gallery walls, dead?

some of them, yes.

they got too cool for their own britches.

they shot up in popularity with the cool kids.

and pretty soon, they were everywhere.

hell, i have 2 of them in my house.

in both of my living rooms, the front room and the den.

but some of them, no!!

i still like them.

check that, i still love them. sometimes.

my front room... still in total love.

the den. ugh. i was over it.

it got too sweet. and the colors were starting to match a little too much.

i needed/need to shake it up.

and i would show you a photo but i don't have one.

i might be the worst blogger ever.

looks like we'll have to settle on an after (whenever that happens).

to shake it up, i want to add a little bit less sweet and a whole lot more rock n' roll. a little edge. a little modern art. a whole lot more cool.

i like all of these.

they are my inspiration for the gallery wall overhaul.

(amanda from 100layercake)

(via cindab)

(via domaine home.... one of my new favorite websites!!!!)

(via from the right bank)

(via lineklein blog. in france.)

(via lonny)

(via lonny)

(via orlando, via emily henderson)

(via oh joy)

(via paloma. one of my favorite rooms. of all times.)

so in the past few weeks, i've removed the offenders and starting looking around the internet trying to find what i wanted to fill in the holes with.

hello.

i have this whole california/surfer/bohemian badass obsession thing going on right now.

(i briefly touched on that, here)

these surf photos.

i love.

however, i do still live in kansas.

and they may or may not work.

plus i don't know where they come from and couldn't locate them.

but they are badass.

speaking of california badass... these were curated by one of my favorites,

amber interiors:

i love them all.

and i refer to them often while perusing.

especially #'s 3, 5 and 6.

but, i bought my first hole filler yesterday!

first, these runner-ups that are still in the running:

#1 - the pineapple painting. i LOVE.

i am still thinking about re-creating it myself and hanging it. somewhere. maybe just not this gallery wall, i think.

#2 - this photo!!

from minagraphy on etsy. i forrill like this one.

#3 - the aestate's skull watercolor print. yes.

but!!!!!

i pulled the trigger on this one!

oh i'm so in love!

i'm in love i'm in love and i don't care who knows it.

i got it here.

from beth hoeckel on society6.

she kind of rocks.

i want a few more of her (very affordable!) prints.

they are all collaged together.

and fabulous, in my opinion.

you can see all her availables here.

(they have free shipping til sunday, too)

i can't wait for it to get here!!

i'm going to frame it in a simple white frame with no mat.

and i got a big one, 28x22".

then i'll hang her up.

and then i'll gush to you about how much i love it! hopefully ;)

any art you think i should be privy to?

JILL

prints.

etsy is so inspiring.

that's nothing new to you, i'm sure.

i really love going there, just to look around and get some creative juices a flowing.

found a new artist to love this weekend,

jorey hurley.

they look like they are all done digitally.

i spent hours, talking serious hours, on microsoft paint as a kid

creating 'art' such as these.

(these are better than mine but they make me get a little nostalgic none-the-less)

this one would be kinda great at our lake house.

these 2 (above and below) would kill it together in a girl's room.

and i like these knots.

for the rock climber in your life.

whatcha think?

go check more out here.

ready to brave another monday?

JILL

july art

now that it is august 1st...

i should share with you my july art.

find my art for january, february, march, april, may and june there.

right now i have it on the mantle next to my april art.

and speaking of-- do you notice the crack on said piece of art?

the week after i photographed it for you all, it was still laying on the floor waiting to be hung when the tragedy happened. i have a chocolate lab and she likes tennis balls. she likes them even better when you throw them. so i threw it and it ricocheted off a doorway and straight into my glass frame. crack.

i just need to get a new piece of glass for it, and i will. just haven't yet.

it's an 8x10" frame/small shadow box, with a 5x7" matted opening. i decided to use a light turquoise piece of cardstock as the backing and glue some teensy tiny little shells that i've collected over the years from all over.

in fact, some of them are from spring break our freshman year in college when elle and i, with a bunch of other girls piled into a suburban and drove from kansas city all the way down to west palm beach, fl. so fun, but so were the itty bitty shells we found. i brought them back and added it to a collection i had started and still add to.

picked out the cutest, most perfect little guys and glued them down.

slapped them in a frame and voila!

aren't they cute?

in other unrelated news, my hibiscus plant in the front yard is going gangbusters.

she's so lovely i thought i'd share :)

happy first day of august.

summer goes by way too quickly.

JILL

april, may and june.

i'm the girl that tells you she's going to do something every month (buy/make some art for my house once a month for a year... more here) and share it all right here on our blog...

and i do it. but i don't tell you about it.
that's not cool.

well. i have april, part of may!, and june's art for you today:

i had this old frame from the 80's maybe, it was large and brass and therefor right up my alley, but nothing to go in it.

so i bought a piece of marbleized paper (i got mine here) and framed it. its a few colors i'm trying to throw together in my family room. some coral, some orange, a little turquoise, lots of gray and gold and a little black. perfect. they're all found right inside there.

i really like how it turned out. in this photo, you can also see my gray painted walls (more on that here), and ALL the trim i painted white. up in the corner is a window where you can see what the original color of the woodwork was. i left the sashes of the windows and sliding doors natural. i also like how that turned out, plus it will be less messy to deal with when opening said doors and windows in the years to come.

next i have may... but i don't have may. i only have the inspiration photo i used to create it. i'm not finished quite yet. but i will share that when i do!

i liked the organic lines. and it's going to rest above my fireplace (that also got a white face lift).

but my favorite is june.

as i've said before, i like to buy things for my home while away so that one day i will get to look around and be reminded of all the fun places we've visited. sooo.... while in austin, i stopped in at heaven uncommon objects and bought this:

an industrial sign letter, B. for our last name. and it rocks.

here it is in our front room with navy walls. i decided that is where it's going to live because it is gray and so are the walls in the other room, and it just doesn't get to shine as much in there as it does against the navy!

i took this one really quickly this morning so you could see the scale. not huge but not small, either. just right. (oh, and you can see where my march art lives! it looked better against the navy, too. with dan, my white lacquered moose head.)

what do you think?
JILL

you can read more about january, february, and march here.

happy wednesday.


oh, one more thing. i couldn't resist. look at this picture we took while in austin! boots everywhere :)

for your sanity

i just recently saw this lovely in the latest martha stewart living:

and it made me think of this one!:

(the mural and those curtains = love)

but i've had it saved for so long, that now i don't even know where it comes from. it looks strikingly similar to the one martha used above, which you can get here... so maybe they are sisters?

i also had these 2 saved:

from bobbie burger via design*sponge

and this one from house and home
{which apparently elicits hot make-out sessions in your back yard... it's that good.}

these would be especially perfect during one of those this-winter-is-never-quite-possibly-never-going-to-end moments... but since we are luckily in the heart of spring, they just make me smile.

JILL

i've got my head in the clouds...

...because i think they are one of the wonders of this world we live in.

and i'm particularly thrilled because i just made this painting mine:

it's an oil from paintingwell, painted by a cancer survivor and all her proceeds go to charity. win win.

{i'm on the ball this month with my resolution. you can read more about that here, here and here if you'd like.}

but honestly, there were almost too many beauties to choose from. i particularly like the ones where there is more sky than land. here are some others that caught my eye.

ashleywhitejacobsen

astralarts


carolonedge


carolschiffstudio

jfoxstudio

jshears

another from paintingwell

peterdustrudstudios

stefaniesilverman

studio155

sueswatercolor

valentinestudiosart

winterblues

my favorite is getting the window seat on a particularly beautiful flight, especially when it's the fatty kind of clouds. it's bright and i may or may not have been the girl who put her sunglasses on so she can stare out once, or twice. just sayin.

there are so many other lovely lovely options in every price point. you should stop on by and take a gander if you're interested.

happy monday :)

JILL

my february art

it's the last day of feb and i just placed my order for the newest member of my art fam (for my sad bare walls).

it's a way to have my wedding bouquet live forever without screaming "i'm a wedding picture."

i took one of my wedding photos (below) and zoomed in on my flowers and then rotated it in photoshop. i obviously love these colors... how many times have you seen me use them just on this blog alone, honestly?

as soon as it gets here, i think i want an ornate-ish gold frame for it with a white mat.

i thought it was a sweet idea. whatcha think?

JILL

{ps-- i am super giddy because today is monday and that means one thing: the bachelor is on tonight!! elle declared her guilty pleasure for idol on friday, and well, consider this my "i'm-embarrassed-to-admit-but-i-really-love-the-bachelor" guilty pleasure. yay for mondays and yay for team emily}