On the walls: The Bianchini

Photo via Jennifer Kirk Photography

If you recently read my post over at Just a Trace you may have noticed the little red car (also known as a Bianchini) we drove to and from our wedding. This car was one of the highlights of our wedding day; it had so much character: it was red, it had an old green suitcase attached at the back, the driver wore driving goggles and since the car didn't have a radio, the driver brought one with him and kept it in the front seat.

Photo via Jennifer Kirk Photography

This car will always hold a special little place in our hearts.

Late last year, Becky from Sketchy Styles posted something on her Facebook page talking about her illustrations and what a great gift idea one of them would be for a loved one. My brain went into over drive as I thought about what I could have illustrated to give to Mark for Christmas and it popped into my head: the car!

I sent a note to Becky asking her what she thought of the idea. She seemed on board. She typically works in black and white and when I asked her if it would be possible to make the car red she was up for the challenge (if you've seen her recent painting posts, I'm sure my little car wasn't much of a challenge! This gal is super talented!).

I sent her a few photos for inspiration and she got to work. After approving a proof via email, I got the final piece of art in the mail a few weeks later.

Voila! Cute right? I put it in a rustic looking frame I found at Target and put it in the basement under a picture of the house where Mark and I met (and lived in school!) which is pretty fitting. I think I might change up the mats in both photos to keep them a bit more consistent, but for now it's fine.

What do you think? What would you have illustrated?

*This is not a promotional post however I do use affiliate links.

I love you more

What a day my friends. 

It was one of those days where it felt like someone was constantly scratching their nails on a chalkboard the entire day, right beside my ear. The kids were crazy and, I'm not sure about you, but ever since I had them, my monthly womanly hormones make me feel like I have the ultimate city driving road rage (TMI? Ahh what the heck).

What was this post about?

Oh yes. I love you more. Right. Because even though my kids drive me batty sometimes, I really do love them. So around the holidays I decided to put something on the walls telling them so.

Ever since Leo could talk, we've been saying I love you more to him (an he to us) as part of his bedtime routine. It started off with "I love you more than fire trucks" but soon extended to include every member of his Lightning McQueen car posse, in addition to one of his garbage trucks. So we now have to say that we love him more than all of those things before he goes to bed. 

Anyway I made this print and thought it would be cute to put it on the wall as part of my ever growing little gallery going up the stairs. I have another little 'love' inspired project in the works too. More coming when I get time to do it ;).

Happy weekend.

On the walls: Gallery Box from posterjack.ca

If you follow me on Instagram you'll know that I recently got some fun mail from posterjack.ca. They were kind enough to offer me a Gallery Box with a photo of my choice so we chose one from our recent family photo shoot with Nataal.

I received a metal print a while back from posterjack.ca and I loved the quality, so I knew it would be good this time around, but I didn't realize how good. My husband and I couldn't believe the quality of the Gallery Box. The photo was super crisp and clear (of course it helps to be using a photo from a professional photographer) and the frame used with the photo is high quality. It's typical to what you would see around a canvas piece.

We were going to put the photo in the basement, but we loved it so much we decided to keep it upstairs in the livingroom. There was actually a perfect spot for it under one of our wedding photos.

If you're interested in getting a new piece for your home, I highly recommend the Gallery Box. The process for uploading the photo is very simple and the photo came in the mail in a week or so. By the way, I was given the photo, however all reviews are my own. I really do love it and I'm considering getting more made.

on the walls

A few months ago, we ordered a Toronto poster from Ork Posters out of Chicago and we finally got around to framing it and getting it up on the wall in the basement.

First I would like to get this off my chest: framing is such a rip off! I made sure to get to Michael's for the "60% off sale" and even with this discount the stupid thing was more than $200. Ridiculous.

That being said we do love it :)

It even has our neck of the woods: Mimico! Can you see it down there? Please visit our little neighbourhood. It's quite lovely with the lake and swans and such.

ps- I just learned that there are three NHL players from Mimico! Wow! I had better get those hockey skates for Leo pronto!

chalkboard thingamabob border - done!

Well I did it! I spent an hour painting my new chalkboard in the basement while watching Charlie's Angels last night after dinner (I was excited for this show but I kind of get while it was cancelled last week)...

Can I just take a moment to say this is a big deal for me. You should know that I'm afraid of doing things that involve walls. My husband paints (or we hire a painter), and my husband hangs things on walls for me because I don't have patience to find studs in a wall and add plugs so that a picture holds up properly (I usually use tacks or two sided tape!). This may be the reason why I haven't done this project yet!

So the other day I thought Ok I'm just going to do it.

Again, here are my inspiration photos:

Source: littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

And here's my version as it stands now:

It's a bit wonky, but over all I'm pretty happy with it. Mark doesn't think it's practical for kids because he thinks they'll write on the wall, but I figure if that's the case then we'll just paint out the entire wall down the road. Also, I'd like to jazz up the border a bit, so last night I ordered some chalk markers online and with those I'd like to add a bit of a design of some sort.

ps--I was going to fold up the drop cloth for the pic, but look at my cat! He's so comfortable there! I think he discovered the in-floor heating and likely won't move from this spot for awhile.

Getting there...

Bit by bit we're getting there with the house... this weekend we were able to add more to the kitchen to really make it feel more like home. I still have to make a roman shade for the window and then I'm done! I've ordered this fabric and can't wait to get the room finalized.

Until then, here is a pic of our new shelf!

We mostly put it here to fill up the space above the stove... I recently bought the print from Eva Juliet called Les Cuilleres which I am totally in love with. I also put some limoncello bottles from our wedding/honeymoon as well as an oil carafe from my husband's relatives there.

I also thought I'd share a couple pics of my home office.

I spend a zillion hours a day here because I work at home four days a week, so I really wanted to be a reflection of me. The walls are grey (I have a slight obsession with grey...), the main pic is one my husband took on a trip to Newfoundland a couple years ago, and the side pic is one from printspace called bird stack in red... My computer wall paper (which is covered by a bunch of icons...) is actually a pic from Alicia Bock from the Kindred site. I find it so calming.

So we're getting there! If you want to see more pics of the house so far I've set up a Flickr set here. After the upstairs is done I hope to have some befores and afters ('cause we've just ripped up all of the carpet and will be replacing the hardwood in the fall and right now it ain't pretty!).

Happy Monday!