Bring the Outside In

I always love having fresh flowers in our living room and dining from our rose bushes, but sometimes my rose bushes I neglected dead heading for two months! are kind for sad, instead of spending some extra money on flowers for our house, I decided to snip some from the trees and bushes around our house. I did this a few months back when the cherry blossoms were blooming, and they looked stunning.

I grabbed my pruning scissors I snipped a few branches from our big tree in our front yard and some bushes on the side our house. Before bringing the branches inside I washed them in our garage sink to remove any bugs. In the past I've made the mistake of bringing roses in the house before cleaning them outside and seen a bug of two crawl out of the bud. Yucky and freaky, take my advice, rinse them outside and then bring them in!

I cut two long branches for our extra large vase in our dining room. I love the simplicity of the large vase on our dark stained table. It makes a nice statement.

For our living room a few cut branches for a bush for a simple look in the glass vase. I paired the vase with my favorite 'go-to' white vase bought at Crate & Barrel. I simple succulent plant in case square plant holder make a nice trio.

Yesterday it was an extremely hot day well over 105 degrees, yet my house was all nice and shaded thanks to our tree. So getting a good shot without using flash was nearly impossible for me. I mixed in leftover short tree branches from the dining room arrangement with bush branches. The green branches complement our yellow tray, I placed on top of the side table. 

This is my way of enjoying the pretty greenery inside our house while avoiding  the 100+ degree weather we've been experiencing outside for the past few days. How do you bring the outside, into the inside of your home?

Artful Updates { Part Two } Project Done

Last week I shared two pieces of art at Mr CLH & I found on the cheap at our local Salvation Army for only $ 2.50 each! We scored them at a 50% off everything sale. As I mentioned last week we planned on updating each piece of art work with new custom mattes and glossy paint on the already nice frames. I ordered custom mattes from Micheal's, which breathed new life into each print. It's amazing what the right paint and frame color can do to a print!

After we changed out the old mattes, I attached new backing to the frames using heavy construction paper and also attached new hanging hardware.

Here's a reminder of how the 'Bird Print' looked before updating the print.

Here's a close up reminder of how the faux matte cheapen the look of the print.

Here's our 'Bird Print' now. I'm always amazed by the power of paint! The frame is now painted a glossy white and the new matte, helps create more balance. Now instead of your eyes being drawn to the dark frame and then maybe the print, they go directly to the print. This print will hang either on our dining room or bathroom. Mr CLH is still not a huge fan of the print, but he loves the white frame and matte.

Next up, a reminder of how the 'Trees' print looked when we bought it home, I'm still amazed we paid only $ 2.50 for this 22x19 inch print! Remember this print was already custom framed, however it really need updating. The yellow mustard matte really took away the beauty and simpleness of the print.

Here's our print now. I painted the frame a glossy bright white and went with a dark grey matte to enhance the black and white print. I love how this artful update turned out, its a breath of fresh air.

We plan on hanging the 'Trees' print at the end of our hallway. Once both pictures are up, I'll share new pictures of them. I know everyone loves a good cost breakdown, here's how ours added up.

Project Break Down:

Bird Print $ 2.50 

Custom Matte $ 5.20

Construction Paper $ .97 (for back of artwork)

White Glossy Paint & Caulk - n/a had both on hand. I used the caulk to fill in the seams

Picture Hardware: n/a had on hand

Trees Print $ 2.50

Custom Matte: $ 6.00

White Glossy Paint & Caulk - n/a had both on hand

Construction Paper $ .97 (for back of artwork)

Picture Hardware: n/a had on hand

Total cost $ 18.14 not including tax

The biggest cost of our update were the custom mattes from Micheal's, which were a steal!! I brought each frame in with the picture inside and they did all the measuring for the frames. I picked out the matte colors and they mattes were cut within 24hrs. I loved the quick turn around the affordable price! Custom mattes are a great way to enhance artwork of pictures. I'll be starting my sons room soon, so he can have a new room for entering 5th grade and for just becoming a tween. I'm sure I'll be order more custom mattes to display his own artwork in his room.

So what do you think of our updates? Remember next time your in a thrift store look at the artwork you may uncover a pretty piece of art that just needs a little updating.