A very simple DIY

I’ve been inspired by yet another Pinterest find. Spray painted glass bottles. How easy?

Source: thecolorfullivingproject.blogspot.com via Laura on Pinterest

There may or may be white grass growing in our backyard now, but these old cordial bottles are a very cheap addition to our TV sideboard. Now to buy some pretty flowers…!P.S. – Taking photos in a house with wood panelling is so painful. I line up a shot to make sure everything is parrallel, only to load the photos on my computer and find I was crooked. Oops!!

Colour loving

After flicking through Hailey Bartholomew’s twitter photos, I’ve decided I definitely need more colour in my life.

+ art inspired +

Sometime last year I stumbled across these wonderful doggy artworks. Isn’t there something fun about a beautiful big puppy hanging on the wall?

Source: mydesigndump.blogspot.com via Laura on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Laura on Pinterest

Source: mylittleapartment.blogspot.com via Laura on Pinterest

One thing I’ve worked hard at for Smurf Haus, is designing our home in a way that isn’t too girly. Having endless blue walls help, though I will be honest and say, if I didn’t share a home with Will, you would be seeing a lot more of that bright coral pink colour from the puppy above splashed around the place.

Anyhow, we had a big empty wall that needed some love, and I was after a piece of art that wasn’t too feminine. So a puppy painting it was!

I used a canvas and kids acrylic paints from Bunnings, and sketched a puppy silhouette off an image online. The puppy may have originally been a boy, but I felt awkward that you could tell, plus we decided to call her ‘Lucy’, so certain defining features had to be painted out

I’m arty but I’ve never been too good with paints, so I was very happy with how it turned out. Lucy is the puppy we’re not allowed to have and she’s the perfect addition to our little lounge room.

The Wedding Files

Tags

hailey bartholomew, wedding, william and laura

I posted our wedding photos to W + L last week, you can find them here. So many beautiful memories.

If I had to choose a few favourites (which I do asap, still haven’t made decisions for our album!!), these three would definitely make the cut.

The ability of a photograph to capture a moment so perfectly still leaves me in awe.

Photos by Hailey Bartholomew of You Can’t Be Serious

+ art inspired +

Here’s my latest little artwork – a collection of Printstagrams! If you missed it, here’s more details on how I printed them.

I used my white Kikki K pinboard, but was hesitant to pin the photos on in case I want to use them differently down the track. Will suggested double-sided sticky tape, which we don’t have, so I tried the old one-sided-sticky-tape-folded-over-on-itself trick and it seemed to work.

If we owned dear Smurf Haus and I had permission to go wild with blu-tack, I may have stuck them straight to the wall like Elsie did. The blue makes for such a lively background.

I had 48 photos but a 6 x 7 arrangement worked best on the board, so I chose six of my favourites to put in our kitchen.

A lone esky on the beach. The day Will got back from Sudan. Flowers in West End. My photographer husband. Wedding decorations. The view from Ohau House.

Now to print off some wedding photos to display….

#12 – Read 20 books I haven’t read before

Ever since my university days, where most of my study time was taken up reading foreign policy textbooks and journal articles, I’ve found it hard to find the time to read for pleasure. So in an attempt to carve out some time and fill my head with faraway places, I’ve committed to reading 20 books I haven’t read before (#12 on my 23 Things list).

In the last six months, I’ve read The Little Prince, Reaching for the Invisible God, Committed: A Love Story, The Slap, The Marriage Book, Mud, Sweat and Tears and Hunger Games.

I wouldn’t recommend The Slap as I found it hard to get into, hard to relate to any of the characters and hard to get through a few crude parts. Committed: A Love Story didn’t catch my interest nearly as much as Eat, Pray, Love, but I guess that’s understandable when Gilbert was so against getting married and I was about three months out from my wedding.

Mud, Sweat and Tears made me want to climb a mountain – I’m awfully impressionable like that. The Marriage Book was worth a read before getting married, The Little Prince was delightful and I just gobbled up The Hunger Games. And if I were to strongly recommend any of the list, it would be Reaching for the Invisible God. It really made me think at a time I really needed to be thinking.

one. two. three. four. five. six. seven.

I’m part way through Birds Without Wings, and I have another three books waiting on my bedside table. My sister also has the second and third Hunger Games books for me too.

That leaves another seven books to be added to the list by July 6, 2012. What shall those books be? I’d love some recommendations. Perhaps a quick read, a couple of non-fiction and a few auto/biographies? What are you reading at the moment? What has inspired you, challenged you, delighted you? What should I read next?

Merci beaucoup!

+ art inspired +

Being able to put up art around our house has been one of my favourite things of 2012 so far. In honour of our French classes, and inspired by this, I hung this frame up by our front door. I just cut up lots of neon paper, glued it to a backing sheet and popped it in an Ikea frame. Now it’s like Smurf Haus is farewelling us each time we leave.

My blog goal for the next month or two is to share something arty each week – art that I’m working on, art that inspires me, art that I would one day like to own. Being able to fill my house with art when I moved out of home was definitely one of the things I was really looking forward to. If the art gallery is one of my favourite places, why not make my home a gallery?