"If we hope to create a non-violent world where respect and kindness replace fear and hatred, we must begin with how we treat each other at the begining of life. For that is where our deepest patterns are set. From these roots grow fear and alienation or love and trust."
Suzanne Arms

Friday, February 3, 2012

Our family Tree . . . wall!

So I was lying in bed a couple weeks ago trying to decide what to do with the hallway. We had just painted it (we paint a lot) and, in our neverending effort to gain more space in our not to terribly huge house, we hung a really cool shelf thing on one wall to hold all our herbs that we pick and dry.  I had a dry erase board for the kids on the other wall, on the bottom half, but I wanted to do family pictures above that.  

So while lying in bed this picture popped into my head of a tree with branches entertwining around family pictures.  This is what I came up with.



It was really very easy.  I taped some paper to the wall where I thought I may like pictures.  Then I took some chalk and outlined a tree.  Then I got some black wall paint (yes, we have some black walls in the house too) and I just kind of freehanded the tree using the chalk outline as a guide.  It didn't take long at all.  Maybe a couple hours.  Of the whole project though taking the pictures, printing them out and getting them in frames (some of which I had to spray black too) was by far the hardest and most time consuming part.

My Paper "pictures" and chalk outline

I put a picture of Charlie and I at the top.  Around that I put pictures of us holding each of the kids as babies, then on the bottom I did recent a picture of each kid, that I can switch out as they grow.  If I had more room (or used smaller pictures) I would have loved to do pregnancy pictures too.  I'll have to reassess the layout if (Lord willing when) we have more kids! 

A view from the other side (yes, that is Piper holding a chicken, Lele)
 I could have made the tree trunk go down lower, but my original intent was to have a bunch of roots down there spreading out across the wall.  Then after I painted it on I thought roots (and more branches, which I had also intended to do) may be too 'busy'.

This is a view down the hall (dry erase board on the bottom left, herb storage right)


This is our cool dry herb storage!  We haven't put all the herbs in there yet but it holds our recycled jars nicely!

6 comments:

  1. Fabulous. Really love it. Looks great with the herb storage and dry erase board. Ingenious - the dry erase board idea.

    Wanna come and decorate my house?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Kelley!!!!!!
    I love your wall so much. It is incredible. I have a wall of fame too with only black frames, although it is horribly dated.
    I still think of you and wish you and your wonderful family all the best.
    Michele in Georgia

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks guys! It was just SO easy to do. I actually wasn't even going to blog about it but I posted the picture on my facebook page and got like 50 responses and then people telling me it needed to be on pinterest and that I needed to blog about it so that they could pin it (because I didn't have a pinterest). So I was like . . . OK, LOL!! I actually just joined pinterest, I think that pushed me over the edge (I had been resisting for a while) hopefully it can help me be more organized instead of having a million bookmarks and a million tabs opened . . . We'll see ;0)

    Oh and Michele, I keep the old pictures under the new ones, and for this wall, I just went outside for like 1/2 hr with the kids and took pictures of them with my iphone, and then spent another 1/2 hr editing them and then printing them out (had some printing issues that took it longer).

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is an amazing diy project! I'm working on a post about ideas for displaying family photos. Can I link to you and use one photo for inspiration? I will be posting this on www.hobbiesonabudget.com if it's ok with you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sorry, I've been without Internet for several days. I just wanted to say that I'm happy for you to use my picture and link to my post here!

    ReplyDelete
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