Guest Project — "Summer on a Wall"

Hey there all you Tatertot fans!  It is such a  pleasure to be here.  I remember Jen from back when she was funnin’ it up with the Friend Making Mondays with all her cool clip art photos.  That is how I found out that she and I share a love for the same lip-gloss.  She was also my first follower.  I just love her.  Plus, she is also a Mom of four kiddos and has the coolest hair.

I am J.J. from over at I’d Rather Be Laughing.  I am a military wife and stay at home mom to 4 kids.  I love photography, bubble gum, chocolate, classic literature, silver tone jewelry, baking, snow, feather pillows, hot buffalo-style hot wings, hiking, and the smell of clean children.  I love to do creative stuff when I get the chance. The following idea was something I had been wanting to do for a while…but finally just did it.

___________________________________________________

What do you do with all those old frames that you have stored in every nook and cranny and crawl space?

(sorry to say that these aren’t even all of them)

And all the awesome digital shots of your wicked cool summer?

(I was always wanting to do something creative with our travel photos other than just put them in an album)

Well…I actually had prints made of the digital photos  (enlarged in all different sizes) from the great summer of traveling. I did it differently though. I tried to pick the ones that weren’t faces…but the ones that really seemed to capture the essence of the summer. The feel of it. The uniqueness of it. The inside jokes of it.

Matched them up with frames…

then popped out he backs and took them outside to paint.

We had some black spray paint out in the shop, so that is what I used.  It was a satin finish.  It was free.

I made use of the cat food bag that I had just emptied, and sprayed away.  I did not sand or prime them.  I just painted.

 I let them dry while I made lunch, watched a little Y&R and had a Diet Coke.

I had gone to Hobby Lobby and picked up these mattes at half off.  After the frames dried, I spent about 20 minutes matching the mattes up with the photos and frames…

And tada!

It is that simple.

Then without a ruler…level…or straight edge…hung them on the wall.  Using itty-bitty teeny-tiny nails and a hammer.

This is our basement hallway/landing area just at the bottom of the stairs.  Our basement is not a dark storage basement…..it is half of our house. It includes a couple of the kids’ bedrooms, guest room (aka home of the treadmill), theater room, full bathroom and living room.  It does, however, lack a few decorative touches.  We are down here a lot…and this wall needed something.  There are a lot of walls down there that need a little something. 

This little something is our summer on a wall.

While I was at it, I found some collage frames that I had not used…and assigned one to each kid.   I picked out a few summer photos that were unique to each kiddo…and reminded me of a special moment.  Each photo is at a place from our travels and makes me smile or giggle each time I see it.  The girls got the white frames and the boys got the black, and they loved them.  

 

They said they wanted to go back to the places we went…and do it again.  They loved dreaming over the photos from a wedding we attended that showed them dancing with each other, or the ones of them swimming with their cousins, or the photos taken from the suburban window on the road.  I heard my oldest daughter say that having these photos up and on the wall was “almost like being there.” 

 

I agree with her.  

So…summer will be with us for the year…flat on that wall.

Well…until next summer when we will fill the frames up with new fun.

What cool thing are you going to do with all YOUR summer photos?

Thank You J.J.! 

As J.J. said, we have known each other for a long time. 

I just adore her. 

She is so naturally funny!

You have to see her posts — Ryan Reynolds Chocolate vs. Matt Damon Chocolate.

J.J. is also an amazing photographer! I am so privileged to have won a giveaway of hers and I treasure the two that are hanging in my home!

I think my favorite thing about J.J.’s blog is that she really makes you think. 

Some of my favorite posts of all time are:

How would you change History…If you could?

and

You can’t take it with you….

Be sure to go over to

I’d Rather Be Laughing — 

you will be so glad you did! 

XOXO

Tweet

Guest Project — "Summer on a Wall"

Hey there all you Tatertot fans!  It is such a  pleasure to be here.  I remember Jen from back when she was funnin’ it up with the Friend Making Mondays with all her cool clip art photos.  That is how I found out that she and I share a love for the same lip-gloss.  She was also my first follower.  I just love her.  Plus, she is also a Mom of four kiddos and has the coolest hair.

I am J.J. from over at I’d Rather Be Laughing.  I am a military wife and stay at home mom to 4 kids.  I love photography, bubble gum, chocolate, classic literature, silver tone jewelry, baking, snow, feather pillows, hot buffalo-style hot wings, hiking, and the smell of clean children.  I love to do creative stuff when I get the chance. The following idea was something I had been wanting to do for a while…but finally just did it.

___________________________________________________

What do you do with all those old frames that you have stored in every nook and cranny and crawl space?

(sorry to say that these aren’t even all of them)

And all the awesome digital shots of your wicked cool summer?

(I was always wanting to do something creative with our travel photos other than just put them in an album)

Well…I actually had prints made of the digital photos  (enlarged in all different sizes) from the great summer of traveling. I did it differently though. I tried to pick the ones that weren’t faces…but the ones that really seemed to capture the essence of the summer. The feel of it. The uniqueness of it. The inside jokes of it.

Matched them up with frames…

then popped out he backs and took them outside to paint.

We had some black spray paint out in the shop, so that is what I used.  It was a satin finish.  It was free.

I made use of the cat food bag that I had just emptied, and sprayed away.  I did not sand or prime them.  I just painted.

 I let them dry while I made lunch, watched a little Y&R and had a Diet Coke.

I had gone to Hobby Lobby and picked up these mattes at half off.  After the frames dried, I spent about 20 minutes matching the mattes up with the photos and frames…

And tada!

It is that simple.

Then without a ruler…level…or straight edge…hung them on the wall.  Using itty-bitty teeny-tiny nails and a hammer.

This is our basement hallway/landing area just at the bottom of the stairs.  Our basement is not a dark storage basement…..it is half of our house. It includes a couple of the kids’ bedrooms, guest room (aka home of the treadmill), theater room, full bathroom and living room.  It does, however, lack a few decorative touches.  We are down here a lot…and this wall needed something.  There are a lot of walls down there that need a little something. 

This little something is our summer on a wall.

While I was at it, I found some collage frames that I had not used…and assigned one to each kid.   I picked out a few summer photos that were unique to each kiddo…and reminded me of a special moment.  Each photo is at a place from our travels and makes me smile or giggle each time I see it.  The girls got the white frames and the boys got the black, and they loved them.  

 

They said they wanted to go back to the places we went…and do it again.  They loved dreaming over the photos from a wedding we attended that showed them dancing with each other, or the ones of them swimming with their cousins, or the photos taken from the suburban window on the road.  I heard my oldest daughter say that having these photos up and on the wall was “almost like being there.” 

 

I agree with her.  

So…summer will be with us for the year…flat on that wall.

Well…until next summer when we will fill the frames up with new fun.

What cool thing are you going to do with all YOUR summer photos?

Thank You J.J.! 

As J.J. said, we have known each other for a long time. 

I just adore her. 

She is so naturally funny!

You have to see her posts — Ryan Reynolds Chocolate vs. Matt Damon Chocolate.

J.J. is also an amazing photographer! I am so privileged to have won a giveaway of hers and I treasure the two that are hanging in my home!

I think my favorite thing about J.J.’s blog is that she really makes you think. 

Some of my favorite posts of all time are:

How would you change History…If you could?

and

You can’t take it with you….

Be sure to go over to

I’d Rather Be Laughing — 

you will be so glad you did! 

XOXO

Tweet

Family Wall

Our family pictures are done! Here’s the family wall I’m working on. I have some 5 x 7 pictures of my kids that I might hang with this big pictures and also a cute four-picture action sequence of the kids throwing leaves at each other I want to incorporate into the wall.

Tweet