My Biggest Mural Ever

In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life must you proceed with balance and stealth. ~Patti Smith

Yup, here it is ... the biggest mural I've ever painted. Ta daaaaaa! I painted this several months ago for my friends Doug and Durell, who live in my ole hometown of Jacksonville.

I waited a while to post it because my only photos of it were the ones my son took with my iphone:

Well, I guess that isn't so bad.

Anyway, D&D have a simply gorgeous dining room with lots of natural light and a beautiful vintage chandelier. It just needed a little visual interest to make it fabulous. Durell loves classic designs that seem breezy and effortless. When she came upon this House Beautiful feature, she fell in love (cue angels singing). So we copied the designer's handpainted wallpaper, which is based on a classic Swedish pattern.

As always, I started out with chalk sketches and went from there. After two solid days of painting, here's the result... I love the colors and the fact that the pattern is unusual, yet nature-inspired and calming. Isn't it great to have friends who are brave enough to strive for the unique? (And daring enough to let you paint all over their walls!)

Here are some details...
I added the little nest. It represents their home and their sweet little family -- mama, daddy and baby girl.

These flowers took me a while to get. I stressed about every little detail. Then I took a step back and realized those imperfections are what makes a handpainted mural special. Soooo ... it's really gonna be OK.
See? Take a step back and get some perspective. Maybe a good metaphor for life!

Best of Holiday Decor

It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.
~W.T. Ellis

Happy holidays, friends! Well, what's left of them. I've been so busy baking, wrapping, decorating, traveling and holidaying that I haven't posted for way too long. But I do have some fun photos and great ideas to share before the year comes to a close, so let's get going!

First, some decorations from our own Whimsical Walls. My red and white color scheme and snowflakes made another appearance this year. I just love the festive contrast of red and white against the green Christmas tree. And the snowflakes are so delicate and wintery.

Snowflakes fluttered all over our living room this year, from the tree topper to the stocking hangers. But my favorites are the crocheted snowflakes my grandmother (better known to many of my friends as "Mean Nanny") made for me years ago. Rest her crazy old soul.

As usual, this place wouldn't have looked half as good without our moms. My MIL lent me this cool old metal shop sign with a handpainted angel, and she helped me find some of the the red and silver mercury glass on the mantel. I love the glowing effect when they were all lit!

For some reason, I was really loving the look of gold this year, so I was on the hunt to make our dining room glisten. I found these glittery gold feathers from a cool shop called Orange down near Tampa (sorry for the crappy picture, but they really do sparkle), and my MIL found this curvy "Merry Christmas" sign to match. Fudgy peppermint cups recipe courtesy of Country Living (yum!).

We put the many big ol' oaks in our front yard to use (for something other than dropping acorns, for pity's sake) with this pair of fun Santas. The one peeking out is from Marshall's, the other from my MIL's collection of 50's fun.
Fresh cypress greenery and a wonderful pine scented wreath at the front door courtesy of my own elfin mom. More red and white lights, too. (Lucked into several strands of those big pearly ones at a garage sale back in September. Score!)

Hmmm ... what else? OH! I love getting Christmas cards so much that I try to find cool ways to display them. This year I picked a corner, tacked up a long piece of ribbon with a bell tied to the end and clipped our cards to it with decorative paper clips. (Clothes pins and strips of fun fabric strung over doorways work too.)

So that's pretty much it from the Griswolds', er ... I mean Hestons' household. Now here are some fun photos from our Christmastime trip to New York. The decorations were just amazing! Enjoy, Happy New Year and don't worry, I'll get busy on some new projects after all the champagne and Hoppin' John are gone.

And you thought we had lots of cork souvenirs! Grant at the entrance to Chelsea Market in NYC.

The market was decorated with completely recycled materials, mostly things artists found in the trash. It was beautiful! Here's a tree made of old CDs and snowflakes from cardboard.One of the unbelieveably gorgeous windows at Bergdorf Goodman. What a dream job to decorate those!

Part of the mural in the lobby at Rockefeller Center.

The tree at Bryant Park

And of course, the Rockefeller Center tree. Even more beautiful than we imagined!

Asleep Under a Tree

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. ~ Robert Frost

Even though I haven't been writing this blog for very long, it probably comes as no surprise to my millions of readers that I love trees. I love planting them, tending them, walking among them, looking at them -- and of course, painting them. So when I was searching for inspiration for decorating our bedroom, a whimsical, restful tree just seemed perfectly ... natural.

With two preschoolers, stressful jobs (both in and outside the home) and endless home improvement projects, I wanted our room to be a peaceful place with quiet, cool colors.

We started out with something not so quiet and restful -- sunshine yellow. Since bright yellow is notoriously hard to paint over, we primed and painted the room ice blue. Now all I needed was inspiration...

I found it, oddly enough, browsing through Esquire magazine. (Yeah, I read guys' magazines. The writing is so smart and snappy -- it has to be, since most guys really don't read.) I came across some photos of a New York City apartment the magazine had designed for some fancy celebrity party. (Sigh ... oh to design apartments for fancy celebrity parties!)

They used a handpainted wallpaper from a fancy schmancy British designer to "collect and soften" the room. I LOVED the effect and set about figuring out how to make it mine. I tested some ideas in my printmaking class -- trying different shapes and colors.

Then I chose a background color: Benjamin Moore 2123, "Sea Star," a soft greenish gray. Which sounds more like a dead fish than a silvery gleam on the ocean, but it's reeeeally pretty. Promise.

Anyway, I sketched out a willow-like shape in chalk and got busy painting. This is the result! I love the free form of the trunk and branches, and the modern simplicity of the oval "blossoms." And I know this sounds pretty goofballs, but the tree has become a sheltering place for me -- it represents comfort, peace and stability -- kind of holding our family up. I swear I sleep better under it!

Yep -- that's an upholstered headboard and yep, we made it! More on that next. Until then -- sweet dreams!