Who are these people anyway?

I have a final thought to pass along on hanging photos or artwork (for this week anyway).

I love how my friend Marianne hung her collection of silhouettes.

Hanging any one of them alone would have been fine, but see how much greater the impact is with them gathered together? The black and white silhouettes and the black frames create a piece of art themselves, regardless of the subject matter.

This could work with any collection, especially if the frames are all the same. And, if you want to start collecting silhouettes, keep in mind that the older ones are more affordable in singles rather than pairs. You can also find a lot of them that are inexpensive from the '50s, '60s and'70s, when people tended to get their kids' silhouettes done more.

See you on Sunday with my I Love These Ideas! column. If you or someone you know has a fun, interesting or creative idea for decorating, feel free to pass it along to me at Mary@AtHomeRedesigns.com.

Thanks!

Time to let these brides shine

I thought I'd show you one more idea for photos in addition to the tips I posted yesterday.

I found I had a lot of wedding photos when I was going through older family photos for the wall heading up my staircase.

So, I decided to feature a bunch of them on another wall. Some are copies of photos I borrowed.

And a few friends still owe me copies of their wedding portraits. You know who you are...

Picture this: Hanging photos without a hassle

I'm often asked about the best way to hang multiple photos, along the lines of what I've done in the wall heading up the stairs of my house.

So I thought I'd pass along a few tips:

• Decide on a general overall shape you want to wind up with: rectangle, square, asymmetrical... For my wall, I decided to follow the line of the stairs.
  
• This works really well, especially if you've got a lot of pictures: Trace the frames onto paper and hang the paper shapes on your wall with tape. That way you can switch things around without making holes in your wall. When you're sure you're happy, hang the photos.



• Mat at least some of the photos to give your eye a rest around the photos. Same when you hang the photos... leave spaces around them so you can really appreciate each of the photos.

  
  

• If you've got a lot of smaller photo or snapshots, think about combining them in a single piece. If you don't know how to mat your own photos, a professional can do it.
• You can cut down on the cost of hiring a professional by finding your own frames. I scouted for antique or second-hand frames for months for my staircase before I took some of them to be professionally matted.
  
  
  
  

  Photos can be copied so easily now and the results are good enough that it's hard to tell when you're not dealing with an original.

• If relatives have photos you love, especially older photos, borrow them and copy them for yourself.

A lot of the photos on my wall are copies, like the one above, of my Aunt Carol, Uncle Mike and their kids.

Great family, but Cindy's a little dippy, Jan's insecure, and Marcia, well, it's all about her...

A contest: Win yourself a fun project!

What's better than a contest? How about a contest and a how-to? Oh yea, now we're talking.

See those flowers over the bed in my friend Chris's room? They are actually vinyl art that you can apply to walls or any other hard, smooth surface. The folks at Stampin' Up came up with the idea as part of their Décor Elements line, which offers several pretty art options.

The company sent me two sets of the flowers to try and another two sets for one of my readers. If you'd like to throw your name in for the flower art and the little tool you need to apply them, leave a comment and I'll draw a winner's name on Friday.

The flowers come in a set of three sizes. Chris and I decided to jazz up her bedroom using three brown flowers and three tan flowers (which the winner will also receive).

The vinyl designs are sandwiched between two pieces of paper, a backing and a sticky side that you attach to the wall.

Now the how-to:

Before you remove the backing, decide where to put the designs and tape them to the wall with painter’s tape.

Mark the locations with a pencil.

Remove the backing, after rubbing it to be sure the design is well attached to the sticky paper. You need to do this step slowly and re-rub the paper if it isn’t quite sticking.

Apply the sticky paper to the wall. Rub the design well.

Pull off the sticky paper and poof: you’re done.

It took us about an hour and a half to do this. Getting the design to stay on the sticky side was the toughest part. But we worked on the technique and it went faster the more we did it.

The two sets of flowers and the tool cost about $50 if you were to buy them.

The company offers other designs, alphabet sets, and letters for monogramming. You can use them on walls, mirrors, lampshades, and even furniture.

So comment and win yourself some fun!

A Snapshot: Roses are purple, violets are orange...

I picked up this oil painting for my office for two reasons. One: It perfectly complements the green of the walls. Two: All the colors are all crazy. The seagull is black, the sky is green and the ocean is yellow. And around here, we appreciate crazy...

Art or obsession?

You might think the best thing about living (relatively) near the ocean is the view, or the sound of the surf, or the fried seafood.

In fact, the best thing is: Free art in the form of all the seashells you can carry home in the bottom of a tote bag full of sand and wet towels.

Check out this grouping that hangs in my bathroom. I took six picture frames and glued a shell to each, on the outside of the glass.

You could do the same with interesting rocks or bits of sea glass.


I also tossed some in a wooden box in the family room that keeps the remotes in check.

You can glue a collection into an old printer's tray and use it like you would a print or a painting, like I did in my family room.

Or you can use them to in your patio, deck or garden decorating...

You wouldn't want to overdo it, though. It's too late for me... Save yourself.

Will you stop sleeping on my lawn now?

Since I posted an item about how my talented friend Chris frames her children's artwork and displays it over her desk, she's been all over me for more blog time. She goes on and on about how it changed her life: she's happier; her hair is softer; fruit tastes fresher.

So, she's been really busy trying to get my attention: Spray painted her dog (good for furniture, Chris, not animals); upholstered her children (again, nice effort); wallpapered her car (I really don't know what to say...).

Then she finally hit on something: She had a big frameless mirror so she smashed a bunch of dishes (I think she does that pretty regularly anyway) and glued the pieces on the mirror, making herself a mosaic frame.

Then she made it the centerpiece of an art wall in her family room.

Good idea, no? Can't wait for the next one...

If only you needed a stamp for email…

The U.S. Postal Service this week issued a pane of 16 stamps honoring American designers Charles and Ray Eames. And I must say I love them.

Even though the couple worked in architecture, furniture design, manufacturing and photographic arts, Charles (1907-1978) and Ray (1912–1988) are probably best known for making modern design accessible to the general public post-WWII.

(They are responsible for the iconic stackable molded chairs that you probably recognize even if you didn’t know the name Eames.)

The pane of stamps is beautiful, don’t you think? Since we hardly ever mail stuff anymore…and who wants to waste such a nice stamp on the electric company anyway…what to do with them?

You can frame them...a modern, floating frame would look best.

Want to learn more? Check out the Eames Foundation, where you can also browse/buy a lot of cool products.

Better than anything you could buy

My friend Chris is one of the hardest working people you could meet, with two kids, a full-time communications job that she does from home, and several freelance writing jobs that she does...I'm not sure when...probably when the rest of us are sleeping.

And she's creative, to boot. Here's a great idea you can steal from her: She frames her children's artwork and arranges it above her desk. The pictures are easy enough to replace as the kids come up with something new.

The result: a colorful, fun wall that keeps changing and keeps you smiling.

So put your kids (or someone else's) to work. Faster! Faster! Or no supper!