So much for May! Yep, it’s June. That happened.

On May 28, Andy and I celebrated seven years (!!) of marriage…

…which, of course, is outrageous.

It also means the seven-year itch has struck.

Where I start to itch for more…

…more years as Andy’s wife.
…more laughs and funny memories.
…more mid-night conversations about our goals and plans.
…more moments of growing together as parents.
…more spontaneous laughter.
…more dancing in the kitchen.
…more candlelit dinners of hamburger helper while two kids sleep upstairs.
…more of the same.

Because there’s no one I’d rather do this life thing with than this guy.

No one who could as easily calm my moments of craziness, remind me what’s important, tolerate my shoes everywhere, let me take daily naps or make me laugh so hard it hurts.

No one who looks so good in a shimmering blonde mullet wig, wifebeater and fake tats.

Also?

Mila is SIX WEEKS OLD. Proving that time warps and no longer proceeds at its normal pace.

I’ve been afraid to say anything for fear of jinxing it, but this kid started sleeping through the night at TWO WEEKS OLD. (Don’t worry, she’s been gaining weight so fast that her doctor okayed it.) I’ve been pinching myself because it can’t be real. I’m pretty sure this is cheating at parenthood.

And also. Andy turned 30.

Don’t worry, we’ve been tracking his growth too:

So here’s to June. Andy finishes teaching this week, which means two months of time flying faster than necessary. We have a beach trip planned, and a trip to visit family in Michigan, and lots of time playing outside and trying to stop the clock.

What do you have planned this summer? Is 2012 flying by for you too? Should we quickly delete these photos from the interweb?

Well do I ever have a beautiful before-and-after feast-for-your-eyes today! It’s coming to you courtesy of the very talented Jae of Design OCD. (Also, is Design OCD a real thing? Because I think I’ve been afflicted. And I don’t think there’s a cure. And watch out, because it might be contagious!)

I’m Jae, from Design OCD, and I am super excited to be here. This is actually my first guest post!

We recently remodeled our kitchen and I’m not exaggerating when I say it has been life changing! We added functionality and eliminated wasted space. It’s also just so much prettier now.

For this remodel, we completely gutted the room but saved money by reusing most of the appliances. The stove, oven, and refrigerator all remain from the old space. The dishwasher is our only new appliance.

But before we get into how it all changed, let’s first take a look at how it looked before.

We had solid wood cabinets from the mid 1980s that we had painted a few years back. There were a lot of cabinet doors packed into a small area. The cabinets were showing their age and several drawers were broken and not working at all. We didn’t have a place to put the microwave so it took up all the counter space next to the pantry.

The stove was on a peninsula with upper cabinets above it that completely cut off the room, blocking light and conversation from the breakfast area.

For this remodel, we completely gutted the room by taking out everything seen above. We saved money by reusing the appliances, consolidating vendors, and doing some of the work ourselves.

We chose Shaker style cabinetry made of solid maple finished in white. The new cabinet doors are tall, going all the way to the ceiling. One of my favorite features of the new cabinets is the pullout bins (for both the spices and the trash).

We chose kashmir white granite for the counter tops. We extended the counter top 12 inches beyond the peninsula cabinet base to create a seated bar area. I also added a small wine cooler behind the stove.

We freed up counter space by moving the microwave up (the one pictured is the one we already had and will be replaced eventually).

We used Carrera marble for the backsplash and extended the tile to include the area above the window. I painted the window black but left the trim white and added a seeded pendant glass light directly above the sink.

The breakfast area was updated with a new color and curtains.

This remodel was completely finished in about 4 weeks. I am so pleased with the new space! For more details, you can view the individual posts on the entire kitchen remodel here.

Thank you Kelly, and View Along the Way readers, for the opportunity to share!
-J

Can you believe they worked that magic in just 4 weeks?! I love the black window, the pendant, the backsplash! Okay, I’m a little bit in love with every detail. What’s your favorite part of Jae’s fabulous kitchen? Don’t forget to swing by her blog and check out the rest of the beauty she creates!

This post was accidentally published for a brief time last week, so it may have been in your readers/email subscriptions. Just pretend like you’ve never seen it before, k?

Birds nests in decorating are all the rage. Or so a little bird told me. You can find lots of ways to incorporate them, like in art:

Fortunately, it turns out I’m right on top of the nest trend, unintentionally. Because look what made its home in my ultra-stylish, definitely-internet-ready, not-at-all-embarrassingly-disorganized catch-all garage shelf:

Did you see it? Or were you too distracted by how expertly I styled those the piles of pool toys, newspapers and stray decor items? Look again, right under the arrow:

Yep, some poor misguided finch chose that very spot at the far end of our garage – far away from the garage doors – to make a home for her eggs. Right in that Kohls bag. (Note to self: Try to push Kohls bags as the next big decorating trend.)

We felt sorry for her as every time we opened the garage door, she swooped in or out, on her way in to sit on the eggs or flying out to go do bird things. There was no way the eggs would hatch. How could they? The mama had limited access to the nest for egg-sitting and whatnot.

But take a closer look inside that nest:

It’s a tiny avian miracle!

Not just one, but TWO tiny finches, just waiting for some breakfast.

I tried to get better photos, but the whole time I was snapping pics, the mama finch was standing outside the garage door, YELLING AT ME. Flipping me the bird, if you will. She was irate. People think finches are happy, peaceful little birds who mostly hang out with Snow White, and flit around being all nature-y but that’s not true. This bird was cursing at me in Finch-ish (Finnish)? Not very polite.

But I’ve gotta hand it to her: she’s keeping me on top of the trends.

Update: mama bird has been helping herself to our garage through the cat door (?!) and there are now THREE little tinies in the nest. We might need to start charging rent.

Nothing warms my cold, calloused heart like a well-done DIY version of an expensive store-bought thing. And nothing tickles my awkward little funny bone like Michelle’s blog at Decor and the Dog.

…Making this post a beautiful combination of my favorite things. Check out this goodness, yall:

Well hello, dear View Along the Way readers.  My name is Michelle.  I blog over at Decor and the Dog.  Don’t worry.  My blog isn’t one of those blogs where I pretend like my dog writes the posts and we discuss what fire hydrants he peed on or how many bones he ate that day.  Although some days, that may be better.

Today I am going to share with you one of my least shared before and afters.

When I started blogging, our master bedroom looked like this…

Stylish.

The room just didn’t feel like us.  The comforter was actually cute but had seen better days.  Thank you, darling puppy.  The headboard was a hand-me-down that now lives in our guest room.  The end tables are from Crate and Barrel.  They were one of our first furniture purchases.  Everything else in the room was useless junk. 

While browsing the interweb one day, I found the most beautiful headboard.  The window headboard from West Elm.  It cost way more than I was willing to spend.  I jokingly asked the husband-figure if he could build it.  He mistakenly answered “probably.”

We He got to work building the copy cat headboard.  I got to work finding new bedding.  I figured since I was ripping off West Elm’s headboard, I should at least buy their lovely parachute duvute.  Why don’t we throw some striped sheets in too? Sure.  Why not?

Here’s our bedroom today…

We have plans to build a bed frame and add some crown molding but this room has come a long ways!!

Thanks for having me over mama of two!!

Did you see her pretty bedside lamps too?! They remind me of a long-lost love of mine. Michelle has great tips on an affordable way to DIY curtain rods too - check it out here.

Then don’t forget to stop and ogle her AMAAAAZING guest bath. AMAZING. Amazing amazing amazing. Thanks for sharing your beautiful bedroom, Michelle!

I’m stealing a baby.

I know that’s typically frowned-upon, but my motivations are pure: I just want to decorate another nursery. Fortunately, my sister-in-law Tiffany is having a little boy this summer, so I’ll just take her baby.

Tiffany lives far far away from me, so I can’t be there to help her redo the room in real life. This also complicates my baby-theft plans. Instead, I offered to help virtually begged her to let me play around with ideas from here. She has a beautiful old house chock-full of character, and a sweet little room just off the master for a nursery.

She already picked out a crib and changing table:

And she was inspired by this cute little onesie to make a penguin-themed nursery:

With this as a starting point, I started pretend-shopping and had lots of fun checking out what etsy had to offer. I fell in love with this print:

Because their nursery is on the small side, I thought fresh, chunky horizontal stripes on the wall could be fun and help open it up a little:

I added in this pendant light, a fun orange chevron fabric for the crib skirt and this sweet polka-dot minky fabric blanket, combined with a cozy sheepskin rug (for taking naked-butt photos of the baby, of course).

Okay, since you begged, here’s Weston on a sheepskin rug at three months.

And here’s the changing table wall:

Those penguins running away and jumping into an abyss are actually from this cool vinyl wall decal, and I think they’d be fun leaping off the changing table into the icy cold carpet water. I also loved those art pieces, because my mother-in-law (Tiffany’s mom) always sings “You are my Sunshine” to our kids, and the turquoise, orange and red are kinda perfect with that penguin print I put above the crib, right?

BUT THEN

I remembered that Tiffany’s walls are kind of that old textured plaster, and stripes might be hard to paint. (But they might NOT, who knows. I’m far away.) So I played around with another plan that assumes solid-colored walls. Because it’s a small room, I chose a light aqua:

Not having stripes on the wall freed me up to use stripes in the bedding, and so I found this fabric for the crib bedding:

What do you think? What lengths would you go to for the chance to pretend-decorate a nursery?

This post is brought to you by Glidden brand paint.

If you’ve been reading for a little while, you know I recently revealed the nursery we finished for my too-sweet-for-words baby girl Mila. (I know I’m her mama, but you guys. She is TOO. SWEET.)

And if you’re as interested in obsessed with home decor and DIYing as I am, you gotta admit that part of the fun of using your girl-parts to create another human being is that you also get to decorate a space for them, whether it’s their own room, a tiny space in your own bedroom — or just a hastily-arranged drawer in your dresser where said child will now sleep.

But even then, it can be helpful to have a starting point for color schemes when designing your kiddo’s new digs. You might’ve heard about My Colortopia, which is a hugely helpful source of inspiration for those of us (ME) who could benefit from some tips and tricks on decorating with color.

They’ve also created this fun new interactive nursery widget, which helps you discover the nursery color that you and your baby will love with Baby Room Colors from Glidden® Paint, as seen in the movie What to Expect When You’re Expecting (only in theaters).

I’ve been playing around with the tool and came up with a few fun color schemes that I think would be so funky and cool for either gender:

The stylish peeps at Glidden® also came up with some fun inspirational mood boards for your nursery-designing delight:

See the details on the products featured there on the My Colortopia blog, where you’ll also get all the deets on (so exciting):

Your chance to win a $2,500 Walmart gift card (!!)

…to use towards a dream nursery, buying items such as cribs, bedding, and Glidden® Brilliance Collection™ Paint via this sweepstakes on Circle of Moms.

Head over to Circle of Moms, then comment on the post for your chance to win. The giveaway will run from 5/17/12 – 6/7/12 and the winner will be announced on MyColotopia.com the week of 6/18.

I have been sponsored by Glidden brand paint to write this post but the thoughts and opinions expressed are my own (as always!).

Hows about a snazzy little before-and-after for this fine Thursday? Yes?

Even better if it’s a $22 yard sale find?

And maybe even better if it’s a before-and-after by the absolute LOVELIES Jen and Katie from Paisley Print Shoes? Yeah?

Thought so. Check it.

We are SO excited to be guest posting for Kelly!

In case you are new to Paisley Print Shoes, we are Jen and Katie, two sisters who have opposite tastes in pretty much everything. House decor, fashion, you name it.

We decided to start a blog where we find things that we BOTH like and we write about it! We dabble in pretty much everything (clothes, DIY, home decorating, and food).

We are always amazed by Kelly’s DIY skills so we thought we’d share our process in overhauling a trunk that Jen got at a garage sale!

Here is what the trunk looked like when Jen got it.

Here’s were our thoughts going into it:

1. Keep the color, but clean it up a ton.

2. Get 2 belts for the top to connect to the buckles on the bottom.

3. Cover the inside with fabric.

We thought it’d be nice to keep the same color and just clean it up a bit so we got some cleaners and went to town. We scrubbed with rags and brushes and a bunch of different kinds of cleaners.

And…nothing really happened.

It was still sort of a mess. We knew it was clean but it didn’t look much better.

So then we got out some sand paper and tried sanding it. We thought we could give it a more rustic look but nothing really happened with that either.

Hmmm….that sort of kicked plan number 1 to the curb so we decided we’d spray paint it and get it all one color and nice and cleaned up.

While we were scrubbing with the brushes we discovered that they had just painted over leather straps on the bottom. We began scrubbing the heck out of them to try to get all the paint off.

About halfway through we decided we would just cut them off and buy 2 sets of belts and make a new strap. So that’s what we did.

We cut off the straps on the top and the bottom before realizing that they were tacked in underneath metal covers. We had 2 options here.

1. Keep the metal covers on and cut up the belts and make them look like the were one long one. Or

2. Take off the metal cover and put the belts on whole.

Well, we had bought new tacks to tack on the belts and we were going to paint it anyway so we decided to just pull of the metal covers and get the old belts completely off and put the new ones on correctly. In the process of pulling these covers off we realized they weren’t metal….they were simply painted leather! Sweet! It took a few hammers, screw drivers and a crowbar but we finally got all of the tacks and leather off of the trunk. It was quite the workout.

After they were all off we sprayed 2 coats of spray paint all over the trunk.

Then we ate some cheesecake. And drank coffee.

Then after letting it dry for oh, 20 minutes we decided we would finish the outside. Katie and I are activators and like to get things done even if it means staying up until 3 in the morning. Lucky for us it was only about 11:00pm at this point so we went at it. We had ended up buying 8 belts so we went through option after option until we came up with one that we liked.

The plan was to use 2 belts for the top and then 2 belts for the bottom. We couldn’t use one belt for the left and one belt for the right because they weren’t long enough so we had to mix and match.

So we cut up 4 belts and tacked them onto the trunk.

When they were on we decided it needed something extra so Katie quickly spray painted one of the belts, we cut it up and tacked those on over the belts in the same spot that the other leather pieces were. (Again, any normal person would have spray painted the belt, wait 24 hours for it to set and then proceed with cutting and tacking on. We are not normal.)

Perfection. We LOVE it. It was quite a bit of work but the outside look so sweet.

We are still working on the inside…so we’ll leave that for later (you can see what we’ve done so far here), but we haven’t done a final “reveal” on Paisley Print Shoes because we were waiting for Jen to get settled into her new place. Well, she is settled, so here is the trunk in all its glory!

You can really see Jen’s colorful, eclectic style in her living room! Katie would NEVER decorate her place like this, but she loves to look at spaces like this! We are both thrilled with how the trunk turned out and we think it would look good in a variety of spaces!

So there you have it! Anybody else out there have a trunk that they have given an overhaul? This was DEFINITELY worth the $22 Jen spent at the garage sale!

View Along the Way readers, thanks for reading about our trunk transformation! We’d love to see you over at Paisley Print Shoes…any friend of Kelly’s is a friend of ours, and we love making new friends.

Kelly, we are wishing your family all the best and praying God’s blessings on you as you are just beginning life as a family of 4! We can’t wait to hear stories from you! Thanks again for allowing us to guest post!

TRUE STORY: when I was first reading this post by Jen and Katie, I thought that “after” photo was an inspiration shot they’d saved from a magazine or something. It made me do a double-take because — HOW amazing is this?! It looks SO good in Jen’s eclectic living room, and I adore her cool, collected style.

What do you think? Would you have looked twice at this trunk at a yard sale? How much are you loving the “after?”

Don’t forget to swing by Paisley Print Shoes and just fall in love with these sweet sisters like I did!

– AND like my one-month-old baby Mila did, when Jen and Katie sent her these SWEET, sweet onesies which she’s already asking me to wear even though they’re still too big for her:
They MADE these onesies! (Here’s a similar tutorial.) I don’t know how they knew that Mila is a total high heels type. And by the way, Mila may have had one of those bows in her hair within five seconds of me opening the package.

One more thing! Jen and Katie were SO sweet and thoughtful and sent me this amazing scarf which just so happens to be in my favorite color. Check out the tag:

It’s from an amazing organization called FashionABLE that creates sustainable business for women in Africa. Look at what’s hand-written on the tag from my scarf:

A while ago I brought shame upon my family by publicly admitting we have tub stains, and then showing you a picture of them. SHAMEFUL.

But the tub stains are NOT our doing, promise. I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse. See, when we bought this house, we gutted and redid this guest bathroom:

but couldn’t justify the cost of replacing the tub, even though it was kinda gross. So we scrubbed it the best we could and lived with it.

After I posted about that, a bunch of you commented and emailed with suggestions for how to remove the stains, and being a very thorough and effective house-cleaner little bit nerdy, I wanted to test which worked best, so I’ll know what to use in the future when we never have any tub stains to clean again, ever.

The rules: I only wanted to use products that seemed natural and safe to use while pregnant, and I had to have them on hand. So here are…

THE CONTENDERS:

IN LANE 1: Half a lemon with iodized salt sprinkled on top

IN LANE 2: Shaklee Scour-off Paste

Disclosure: When I posted about my tub stain dilemma, a reader named Erin offered to send me some of this Scour-off paste to test and I said sure! Other than the product she sent me, I’m not being compensated in any way for this post. If you buy it, it’s good for Erin but I don’t make a cent. So this experiment is completely unbiased, promise.

IN LANE 3: Baking soda and hydrogen peroxide

(Just pour a little baking soda in a dish and add tiny bits of hydrogen peroxide until it forms a paste.)

IN LANE 4: Magic eraser

There were some rumors floating around a while back that magic eraser is toxic and contains formaldehyde, but the research I dug up proved that’s false. (Here’s more on that.) Still, it’s definitely a less “natural” choice than the other contenders, but it had such ringing endorsements that I had to give it a go.

THE TEST

I used painter’s tape to create sections I could compare, then applied all four products and let them sit about half an hour. (The baking soda-peroxide mix is supposed to sit for 30-45 minutes, and it only seemed fair to give them all that long to work too.)

Here they are, just hangin’ out, doin’ their thing to my tub nastiness:

THE RESULTS

I took off the painters tape and got this:

I hadn’t rinsed the cleaners off yet, but you can tell that there are some dirty stripes where the painter’s tape was, proving that… well, any of these cleaners were already making an improvement.

Here are the stripes of nastiness after I rinsed off all the cleaners:

I was hoping there would be a out-and-out clear winner which dominated the other contenders by MILES – kind of like me, when I play Andy in Boggle – but I couldn’t decide which one won. So I called in the judges. Which was just Andy, with a flashlight.

JUDGING

The way our bathroom is laid out, there’s no natural light and the one overhead light casts shadows in the tub, so Andy grabbed a flashlight and tried to choose a winner.
Here’s another close-up of what he was seeing:

THE WINNER(S)

Best for discoloration: Magic Eraser

It’s hard to tell in these pics, but the whitest part of the tub was the section with the Magic Eraser. BUT it still wasn’t an ideal tub-cleaning solution. Where there were spots that needed scrubbing, Magic Eraser and it’s non-existent scrubability failed.

Best for Specks that Need Scrubbing: Scour-Off Paste

Scour-off paste is kinda grainy and pink, like that stuff they use at the dentist to polish your teeth. It’s great at getting specks of things off your tub, but doesn’t have the whitening properties of Magic Eraser. I did love that it’s non-toxic and safe.

Best Budget-Friendly Solution

The baking soda/hydrogen peroxide mix was actually a pretty great combination of the other two winners. It doesn’t scrub as well as Scour-Off, and it doesn’t whiten as well as Magic Eraser, but it does both relatively decently, plus it’s friggin’ cheap. This is probably what I’ll use in the future.

Best for . . . a nice lemony scent?

The lemon/salt thing was a total failure, and I felt like a tool trying to “scrub” with the lemon. It didn’t do anything that I could tell, except maybe smell fresh. Waste of a fruit. Total “lemon.” (Groooan.)

BEFORE AND AFTER

As cool as my new striped tub looked, I did want to actually clean the thing. So I scrubbed it as well as I could with the scour-off paste to remove the specks and make the surface completely smooth, then attacked the discoloration with Magic Eraser. Here’s the before and after with my clean-as-it’ll-ever-be guest bathtub:

Now, please feel welcome to come visit and employ my guest bath facilities. Especially if you love changing diapers.

Linking to: Home Stories A to Z

EEEK! I am SO giddy about this post today. Because it’s not every day you read a blog post that’s actually a romantic comedy, especially not on a home blog.

AND it’s not every day I get to share an original, one-of-a-kind post especially for you from my sweet, hilarious friend Karianne at Thistlewood Farm, which in just a few months has rocketed to the top of my favorite blog list. Once you read Karianne’s post, and see the photos of her *stunning* home, you’ll see why…

Hello you handsome built-ins.

*sigh*

We’ve been waiting to meet you.

We’re the little ‘ole built-ins from Thistlewood Farm.

And we’ve had our eye on you for a long time.

We can still remember the first time we ever saw you.

We were just sitting here. Covered in linen and pom-pom pillows and a drop cloth or two….. with way too much “freshy decorating” going on.

It was in March. Back when we still thought there was going to be a winter and we wondered how Brenden and Rachel were going to make it through the Amazing Race and it felt like the Mad Men premier would never ever get here.

And then we saw you.

You gorgeous built-ins.

And we forgot all about Brenden and Rachel.

I mean who cared about a guy getting a PhD and an ex Las Vegas showgirl when Kelly debuted you on her blog in all your navy and white glory.

*sigh*

With your bright, shiny cabinet hardware.

Seriously.

You really know how to turn a girls’ head.

And don’t even get us started on those inset hinges.

But we were shy.

And a little nervous.

And we didn’t really want to put ourselves forward.

So we whiled away the hours making little burlap chalk bags to keep us company.

And hung a vintage sign.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Until one day Kelly called and asked us to stop by for a visit.

So here we are.

After all this time.

Still waiting for a little coffee and conversation.

So let’s hurry. Time’s a wasting and we really don’t want to “shelve” this relationship any more

PS For more conversations with the built-ins, pom-pom pillows, dust bunnies and a chalkboard or two, stop by Thistlewood Farm.
We would love to meet you, too!

thistlewood farm: the journey of making a house into a home
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Aaaaand my office built-in wall just turned from a handsome shade of turquoise to a sweet shade of *BLUSH*…

I can’t recommend Karianne’s blog to you enough, you guys. See if you can tour her home without getting a little drool on your keyboard. See if you can read her posts without giggling out loud. And don’t forget to tell her I sent you.

And tell her built-ins that mine said hi… awkwardly.

Let’s talk about art, friends.

This is the art that hangs above Mila’s crib in her nursery.
I’d like to temporary stop and brag about how I cut the photo mat on the left all by myself, but it’s actually kind of embarrassing.

I got the “Love” print by Katie Daisy…

…but then realized that I didn’t have a frame for it. So I scavenged in the garage and came up with this frame I bought at a yard sale for all of a dollar.

And I bought a piece of glass from Lowes for about $8. They’ll cut it to size for you right in the store for free. Then, if you’re pregnant and you get the really nice older gentleman to cut it for you, he’ll even walk the glass out to your car for you, amidst your protests that thank you SO much, but you really don’t mind carrying it yourself.

The frame was larger than the print, so I did a little more scavenging and found some uncut white photo mats I’d bought from Michaels a while back. I thought – “How hard can it be to cut my own photo mat?”

NOW.

I don’t know when I’ll learn that thinking “How hard can it be?” before attempting a project is practically a guarantee that it’ll fail.

Anyway, I should have a foot-shaped indention on my face after trying to cut a photo mat on my own. It just seems crazy to pay $10* for a large pre-cut mat when I could buy the mat and cut it on my own, right?**

*I actually have no idea how much a pre-cut mat costs.
**Which makes this project seem increasingly ridiculous the more I type.
***See why I need that person to follow me around?

Have I mentioned that I don’t own a mat cutter?

But I had a razor blade. So I cut the mat to the size of the glass…

Then started measuring for the opening while Andy watched, amused, from the sofa. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but this is how it went down.

Me, to Andy: Wow, this is hard. I measured the opening and drew it out but it doesn’t look right.
Andy: Do you want me to help you?
Me: What? Nooo… you don’t have to… you’re busy… so… I’ll just… (Long pause.)
Andy: I can help you.
Me: (A little too eagerly) UmWellOkaySure!
Andy: (Does it all himself while I watch and say nice things about his muscles.)

His efforts may have included some carpentry tools.

But in the end, it was kinda-mostly-squarish, which was not at all the results I would’ve gotten on my own. We cut up a cardboard box for the back of the frame.

And because this would be hanging over the crib, we wanted to be extra careful there was no chance that giant shards of glass would fall out of the frame and onto our sleeping spawn. So Andy backed the whole frame with a piece of hardboard that he had in the garage. (At this point, it sounds like our garage is just a giant mess of random pieces of things… Yes. Yes, it is.)

And to secure the entire frame to the wall, we used these hooks which we screwed into wall anchors and into studs to make sure it was extra sturdy and would not fall.

We don’t live in an earthquake-prone area or anything, so we both feel very confident this is a safe setup for a sweet sleepin’ beauty.

But I wanted some more art to go along with that frame. I found another small frame from our mess-of-random-things garage. This little faux bamboo frame looked just right. It was about a buck or two at a yard sale.

And I got to photoshoppin’. My favorite bible verse to celebrate the birth of a new person is this one, from Psalm 139:14 – “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

I came up with this simple little get-up and printed it at walmart…

…then just threw it in the frame and called it a day. So super easy.

Finally, I had this wreath that my sweet, crafty friend Emily made for my baby shower a while back:

Isn’t it sweet?! The whole wreath was too big for my little mini-gallery, but that little “M” was just perfect. Emily got the cardboard “M” from Joann – with a 40% off coupon! – then wrapped it with tulle, securing it as she went with hot glue. It was perfect!

Thanks, Em!

And that completed the little mini-gallery-wall above Mila’s crib.

Now’s the part where you guys tell me that cutting a picture mat with a razor is really a very smart idea, and there’s an easy trick that makes the whole job super snappy and fast. Right? Have you ever tried to do this?