Home decorating projects

I've been busy working on some decorating projects.  We've lived in this house for 20 months and I still have piles of pictures sitting against walls.  Our dining room was particularly bland.  It is mostly windows, so there isn't a lot of room to put color on the walls.

I found some ugly "art" at Target on clearance.  I got six 10 inch frames for $1.98 a piece.

That's less than $12 total.

I ripped out the "art" and replaced it with scrapbook paper.

I was going to use fabric, but in the end I couldn't bring myself to cut up my pretties.  I have lots of scrapbook paper that is just sitting around, so I used that.  This paper had sort of map print with some gold foil highlights.  I thought about using vintage maps, but I didn't have any.  I finally thought of something that I've deacquisitioned (got rid off), that now I wish I had.  I gave away a 1950's school atlas a few years ago.  Oh well, it never sat on a shelf nicely and I probably wouldn't actually have brought myself to cut up a book.  I could never underline or write notes in my books in college.  I doubt I could cut one up.

So for $12 and 3 pieces of scrapbook paper, I got this.

It's an improvement.  Wait until you see the next stage.  I'm recovering the dining room chairs with a laminated cotton from Kate Spain's Central Park.  I'm using the blue allium print.

I've only done one chair so far.  This stuff is not easy to upholster with.  It doesn't ease around corners the way regular upholstery fabric does.  Stay tuned for pictures.  I'm also working some pillows for the living room.