Painting a Painting

Many weeks ago I shared that I had purchased a rather large painting that I had great plans for. I researched it first to ensure that I hadn't purchased a land mind and then thought about what words I wanted on it for weeks...I mean literally weeks!

Then I took some stencils and tediously painted this bible verse onto the painting. Easy peasy!

She is living in our front room right now and I love it!

"I'm going to decorate"

This past weekend I just decided "I'm going to decorate". Maybe it was the dreaming and planning that happened the previous weekend on my shopping trip with my mom, or maybe I was just sick of looking at my moving boxes with all of my decorations in them (6 months post move). 

I find it so funny because I love decorating, but I've found that I love planning as well and sometimes I am super indecisive. For awhile I held off on adding things to our walls in anticipation that we were going to paint (that has yet to happen as well). But, after rummaging through our boxes and looking at special pictures and art from loved ones I decided it was time to get them out. I missed that stuff. 

Here are some little changes I made over the weekend and projects I completed:

 I finally hung some frames and artwork. The faux bois painting is an old one I did a few years ago, but that I love so much. And then I framed the cute Valentines Day card to Seth. This is the wall right in between our dining area and kitchen.

I finally brought in my DIY vase that I completed a few weeks ago. I took a 50 cent, glass thrift store vase and painted it white and glued a clay flower to it (inspired by Anthropolgie's beautiful vases).

More posts to come!

thrifting and refinishing

I have always loved thrifting and looking for good deals. Our first year of marriage our budget was tight so I was forced to be creative in how I would decorate our apartment. 

Decorating a large house takes time and I'm learning to take things slowly and to buy things that speak to me. I have a list of things that I look for when I shop and in these past few weeks I have landed some amazing finds. 

First is this painting:

 

I landed this original painting for $28 at a local antique loft. I had seen it weeks prior and eyed it but couldn't get myself to pay for it with a $120 price tag without consulting my husband first. So when I saw the layers of stickers and scratched out prices I snagged it and knew it needed to be mine! I am thinking about reframing it or simply staining the current frame. 

Then, the day after I came home with the painting, I came home with this in my backseat:

This one was marked down from $48 to $24.99 at my local family thrift store. I have been looking all over for an antique vanity in my price range and I knew that this was the one. 

I also got this piece for our master bathroom for $20.00 at a garage sale

 (I didn't get a good picture before taking it apart)

 

 

So with my collection of furniture adding up in my garage I decided to make last Saturday a painting day and get these pieces refinished. I had never refinished furniture before but there are some amazing tutorials on pinterest. My good friend, Jen, came and helped me for the day while our husbands recorded and wrote music. 

Here are some of the pictures of the process:

and the final looks: