The Sunset Lane: May 2011

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Getting Ready for a Family Reunion

Apparently, having the girls home from school is crazy busy and I don't have time to blog as much, so I will try to get up earlier or get posts in when I can! :)

After only getting together for funerals, Mr. TSL's family is finally getting together for a family reunion that won't be centered around a loss. I am hosting this bad dog! I L-O-V-E hosting parties/get-togethers/anything really!

My parents came over yesterday and we got a ton of work done outside. See, when we bought the house it had sat vacant for 5 years with the exception of some lake trips (yep, we live by the lake-be jealous!). The previous owners were an elderly couple that were put in a care home and their family basically left all the stuff around the house they didn't want/need. This meant A LOT of trash for us! They were also glorious gardeners....I love this, because I suck at gardening and anything that comes back on it's own without any care for 5 years can survive me!

We have taken numerous loads of stuff to the recycler and also to the dump to alleviate the amount of crap they left/we have. However, there are a lot of trees, bushes, gardens and such that had dead parts or were completely dead that we have to burn. We have a giant bonfire-style pile of brush that we are slowly burning :)

This is the before pics taken by the previous owner. It actually had more trash when we bought it!

That is the before pic of the areas that we are working on...the after's are going to take a little longer. It looks A-MAZ-ING right now, but there are more things before I do the big reveal!

After all that rambling, I have some inspiration pics for you and me!!

via Pottery Barn

I have tons of baby food jars right now!

Love the long sliced bananas!

How stinkin cute is this?!?!

I love the organic feeling in this space!

Pallet Seating Area-LOVE! my mom said, "sure the pallets were free, but I bet the cushions were $10,000." She is so funny! I love you mom!

Oh patriotic tolix chairs, I love you!!

-Make your life beautiful!!

Monday, May 23, 2011

Kids' Gallery Art Wall

I have collected so much of the girls' art over the years and especially this year (their art teacher is great!)
That I decided to frame it all in a gallery grouping for the dining room. It turned out great!!

To do this, I collected a bunch of frames I already had-most of them were already black. Sprayed the one's that weren't black with a few light coats of black spray paint. Made mattes for half of them because they had none. Put the girls' art in and voile la! The arrangement itself took longer than putting the art together!

I laid it all out on the living room floor and moved it, walked away, tweaked it, walked away...until I had it just right. Then I heard the bus and snapped a quick pick of it and picked it up, so the girl's would step on it when they walked in.

I got into the dining room with it to hang it, flipped the camera on to view the pic and it was gone...so I started over in the dining room. I laid it on the floor in there and snapped the pic...this one took :) Plus, I could easily measure it to find where it needed to be placed on the wall!

Here it is on the floor:

For some of the 3D art-like the fan and the picture made out of beans (and my @ sign)-I just put white paper in the frame and hot glued the art to the glass.

Because Audrey just won't make anything for me yet (she's only 8 months!) I painted her feet yellow and had her "print" on some paper for me, then I stenciled SMILE over it with hot pink! She also got her hand painted hot pink and made some hand prints for me too! I can only imagine what her little mind was thinging while I was doing this!

-Make your life beautiful!