Made by Heather

Stripes.  I love them.  That’s why when Heather emailed me and told me she’d painted stripes in her little girl’s room I was ecstatic and with enthusiastic fingers, emailed her back asking for pictures.  Check out her toddler’s sweet little (big!) room:

The room was already tan so all she did was put up the white stripes.  She said taping and painting the stripes was tough because of the odd shape of her little girl’s room, which I can imagine, but after a little trial and error, she had a friend help her and all was well.  Doesn’t it look awesome?

And speaking of awesome, the curtains!  They were Heather’s first sewing project (umm, can we say natural talent?) and they turned out great (I’m pretty sure my first sewing project went straight to the garbage)!  The chevron pattern and the bold pink add so much to the room!  She also painted most of the canvases and artwork on the walls and she painted the corner shelf.  There’s so much she did in here for her sweet baby girl and that kind of love can’t be bought.  Ya know? :) 

Thank you for sharing Heather!

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Need more stripes?  Check out our twins nursery (& the how-to), this painted rug, these pillow covers and their matching faux roman shade, this sweater-to-cardigan refashion, these DIY baby legwarmers, and this Instapic.  Do I have a stripe addiction?  #yes

In Other News…

The blog here is going through a serious case of neglect.  I blame it on the three piglets in the house, fat with my attention.  I do have some projects and a few stories on the assembly line though stamped with a big “TBD”.  I’ll probably be posting some sneak peeks on Instagram and Facebook though, so you can start heading down those routes if you want to stay in the loop.  :)

Until I get all my ducks in a row and napping in sync, check these out:

I’ve been eyeing this swimsuit since last summer and I just can’t shake it out of my mind.  It’s a little on the expensive side for me but I wear swimsuits for at least three years so I’m thinking maybe it’ll be worth it (and I have birthday money burning a hole in my sweatpants pocket).   

For those of you on the ‘gram, you should chase after Shalice’s Instagram feed.  I recently stumbled upon her and her incredible sense of style.  I rarely have closet envy but she’s colored me green with it.  The fact that a ton (and I mean a ton) of the stuff she wears/styles is thrifted makes me heart her and her closet that much more.  And I thought I had closet full of thrift scores… 

Let’s talk eyebrows.  Do you fill yours in?  I don’t and never have but Maskcara’s tutorial makes me want to try.  I mean, look at the difference between her filled and unfilled brows!  Amazing!

Easy recipes are my favorite since I don’t exactly enjoy cooking (but baking?  That’s another story).  So, this brown sugar and garlic baked chicken caught my scrolling finger on Pinterest and we’ve made it twice in two weeks because it’s easy AND good.  I usually don’t like chicken recipes that don’t involve marinade because I’m not a fan of that pure chicken taste but this one is a thaw-the-chicken-and-throw-it-in-the-oven recipe and it tastes mighty good.  A few alterations I made:  I baked it at 400 degrees for 30 minutes and sprinkled white cheddar cheese (Cabot sharp cheddar) over the top when there was 10 minutes left on the clock.  Scrumptious.

And bonus, I set Sebastian on Seraphia (I can’t really say I let her “hold” him because he’s literally almost the size of her) and she loved it.  Aside from being binki-stuffed, I’d say he liked it to…maybe.  Watch:

S and S from Sheena Tobin on Vimeo.

Blue Light

I’m notorious for jumping around rooms, doing projects as I go but something’s gotten into me and after the new gallery wall in the hallway was finished, I moved to the boring light fixture.  I’m sure it’s been here since the house was built (1980’s) and it’s not in the budget to completely scrap it for a brand new one.  So, I painted it (and forgot to take a ‘before’ picture before I did…oops).  It’s a simple little light – just a brushed silver base with a globe underneath.  After scheming, I came up with lots of ideas on ways to rework it by replacing the globe with a homemade capiz chandelier or a small lamp shade…but, eventually I settled on just painting the base.  I’ll be on the hunt the next time I’m thrifting (Lord knows when that’ll be but I’ve put in a request with Anthony to have a thrifting day for my birthday next week) for an old brassy I can jazz up to replace it with but until then, at least it’s lookin’ a little better.

All I did was take off the glass globe and then used a foam brush to prime the metal base (Zinnisser water-based primer in white).  I also made sure to prime the screws that hold in the globe since they’re visible.

Then I grabbed the leftover test pot of paint (Valspar’s Secluded Garden) I used to stamp our kitchen rug and painted the base with the same (cleaned and dried) foam brush, using a small paintbrush around where the base meets the ceiling.

I won’t be devastated if the paint doesn’t hold up but I don’t foresee too many problems since the light isn’t touched minus swapping out bulbs.

It’s a little more fun, no?

Either way, our hallway has traveled a small journey since we first moved in.

Next up is painting the cream colored door bell on the left wall.  I’d also love to add a fun geometric runner to cover up the ugly carpet but that’s number 430 on the priority list…however, I’m not sure how that would handle the girls wheeling their toys down the hall.  Anyone have a rug over carpet plus kids that stays put?  Fill me in.

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If you have a moment, please, please, please say a prayer or two for the two year-old daughter of our friends.  In the past month they’ve discovered a very large, cancerous tumor in her brain and she’s undergone multiple surgeries with more to come.  Her name is Madison and she’s so beautiful and so sweet.  I can’t imagine the difficulty it is to see your baby suffer at such a young age and my heart is broken for them.  But, they are very faithful and strong and know that God has a plan and it is always the best plan.

Blessed Francis Seelos, pray for us.

Galleria de Tobin

Naked walls are a thing around here.  If you’ve checked out our House Tour pages, you’ve probably noticed.  There are always plans to hang stuff but then babies, time, other projects, and indecision get in the way.  Not anymore (she says after experiencing the satisfaction and motivation that filling a couple of walls brings…we’ll see how long that lasts, won’t we?  Sebastian cackles in the background.)

Enter our boring hallway.

When planning gallery walls and collages and all that shebang, the hallway definitely wasn’t on the top of the list to fill as it’s probably the most inconspicuous spot in the house.  Guests walk down it to get to their home away from home but that’s about it.  I travel it’s short road only to grab something craft-related for a project or some fabric I have stashed in the guestroom.  Well, now it’s a walk down memory lane as well.  (Cue the oldies.)

A long time ago when I was perusing this thing they called “Pinterest”, this pin popped up in my feed:

(originally via Martha Stewart)

I loved the way the frames were all separated by a wide line and lined up along that line, top and bottom.  I had to have it and it had to be in the hallway.  That was the long-term plan, apparently. 

Well, since I had 20 frames to work with after our big Dirt Cheap haul, this pin was finally going to come to life.

It was seriously one of the easiest projects because all it took was a little measuring and hammering.  No collage working and re-working, no puzzling frames together in a big blob, none of that.  Just me and a few straight lines.  Here’s how I did it and how you can hang one of your very own.

First of all, this is a great project if you have a bunch of different sized, different types of frames (hit up your local thrift stores).  Like in the inspiration picture, you can layer frames on top of each other or you can have a couple of single rows like I do.  Either way the focus goes toward the vertical line down the middlestraight lines where the tops and bottoms line up.  (I know Walmart usually has an end cap full of frames of the same style for $3 each.)  Grab a bunch of different sizes or grab a bunch of the same size and alternate which way you hang them. 

Next, figure out a simple layout.  I laid all my frames out on the floor just as they’d hang on the wall to make sure my alternating pattern was going to look okay.  (Hint:  It does, so really you can skip this step if a’alternating you go.)  Then, to figure out at what height I wanted the frames, I took out the paper inserts in each frame and taped them to the walls (measurements below).
     

Once all that was squared away, I grabbed our level and (lightly) penciled in two lines along which I’d hang the frames.

Then I grabbed my handy dandy picture hanger – a piece of wood with a nail through the end:

(side view)

Then I hung the frame to be hung on it, held it exactly where I wanted it on the wall…

and pressed, making an imprint in the wall where the nail would go.  (If you don’t want to make one, this picture hanging tool would be a great investment!) 

See?

Pound a nail in, hang a frame, move on.  (Oh and don’t forget to erase/wipe off your pencil lines!)

Here are the measurements I used:

And that’s it.  Bada bing, Bada gallery wall.

As for the pictures in the frames, I just grabbed a few of our favorites off of Instagram, resized and edited them by adding the ‘Bob’ filter to each in pixlr.com (the pixlr-o-matic version), and got them printed (and delivered cause you know this mom ain’t braving the public alone quite yet), and inserted.

Since all of the frames were all stuffed in a shopping cart in close quarters, they’re all a little scuffed up here and there but it’s nothing that a little paint can’t fix.  I’m not doing it tomorrow but I’ve been dreaming of repainting our living room and hallway a bright white to lighten things up.  If that happens, how pretty would it be to spray paint these frames a pale gold?  Someday…

So, do you have any secrets/tips to easy gallery wall-ing?  Do share.  I’ve only got 50-some more walls to go!  :)

Sebastian: One Month Young

 
[He gets his gangsta from his pops.]

We’re all alive.  I can’t say it’s been a cake walk because then my nose might extend 10 feet out but, it’s been…mmm, interesting and crazy and hard and crazy and crazy.  I smiled and responded to those “You’re gonna have your hands full” people telling me, the pregnant lady pushing the twins in the double-wide, with “It’ll be crazy but we love it”, but I really didn’t know it’d be this crazy.  Camille took the words right out of my brain in her post this morning. 

But anyway, let’s turn the lights on the little man.  He’s charging up the growth scale, weighing 9 lbs. 11 oz. today (50th percentile) and stretching out at 22.75 inches (90th percentile).  He’s still a champ at eating but sleeping?  Eh…okay.  He’ll let me have one four hour stint every night and then it’s all two or three hours between feedings.  (But let me tell you – I am not complaining!  Feeding ONE vs. TWO in the wee hours of the morning is the only cake walk I’m treading right now!)  He’s still in his sleepy newborn phase but isn’t a fan of being put down so mama plays kangaroo with the moby wrap for most of the day.  Blah, blah, blah, I know lots of you know what a newborn is like and for those of you that don’t, I won’t detail his simple life and bore you to death.  The important thing is that he is dang cute and I have my handsome hubs to thank for that.  : )

Happy One Month little Sebastian!  We love you so!