art | Operation Home

I’m definitely not a pack-rat.

I don’t easily form attachments to things. Thus, I prefer to donate or Craigslist stuff I no longer need to simply get it out of the way. It’s cleansing to have a free and empty space (which is why No Man’s Land bothered me for so long). But, that being said, I’m SO huge on keeping stuff that I love even if I don’t think I have a place for it. You just never know when an idea will hit. So, my rule is: If I absolutely love it, I keep it. Nomatterwhat.

When we first moved into our house, I hung up this leaf print in our laundry/mudroom….

I’d purchased it for our last house from TJ Maxx about 5 years ago. I remember seeing it in the store and it just grabbed me. I’m not really sure why. I think it was the boldness and simplicity of it. It adorned our last home’s mudroom, so it only made sense for me to start if off there. Don’t get me wrong… I liked it in the space, but decided to take it down when I made my DIY pear art. The pear art just suited the space so much better in both style and size. For a while my little print sat ignored in No Man’s Land, then when I redid our guest bath, I decided to give it another go…

Again, it’s not that I hated it here… I just realized after living with my new bathroom for a bit that I wanted to adapt a more monochromatic color scheme. So, out went the leaf. Next, I tried it in my craft closet…

Again, I liked it, but was not completely married to it. Then, the other day as I was passing through our foyer, I spotted this wall and had a Mighty Eureka! Moment….

I grabbed my leaf print and had it hung in a jiffy…

And I danced. It was perfect here. It’s funny how you can live somewhere for a year and a half and see the same wall every day, and then one day that light bulb moment hits out of nowhere. I love it. I feel like the print plays off the other natural elements in the space (the hemp rug and bamboo light fixture more specifically). It warms up the space and makes it feel way more finished. THIS is what my little print deserves. To enhance the space and be enhanced.

Here’s the view from a little farther back so you can get a feel for how the casual gallery wall plays into the feeling of the foyer…

and a little closer up…

Finally my little friend has a home. 🙂

So, do any of ya’ll have any traveling accessories?

It all started with this blank wall in our hallway….

I’ve stared at this wall for a long time.

It stared at me back.

Never speaking up. Never offering helpful suggestions for how it would like to be dressed.

Way to contribute, wall. Seriously.

Anyways, a while back, Mac (my mother-in-law) gave me these prints….

They’re Scott Alberts prints, purchased in the Pike Place Market in Seattle. I’ve wanted to do something with them for a while. I just didn’t know what. Then, while looking back at my Pinterest boards, I saw this pin. And something clicked.

So, I thought I’d take the basic idea of using hangers and display my art that way. I had a bunch of wire hangers that my mom had given me (NOMOREWIREHANGERS!!!! Sorry. Any mention of wire hangers evokes a Mommy Dearest reference in my head.). And a bunch of wooden clothespins. I experimented with them a bit and decided I liked it…

I used thumbtacks to play around with placement…

And decided to move forward by painting and staining my little art hangers since they were kind of blending into the background. I spray painted the hangers a glossy black….

And stained the clothespins the same Early American by Varathane stain I used on my mid-century table. I simply used another wire hanger (NMWH!!!), clipped on a few clothespins at a time, then dipped them in the stain….

I allowed them to drip for a few moments, then thoroughly wiped off the excess stain with a lint-free cloth. I was careful to remove as much stain from the metal hinges as possible….

Then, I simply reassembled everything (I left the cardboard backing behind the prints to prevent the clothespins from puckering them), replaced my thumbtacks in the wall with small nails and rehung my prints. And then I snapped pics…