The Wall

Late last fall, our niece Heather Lehman of Lisbet Photography took some really fun family pictures of us.  I wanted to do these pictures honor by displaying them in just the right way.  So I thought and dreamed and thought some more, but nothing seemed to pop into my noggin.  Then, as if on cue, our oldest monkey girl gave us our Christmas present a bit early.

She photo crafted some beautiful letters to spell out our family name utilizing natural elements.  Then, our oldest monkey boy made a rustic frame for the letters and Presto! we have a masterpiece, and as it turned out, a centerpiece for the family photo wall.

In order to design the wall, I opted for simple white 8x10 frames from IKEA.  The frames do not distract from Heather's amazing shots of our family.  I arranged the photos in groupings - individuals of the boys, individuals of the girls, family, kids together, and of course one of the two people responsible for all of these monkeys. 

I also had a vision to keep the wall rustic and natural since our pictures were taken in the great outdoors.  Since, I had some lovely pottery made by my niece and my sister in law, I decided to showcase those fun pieces on the wall.  

The wall was really shaping up, but I had a dilemma.  Our doorbell speaker (blasted, ugly thing) was in the way of the almost perfect picture wall.  That speaker jeered at me with its ugliness and taunted me with its presence.  So, I had two choices.  I could demolish the darn thing.  Heaven knows, I've wanted to smash that doorbell so many times when it blasted out its annoying "ding dong" just as I had put the baby to sleep and sat down to eat bon bons.  Or I could camouflage it...

I opted for the camouflage route.  With the strategic placement of a couple of birds and a nest, I said, "Take that you ding dong!"

So there you have it, our family photo wall.  It is my second favorite wall in our house.  Stay turned and I will show you my first favorite photo wall soon.

Hugs,

Melissa

Windows of Time - A Graduation Photo Journaling Project

I am a picture buff.  I absolutely love looking a photos!  Considering the fact that we have thousands of printed and digital pictures documenting our lives, I can sometimes sit and get lost looking at all those memories.

I wanted to do something really special with our photos for our oldest daughter's high school graduation celebration. I usually put together a slide show for special occasions, but I wanted to do something really unique.

So, I pondered and thought and brainstormed, and nothing happened.  I could not think of anything unique.  I was uninspired.

Until, I pulled into our garage one evening and saw THEM.  Who knew that my inspiration had been sitting under my nose the whole time?  Actually, in my defense, I usually move as quickly as humanly possible from the garage into our house because in 1984 I saw a snake out there and I have not been the same since.

These amazing window frames definitely helped get my creative wheels turning.

I picked up these frames at an antique shop somewhere in the high hills of Wisconsin.

They were such a steal that I had to get them.  Of course that meant that I might have to ride on the roof all the way home to Florida so that we would have room for them in the van, but Music Man figured it all out.  My hero!

Each of the three frames have character.  I love that two of them even have the window ledge still intact.

So to get this photo journaling project started, I decided to print out pictures from different phases and stages of our daughter's life thus far.  I utilized each individual window frame as a display to "document" the early, middle and current years of her life.  It was fun to adorn each window with the pictures and special memorabilia from her life.

I used tabs of invisible tape on the back of each photo to anchor them to the wood on the frames.

The pictures stayed on for days, but were easy to take down in the end and they were all in pristine condition.

I absolutely loved this photo display and I really think that it honored our daughter's life story.

Hugs,

Melissa

Invasion of the Fire Ants

Our little monkey boy has been drawing a lot lately. He is creating the most adorable faces and little stick people. The only problem is that he has the uncanny knack of "borrowing" other little artists masterpieces to draw on.

We have entitled this hijacked drawing "Invasion of the Fire Ants". The artist has created a foreboding mood as the tranquil serenity of Candy Land is disrupted by renegade fire ants parachuting into the Lolly Pop Forest.

Just look at the smug looks on those ants' faces.  The horror!  

Hugs,

Melissa