Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Heart of the Home

When I was growing up (and even now) the heart of our home was the kitchen/dining room.  It seemed that my mother was always in the kitchen, and, to spend time with her we just take a seat on one of the bar stools at the counter.  We also always ate dinner as a family, around the table.  On special occasions we would finish with dinner and either sit around talking (for hours) or play a game of some kind (we were big fans of Sequence and Spoons). 

When purchasing our house, it was important to me to have a space for a dinner table, not only due to my memories of my family, but also because I enjoy hosting dinner parties, and truly believe that the heart of a home is where laughter and socialization occurs... the dinner table.

We found a great table on Craigslist, but the space around it seemed kind of bland/empty.  I wanted some artwork to hang on the wall above the table, but couldn't find anything (at a reasonable price) that I liked.  Until, one day, I got an e-mail from ArtsCow.

ArtsCow is an online photo product printing company.  If you sign up (free) on their site you get a BUNCH of free stuff, and killer deals.  I've made several photo books with them and only paid for the shipping fees.  I pretty much love them. =)

Anyway, back to my story... I got an e-mail from ArtsCow letting me know about a promotion that they were doing for three canvas prints.  I was immediately interested, however, didn't have any shots that I felt went with the natural/neutral theme in my living/dining room/kitchen space.  So, one weekend, not too long ago, Jacob and I went to the International Rose Test Garden here in Portland and went photo happy.  From those photos, I uploaded three for prints, placed my order and then purchased stretch bars from a couple of art supply stores.  When my print came in the mail, I sent to work mounting the canvas and hanging them on the wall.  The mounting was a pain (the print was a little too small for the bars, but totally my fault and could easily be avoided had I thought about things a little bit more before placing the order) but I am ultimately quite happy about the way it turned out.








I still feel like it needs a little something more though, so I'm contemplating buying some vinyl word art such as this.  Has anyone used this type of thing before?  Does it work well?

1 comment:

Meghan C said...

The canvases look great! I don't have experience with wall vinyls but my MIL put one up in "Elsa's room" at her house. She couldn't get it to stick very well on its own so she used a bit of scotch tap in some areas. She does have quite a bit of texture on her walls, so that could have contributed to her difficulty.