the right space between them to create clean lines. I had no help in this process and did not use a level! Just hammer, nails, and a tape measure. I love knowing I did this myself which makes this space that much more special to me!