RE: The Print Above My Bed

I have gotten a lot of questions regarding the print that is above my bed from our Bedroom Tour. It is a picture  Michael took at Chicago O'Hara airport.O'Hara has a beautiful walkway with colorful lights that change. We sat there for a while during a lay over and took a bunch of shots. If you are interested in purchasing a print I'm pretty sure Michael would be down. You can shoot me an email at Justbyliving@gmail.com.

 I thought about just framing it but decided to do a photo to canvas. Ive never turned a picture into canvas before but I found Easy Canvas Prints and it was really easy to do. They give you options for width and borders and you can apply affects such as blank and white. They have a clean, simple website. I hate when sites are clogged with too much. I know I blog and all, but real talk, I am pretty dumb when it comes to the internet so if the website is at all complicated I get frustrated. That wasn't a problem with Easy Canvas Prints. The prices were very reasonable. If I bought a print as large as we made from a gallery it would have cost me a small fortune. Having a loft with huge walls is nice until you see the price tag on big pieces of art. its hard to fill up space. I mean, I can only do so many multi picture walls before it gets redundant. I thought doing the whole photo to canvas thing was pretty genius on my part. I'd love to do two more, one of Hendrix and one of Christian, but that's another project for another day.

For more on Easy Canvas Prints you can go to their facebook HERE or their site HERE.

Overall, I think it came out good and I hope I answered your Q's. : )

Nursery Tour and Cafe Press Giveaway

I am so excited to finally be posting Hendrix's nursery/our bedroom. Our home has three bedrooms but we currently have the third bedroom as our closet (and of course the second bed is for C) so we have been sharing. This works for us because while Henry starts his nights in his crib we co-sleep for the remainder of the night when he wakes for a feeding around midnight. We really like co-cleeping and love sharing a space with Hendrix. He has a play room and I have a large studio/office so I dont feel like there is a lack of our own space in our home.

  

Hendrix's bedding is from Ikea, the red/blue knit blanket was found in a thrift store and his white blanket was made my great-aunt. I made the blue pillow and all the stuffed animals were gifted.

The seal lamp is from Urban Outfitters and is one of the more expensive piece in the room. i bought it on sale for 20 bucks. I made the piece of art (if you can call it that) using dollar bin magnetic letters and a cheapo canvas from the craft store. I think it cost a whopping 6 bucks to make.

I am pretty frugal and the dresser and red rocker were both 5 dollars each at yard sales and our afghan was a dollar! The prints above Henry's bed were only 2 dollars each!

We collected art for the picture wall for months. We found a really cute vintage Little Golden Book at a thrift store but it was badly water damaged so I salvaged what I could and put those pages into dollar store frames. We hung up family photo booth pictures, a painting made by Michael for me for our 1st wedding anniversary, a Coral and Tusk embroidered print, a little picture made by C of his two teeny finger prints from years ago, and my favorite, the Vintage Dino Print from Cafe Press. The beautiful robot pillow on our red rocker is from Cafe Press as well.

The cute little frog rug was a gift from close family friends and Henry just loves it. It is so soft. our crib was also gifted to us. It was purchased from target and turns into both a toddler bed and a full size.

The amazing print above our bed is a photo Michael took of Chicago O'Hara airport which we had put on a canvas by East Canvas Prints.




So now, let's get to the good stuff! I'm excited to announce that Cafe Press has generously offered two, yes! TWO, of my fabulous readers a chance to win a print or a pillow from Cafe Press.To clarify, one winner will get a print and the other will get a pillow of their choice. For those of you who don't know, Cafe Press has about a million different home goods and tee shirts. They make great gits and will customize a piece for you. I LOVE THEM. All you have to do is leave a comment here and check out Cafe Press's WEBSITE. i would love to hear what your favorite part of Henry's room is. Even your least favorite. I'd love to hear what you all think!
The contest will close on Friday at 6 PM and I will announce the winner on Monday morning.

I mean, does it get any cuter?

Good Luck!!

Helping out....

I have been asked to help decorate a family friend's tween daughter's bedroom. I am beyond excited about this. I have been obsessing and collecting ideas and inspiration. I don't get to do a lot of "girlie" decorating so this is a fun opportunity for me.

I wanted to go for a pastel color palette with a vintage, shabby chic feel to the room. However, she quickly expressed that she wanted very little pink, a lot of bright colors, and preferably peace signs. She already has an adorable canopy bed and dresser. She requested a bright colored moon chair, a dressing table with a mirror to hold all her baubles and hair clippys, and some fun wall art.

I found this cute comforter set from Seventeen bedding from Become.com and I'm using it as the basis for the whole room. They had about 100 different options on the Become website which is a site that helps you compare prices from other sites. It made it easier to find a good deal since we are on a tight shopping budget. and we went back and forth but I think this was the best. The color palette is exactly what she wanted but it is still plain enough for her to keep it as she gets older. I can't believe Seventeen Magazine has all this amazing room stuff for girls. I was OBSESSED with Seventeen when I was younger and would have been so psyched on all their stuff.



All I need now is something to hang on her walls. I was thinking of trying to take on a DIY project for this. Any ideas? Maybe a giant peace sign of some sort? I found giant letter from the craft store that I was thinking about spelling out her name with. I welcome all suggestions!

I Heart Cafe Press

Sooo I am very excited to announce that the nursery tour will be up within the next week! YAY! FINALLYYYYYYYY. The room is done, just waiting on the photographer to come in and snap some pics.

I ALSO (Yes, it gets better) will have a giveaway with Cafe Press posted the same day. Remember when we had one before? Well, this time it will be a bit different and if you can believe it this one will be EVEN BETTER.

Sorry about the caps but I'm excited.

In case you didn't already know, Cafe Press is a website filled to the tippity top with millions of
funny t-shirts and customized coffee mugs. All of which would make fantastic Mother’s Day gifts!

They have a huge selection of home goods which works great for me, since, as many of you know, I am currently redecorating our entire loft. The lovely people over at Cafe Press were so kind to send me a framed print and a pillow for Henry's lair. I gotta say I had the hardest time picking something out because they have about a gazillion different options. I could literally spend hours going through all their gifts and posters and shirts and home goods and well, you get the idea. I thought I would share with you some of my fav prints...

Prints R-L

 Alice and Cheshire Cat Print
Be Unique Print
I Can Fly Print
Giraffe Kiss Print
 Laundry Thief 
Victorian Girl
 Little Prince
 Stan Jr. Print
  Vintage Dino Print
Yellow Print

Obsessed: Crocheted Lace Rug by Hooked Design

 

Get them HERE

Obsessed: Canvas Storage Box by Maron Bouillie

Get Them HERE

Kid's Decor

At out last loft we made C's room the absolute best in the house. It was colorful and warm and more importantly it has his personality in every corner. I never fully photographed it but here are a few pic from a Christmas a while back when we bought him his own computer and desk and wrapped it up. You can get a pretty good idea of what it looked like. Our issue now at our new loft is that he has really grown out of his bedroom. He turns 9 this week and it just feels too "babyish".

Note the custom made Thomas the Tank Engine bedding made my husband.

 It's hard to see but we had a little dresser with bright blue number drawer pulls...adorable!

We also did a lot of custom artwork actually made by my step son. All of it is way to "young" for him now.

Truthfully, I have NO money to put into our house right now but this weekend we are going to hit up some indoor flea markets and  thrift stores to look for storage ideas. I have been compiling picture after picture on my desktop of rooms that inspire me. How did you make the change from baby to "big kid" room without losing the whimsy and fun?

Our other issue is the play room. Right now? It sucks.




No rug or chairs or storage what so ever. It's just a few bins full of stuff and toys all over the floor. It's been made a top priority. It's hard to tell in these pictures but the main wall is curved. It's the shape of a wave and at no point does it flatten out so I could hang pictures. The other wall in the playroom is tin so all the prints and art work I have for the room couldn't go there either. I'm not sure how to make it work, other than hitting up Ikea and doing the generic bookcase thing.

I like a home to feel just like that, a home. I am well aware that there is no way to make everything happen over night. A home is made over time and not by one trip to the store. I'm looking forward to treasure hunting but at the same time I am anxious for the end result.

If any of you see some great playroom storage ideas or older kid/teen bedrooms please feel free to share them with me! 


Wanna see some of inspiration. Check out my Pinterest board for Kiddo Decor HERE!