A little love in the kitchen

March 21, 2012 By

Jim and I have a very colorful, fruity accent tile in our kitchen. I have tried to embrace the fruit and first the kitchen was yellow and now it’s red, but I’ve totally changed my mind and now want to paint the walls light gray. But in the meantime, I’m always dreaming up ways to enjoy my time in the kitchen and minimize the fruit tiles. While I was mopping yesterday, mine and Jim’s first dance song came on my iPod and I immediately stopped what I was doing to create a sweet piece of art for the kitchen.

I’ve been playing around with some new fonts that I wanted to see in person, already had the frame, and it took just a few minutes of tweaking the spacing but not I have a daily reminder of the magic of our wedding day. This little print makes me smile and *bonus!* covers up a few of those tiles.

The best part was Jim was a little concerned that I had hot glued the frame to the tile {not drilled into the tile, but hot glued. What does this say about me?}. His concern is not out of line {The hot glue gun was on the counter because I was working on another Easter egg wreath and I am a former classroom teacher – we used to hot glue *everything* to the cinder block walls! And I may or may not have hot glued some trivets to the kitchen cabinets to hold my recipes for the week.}. However, I had picked up some of the 3M picture-hanging strips at Target and they were super easy to use.

So now I think I’m going to buy a bunch more of the frames and just line them up along the backsplash…what do you think?! {Just kidding! Kind of.}

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{Changes} Creating a Magnetic Chalkboard Space

August 5, 2011 By

We live in a very charming {and small} home, and I’m always looking for beautiful, functional ways to maximize our space. There is a swinging door between our dining room and galley kitchen, and for obvious reasons {ahem, the toddler!} we keep it open at all times. A few years ago, I decided to make use of the space by hanging one of Ikea’s nifty magnetic strips on the door and displaying invitations, recipes, and such.

But after being part of the blogging world, I realized that I could make *much* more use out of the door. Some of my favorite bloggers {here and here} and my absolute favorite magazine endorsed magnetic primer and/or chalkboard paint to make things a little more fun and interesting. And, I’m totally embracing the idea of using what we have but making it ours. None of this waiting around for our ‘dream’ home; there’s no reason our first home can’t be exactly what I want!

SO, once I convinced the hubs that this would be a super fun project, he went with me to buy the supplies and I invited my mom to a painting party {with one roller – thanks, Mom!} while Jim was at work one day. I cleaned the door, let it dry, then used painter’s tape to frame out the panels. I had read from Jen that you needed more than the three coats of primer suggested on the can, so I went with eight, just to be sure.

After the multiple coats of primer, I was ready to get started with the chalkboard paint. I put on one coat and then Jim put the final coat on the door last Saturday while I was running.

And now, we have a fun and functional space to display our invitations and family calendar and Molly can use the bottom to draw while we’re hanging out in the kitchen. **Confession: We haven’t actually used the chalkboard function of the door yet. I don’t know what I’m waiting for…

I think it looks great! Now if only I can convince the hubs to raise the cabinets to the ceiling {I hate that space between the ceiling and the cabinets, don’t you?} and redo the backsplash, including installing a fun little shelf for display and spices. I’ll keep you posted about that project.

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Special delivery

July 6, 2011 By

There are so many things to enjoy about creating beautiful and fun paper products with my sister – we both love paper, so that’s a given; I talk to my sister a lot – over 1800 minutes one month – and we share roughly 40 emails on a daily basis; and we have gotten to {virtually} meet and talk with some really cool people via our blog and Etsy shop.

But the coolest thing, by far, is going to my mailbox and finding an invitation, notecard or announcement that WE designed. Our friends have been *so* supportive over the past 13 months and are the best repeat customers. It makes me happy to not only see our designs in print, but to know that our friends trust us enough to create these memories for them.

{My $4 Ikea magnetic strip and $1 Crate and Barrel magnet clips might be my favorite things in my kitchen. Besides the invitations, of course!}

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