Small, Ornate Turquoise Memo Board

Another great picture frame find at my local thrift store.  You can pick these up for 50 cents up to $2.00 and just let your imagination go crazy.  Here is the before picture:

The frame has a goldish hue and I immediately thought of doing a turquoise dry brush finish on it to give it a rustic, almost verdigris feel to it.  So I just took a tiny dab of turquoise craft paint and wiped it off on a paper towel to get most of the paint off and dry brushed right onto the frame.

Next, I used my staple gun to attach some chicken wire to the back of the frame.

And then, of course it needed an embellished clothes pin to finish it off!

This turned out exactly as I imagined in my head!  I love it when that happens!  Don't you??

Old Chippy Window Vignette

I have a small wall in my dining room between the living room and the hall.  It sat almost bare for quite a while.  It looked like this:

I knew I wanted a charming, cottage look vignette, but wasn't sure just what.  Then, I found these old, chippy windows and they fit perfectly in this space. 

I added some pictures of the grandkids and little accessories.  The one on the left has the number "554" on an old book page.  The number is significant because I have 5 children, 5 grand-children, and 4 great-grand-children!

The one on the right has more pictures and a book page heart that simply says "family".

Next, I wanted something that the grand-kids could do to add some whimsy to this space.  I had them each color with crayon on a piece of card stock and then paint over it with water colors.

Next, I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter as a template to cut out heart shapes.

I then put up some chicken wire to attach the hearts to.  I found some cute mini clothes pins at JoAnn's Fabrics to clip them on with.  Then I added some decorative wood trim.

I was going to paint the wood trim turquoise and then paint some red on top and distress it to let the turquoise show through, but when I painted it turquoise I loved it so much that I just left it as is.  I may go back at some point and paint the red on top, but for now I'm just going to enjoy it this way!

As my younger grand-kids get old enough to make a heart, I can just add one on.  I imagine this filled with hearts some day - each as unique as the creators!