Having a Whale of a Time Painting on Glass

Three things you need to know about me:
1. I'm not a collector.
2. I get SADD in the winter.
3. I like to paint things.
With that said, I seem to have this weird (not-so-weird?) collection of whales growing. I had this old glass window laying around that seemed like the perfect medium for a project. What I discovered:
1. painting helps ward off those evil winter time blues, and
2. glass is really fun to paint on.
I had a dream about an orca whale the previous night, and I love this quirky painting at the children's museum, by Jay Ryan:

I hope my sad attempt to copy this painting isn't some sort of copyright infringement. If it is, I'll take this down, but for now consider this the highest form of flattery Mr. Ryan. 

So here's what I figured out when painting on glass:

 If you mess up you can wipe it off and start over,  but once your first layer of paint is dry, it will always show through on the other side.

 I realized this when I covered some "ripples" in the water I painted on this side, and then turned it over, only to find those sneaky ripples still there. 

Observe: front side, no ripples and the paint has lots of texture.

 Back side: very smooth and glossy, with ripples in the water. 

Here's Taliila painting the glass of and old frame. 

My little artist. 

Another thing I think would be fun to try is painting a chalkboard on an old piece of glass. It'd be such a smooth backdrop- I feel like the chalk would just glide over it. 

How To Do a Collage Wall

I'm kind of a sucker for hanging my art in a collage-like fashion. This trend has been great for me because my house has very little wall space (lots of doors and pass-throughs) and I have a lot of meaningful art I want to display. 

There are a lot of helpful tricks to the trade out there. One good one is laying everything out on the floor so you get an idea of where you want to place your pictures. 

 As you can see, I switched it around a bit once I started putting them up on the wall. 

 More frequently, I just start slightly off center with a focal point, and then build around it. I like adding different textures and types of media to keep things interesting. A lot of my art work is done by family members, or items I've repurposed. Mirrors are also great add-ins and bring light into dark spaces. 

Really there's no rhyme or reason, but I try to keep everything close together so it looks like it's part of a whole. Items hung too far apart lose their collage effect. Make sense? 

The best part is, I can switch pictures in and out of the configuration for a quick change. 

The Hodgepodge [Almost] Finished Nursery

Ten days folks! That's how long I have till baby #2 graces us with his presence. At least in theory, that is. He could of course come sooner (yes, please), or later ( no, thank you). We made some major switcheroos to our room situation, moving the guest bedroom downstairs, to allow for a new nursery upstairs. This has been a really fun project for me. I chose to lighten up the color scheme, going for Watery from Sherwin Williams. I had a coupon and saw this color in a magazine. I actually bought it for my kitchen originally, but it was too baby blue. I decided I was going to use it on our future nursery regardless of having a boy or girl. Turns out to be perfect.
Last night, Tony and Taliila finished hanging some pictures and a chalkboard. There's still a little fiddling to be done, but here's the gist of it. I'm really proud of most of the deals I got, with the exception of the chalkboard, which was a splurge.

 Stool: Refinished FREE, Chalkboard: Home Goods $49.99, Ikea Lamp: via Craigslist $5

 Softest Rug EVER: Gabriel Brothers $65, Chair & Ottoman: via Facebook $65

Framed Animal Art: Via here, White Frames: Ikea $7.99, End Table: yard sale $5, Green Lamp: Already owned

 Mobile: via yard sale $5, Red/Yellow Chest: my childhood dresser FREE, Thomasville MCM Dresser: Tony's grandpa's FREE, 

Green Polk Dot Diaper Topper: previously had from Taliila's Room

Curtains: Home Goods $29.99, Crib: Ikea via Craigslist $25, Sheets/Bumper: Free from friends

Like I said, a hodgepodge, but the room itself is really light and airy- I love it. We already tend to congregate in it and play on that big, comfy rug. I can officially say we.are.ready.

Animal Print Art & Chair for the Nursery

I'm working on getting the nursery together and I thought I'd share my progress. We decided to switch things up (and by we, I mean me) and put the guest bedroom downstairs in the playroom. The playroom is in Taliila's old room now, and the nursery is going in the old guest room. You lost yet? I think I win the award for switching rooms the most amount of times in one single house.
Here's the old guest bedroom:

Color-wise it obviously works really well for a boy's room, but in person our paint job was really shabby and needed another coat. Since I no longer had the same paint (darn), I took this opportunity to go with a whole new color scheme. Surprise! I'm always painting, I know. New colors are along the lines of a soft blue, white, and pops of red. It's my husbands favorite color combo so I thought that'd make him happy. 

The crib will go where the bed was, and I found the most fabulously, soft rug at Gabriel Brothers for get this, $65! I'll post pictures of that soon. We'll be using my husband's grandpa's old mid century modern dresser that I originally had for sale at the shop, but so thankful I changed my mind. And I found this chair on a facebook for sale or trade board (that I'm currently obsessed with perusing):

I know this chair is slightly old school with that flame-stitched pattern, but I love it. And how cute is that buffalo print? I knew I'd seen these animal prints on some blog before, but I wasn't sure where so I asked the seller if she minded telling me. It's from theanimalprintshop.com and they're all real photographs of real animals with photo-shopped backgrounds. I love the idea of a little collage with white frames so I ordered a few (the giraffe, elephant, and of course the buffalo that inspired it all in the first place). 

And then I splurged on this Ryan Berkley print for Taliila's room... I thought it'd be the perfect gift for her. We're a little obsessed with the personification of animals in this family :)

source

So that's it so far- animal prints, a chair and a rug. I have a little ways to go, but it's coming together nicely.