Stop staring and start sewing!

My Shabby Chic Design Board Challenge for Chairish

I received an email from Holly at Chairish.com asking if I'd like to take part in their latest design board challenge and I said "Yes!".  Chairish is an online store where you can both buy and sell beautiful items for your home. They have everything from large furniture pieces, rugs, and chandeliers to small wall hangings, fabrics, and even wallpaper.

The theme of this challenge was Shabby Chic (take a peek at all the goodies in their Shabby Chic section at Chairish) and they sent me pictures of items that are currently listed on Chairish and I used them (and more) in my design board. I love the Shabby Chic look but I love to throw in some unexpected items too so I couldn't pass on the map and nature prints (or the Coca Cola crate on the table!).

This is a room I would love to call my own. Hop on over to Chairish and enjoy shopping for some one of a kind treasures for your home. Everything on my design board is over there (except the floor and flowers, you're on your own there).

A huge thanks to the folks at Chairish for the invitation! That was fun!

Make a canvas of your favorite state

I'm in the process of decorating some new shelves and really wanted a pop of turquoise in a couple of spots. I'm also trying to add meaningful items as I spruce things up so these state canvases were the perfect solution. I'm an Oregon native (my ancestors were among the first 50 wagons on the Oregon Trail), but we truly love living in Arizona (even though the move 20 years ago was supposed to be temporary) so I included both states on my shelves.

I got these 2 slanted 8 x 8 canvases at Michaels and they are terrific because they can sit anywhere on the shelf without having to lean against the back of the shelf. They were 7.99 each (but I had a coupon). The acrylic colors I picked are plain old white (in satin) for touch ups, Apple Red 2901, and Patina 2951. I got a few new paint brushes too.

First I found silhouettes of the states on Google images and sized them to around 6 inches across using Adobe Illustrator (you can probably do the same in Gimp or any other graphic editing software). Then I used some tracing paper (the kind used for tracing sewing patterns) between the canvas and the printed page and traced around the state with a pointy pen).

Here's the canvas after I traced on it.

I carefully painted within the lines and ended up needing 3 coats of paints to get it really covered.

I traced a little heart over our cities and painted the hearts red.

I love them!  They look perfect on my new shelves and make my heart happy.

Yay! Such a simple and fun project.