A little tweaking

aka "arts and crafts" as Josh calls my projects.

First up, I received my DaVinci Jenny Lind crib from Amazon and LOVE it.  Great quality and very easily assembly -- not to mention you cannot beat the $150 price point.  The only part I was not wowed by were the wheels -- they were plastic and down right cheap.  I still wanted wheels to raise it up a little, so I headed to my local Ace Hardware to purchase some that look like lucite and brass.  They can be purchased for $4.79 / pair here.  I love them!

They very easily snapped right into the legs.

Second, our wedding reception was held at the Mint Museum of Art so I decided to give each of my bridesmaids a piece of art that reminded me of them.  I gave my middle sister 6 signed dog prints framed in the black and gold frames on the left.  When she moved to Boston last year she had no space for them so they are on loan to me.  About 6+ months ago I decided to reframe them in larger frames to allow for a white mat and to put in simpler gold gallery frames.  Actually I got these at Jerry's Artarama and they were black so I painted them gold with gold leaf paint.

They are now hanging in the hall alcove between our room and the future nursery.   

Now I need something with a little pop of color to go on the chest.  Or maybe down the road I'll paint the chest or put a bench here instead.

The third project was a little Christmas sprucing (more to come on the decorating progress).  I pulled out some of my decorations and decided to spray paint these little reindeer gold.  Then after putting them in my dining room I ended up tying some little pink ornaments I got for $1.00 at Michael's around their necks.

Before:

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend here in Raleigh, which I didn't document too well.  We ate lots and spent quality time with the extended Otto family on Thanksgiving, put out so much mulch in our backyard (my back is killing me now!), had a little Oyster roast, ate dinner with dear friends and saw a sweet friends' baby baptized.  I did manage to get one picture last night at dinner with 3 of my college roomies and their hubbies.  So great to see them, but we missed the other two girls (and their men)!

I promise to post more this week.

XO,

Whit