Window Decorating

Several months ago, I picked up this super cute vintage window in an antique store.  I love the look of vintage made new and for $14 dollars, I couldn't pass.  Originally, I wanted to hang the window about the toilet in my guestroom bathroom where I displayed the vintage ladder towel bar. (see here)  Anyhow, J thought I was a fool and hated the idea.  I didn't end up liking it because it was too close to a real window.  I've tried hanging it on three different walls but it's huge and just didn't fit.  Until NOW that is!!!
The other day I was searching for a pair of old earrings of mine for E.  As I was searching, I found a bracelet I forgot I had and a few necklaces too.  Even though I have three jewelry boxes, I forget what I have since I don't have them on display.  I've seen on Pinterest where people creativity display their jeweler y in vintage picture frames and I was 5 minutes from heading out the door when I realized I didn't want to leave the house and thought I'd rummage my things before driving to Goodwill.  That's when I spotted the window....
I had already began busting the glass out of the window when I remembered to grab the camera for a DIY on this project.  To bust the glass out, I din't do anything fancy.  I just put it in the yard and took a rock to it, making sure to get the glass out of our severely droughted lawn.

I sanded and smoothed the frame just to soften it up a bit but decided no to paint it because I liked it the way it was all naturally distressed.

Then, I took a template of the window panes and traced 5 onto a cardboard box and cut them out.

I had some old fabric in a bin with just enough for three windows.  I hot glued the fabric to three of the cardboard sheets.

I made sure to over lap the cardboard like so:

I added two lace strips so I could pin small stud earrings to the lace.

I ran a line of hot glue around the window and inserted the covered cardboard back into the window frame.

I repeated this three times with the burlap looking fabric and used two sheets of left over anaglypta because I didn't have anything better to coordinate with the burlap and lace and I was too tired to go to the store.

For the 6th slot, I found a piece of wire rack from a closet I redid and wire clipped it down to fit the window size.  You could always use chicken wire or rabbit wire instead but again, I was using what I had on hand.

I had a soccer game and did end up at a store looking for hooks of some sort.  I wound up buying these pin sharps for $1.75 at Joanns.  I used my 50% coupon and got two packages.  WOO HOO!

I just stuck the pin sharps directly into the cardboard and it made a really nice, firm, hard grip that can support a great deal of weight more than any necklace I own.

Here's the finished project!  I'm absolutely delighted except for one thing... I have the worst jewelry collection now that I can see everything.  I guess I'll have to get on J to expand my pathetic collection!

50 Shades of Gray

I was just thinking, coloring was so much more fun when it was just crayola.  Here's where we are; the hold up has been paint color.  Originally, we painted the family room after we knocked down a wall and bought 5 gallons of this light gray paint.  When I poured out the paint, I was fearful because it looked white.  But, as I began painting and it dried, my beautiful light gray took on a purple hue.  Soon after that, the kids got home and they kept telling me they liked the purple room.  AGGGHHH!!!!  I had people over and they commented on the "lilac swatch" I had painted on the kitchen wall.  This "lilac" was the same light gray I was going to paint the ENTIRE downstairs!!

(PLEASE excuse this photo! It's the only one I have of the new couch and paint in the family room right now.  The couch had just been delivered and I was rearranging furniture and cleaning the room since we had been camping out on the floor in this room from the power loss.)

So, for about 4 months, I have been staring at this lilac swatch while my husband finishes up the wainscoting. Right next to the swatch, I have painted the other shades of gray for comparison.  I kept going back to the color I chose for the playroom and dining room and decided that I was going to switch and do the whole downstairs in that gray instead because it's just a great color.  I mean, I even painted my craft room that color!
Well, it had been a while since I was rubbing elbows with the home depot paint center until last week.  My friend was painting her living room gray and asking about my colors.  Her gray came out blue and she asked me for some advice.  I told her she could use my swatches I'd saved.  But when she went to home depot, they had switched out ALL of their paint samples and apparently the home depot guy said he couldn't look it up in the computer.  I had to see for myself and strolled over yesterday and was delighted about a bunch of new choices but bummed my old ones were gone since I was only 98% sure "gentle rain" was THE color for my whole 1st floor.  I grabbed a few swatches, came home, changed my mind and bought two samples; natural gray and cathedral grey.  I slapped some paint on a few walls and (GASP) not only does my whole house look like gray camouflage, but the paint looks purplish... AGAIN!!!
Back to the drawing board looking at my idea board, comparing colors of the new couch I bought last week and fabric I'm about to construct Roman shades out of.  JEEZE!!!  I needed help and J wasn't helpful because he was the one that sent me back to home depot to buy two samples of purple.  Fortunately, I spoke with the girl in the home depot paint center and she said she could look up my old color.  I logged onto www.Behr.com and looked up the color "gentle rain" to check out the next shade darker.  I was shocker to discover, well sort of, that gentle rain is in the blue family.  I played around with the shades and by going just a shade cooler to the yellow family, it's my office color!  My point is this..... when hanging out at home depot and staring into their color wheel of paint, it's not so obvious which direction to go to find your desired shade.  My suggestion would be to grab a color you really like and go to behr.com and find alternating shades from their.  Yeah... it takes you a little longer and costs you an extra trip but finding the right shade of gray has been more difficult than anything else I have done around here!
At this point, I'm trying to decide between ocean pearl and koala bear.

Again, I'm sorry for the delay and lack of posts.  The wainscoting has taken FOREVER and we were greatly affected by the central Ohio storms two weeks ago.  We lost half of our roof, the top of our chimney, had water pouring in the fireplace, the ceiling began leaking in 5 spots with the rain soon after and we were without power for 4 days and 5 nights.  Throw in the super high temps and we spent most of last week keeping cool at the pool and avoiding our 98 degree living room.

****************UPDATE!!!! August 25, 2012*************************
Do NOT go with Koala Bear or Road Runner if you are looking for gray.  Turns out that both are definitely shades of beige-ish green.  I was really disheartened and went back searching for the right gray and it turns out that the right shade was in front of me all along.  The gray I used in the downstairs master bath ended up not having a blueish color and remained a neutral gray through all hours of the day with different sunlight.  So the final choice will be Dolphin Gray by Behr for the living room and kitchen.  You will see it pictured in the wainscoting post HERE.