PORTFOLIO – – HEATHER HESS

E-Design: Pink and Green Living Room

I am in love with this color scheme. The browns in this room make the pops of pink less feminine and more gender neutral. The green and pink together are such a happy combination.

Love this design? Here are the details. I shopped this store from just a few different sources: some are expensive and some are really great deals. However, don’t be intimidated if a certain piece doesn’t fit your budget, the point of a design board is to get inspiration. Look for pieces that are similar in stores you normally shop at. Chances are you can find a fairly similar piece for less expensive if you really shop around. Follow the numbers in the picture to the list below for sources.

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10 Ways to Display Children’s Artwork

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10 Ways to Display Children’s Artwork

As a parent, one of my biggest dilemmas is what to do with kid’s artwork. To keep or not to keep? That is the question. I want to keep it all but that isn’t really realistic with how much my kids color. I do want my kids to know I love their artwork though so I display the lucky keepers. There will be a day when my kids will out grow this stage so I proudly display them in my home while they still love it. However, I have a hard time coming up with new places and ways of displaying art so I did some research and found 10 great ways to incorporate children’s artwork into your home. So read on for ideas on how to match, board, frame, group, hang, tape, shrink, blend, move and rotate that artwork in your home. Enjoy!

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1. Match it.

Look for colors in artwork that compliment the color scheme of a room in your house. If your kitchen has pops of yellow in it, look for art that has a pop of yellow in it. Sometimes when my kids are painting, I only get out specific colors that will match their rooms. This is a win-win in my book because the kids still get to paint and I end up with beautiful artwork to display in their room.

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Thrift Store Finds #1

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Thrift Store Finds #1

Thrift stores are the first place I go whenever I am in need of something for my home, but the chances of finding exactly what I need at the perfect time are pretty slim. So I usually buy items from the thrift store as I find them, not when I need them. I figure I will need them eventually.

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Hands Full

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Hands Full

While at the grocery store with all 3 of my kids, I was told twice by strangers that I had my “hands full”. Of course they only said this when one of my kids was yelling or crying. These strangers might as well of told me I was a bad parent who has no control because that is how saying “hands full” comes across to a mom. I just smiled, nodded and tried to hold back any negative comeback I really wanted to say.

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Current Favorite Children’s Books

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Current Favorite Children’s Books

We love books. You will never see me walk out of a thrift store without a stack of children’s books. My kids love to sit in their room and go through all their books. So today we picked out some of our favorites that we read over and over and over again.

My 5 year old son’s current favorites:

1. The Mine-O-Saur by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

2. There’s a Wocket in my Pocket by Dr. Seuss

3. The Little Train that Could by Watty Piper

4. Little Toot by Hardie Gramatky

5. Just Like Dad by Mercer Meyer (Little Critter Collection)

6. Sammy the Seal by Syd Hoff

7. Just Lost by Mercer Meyer (Little Critter Collection)

8. Peter Pan the Big Golden Book Collection

My 3 year old daughter’s current favorites:

1. Cinderella the Big Golden Book Collection

2. Peter Pan the Big Golden Book Collection

3. What Does Cow Say? by Joan Holub

4. Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman

5. The Gink by Tish Rabe

Our family favorite:

The Monster at the End of this Book.

I used to only sit down and read books to my kids right before bed, but some nights I was just so tired that I felt I was rushing through books instead of enjoying the one-on-one time with my kids. So I made it a goal to have reading time in the mornings after breakfast, as well as right before bed. This new time has worked out so well for us!

Black and White TV Gallery Wall

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Black and White TV Gallery Wall

A black and white gallery wall has been on my to-do list for a few years now and I can finally cross it off. My master bedroom was the lucky candidate since I had a huge blank wall around my TV. Attempting a gallery wall can seem frustrating and hard but I really enjoy the process.

Here is my process:

I start out by collecting all the frames I have around the house. I lay them out on the ground and put together some kind of arrangement. This first arrangement doesn’t have to be perfect because I end up changing it 1,000 times. I just arrange something.

Next, I cut the exact shapes of my frames out of brown paper and put them on the wall in the arrangement. I use painter’s tape to be safe on the wall. To make sure I remember which cutouts go to which frames, I label the cutouts.

Then, I wait a few days. In that time, I switch around the cutouts or decide if I need more frames. Once I found the perfect layout, I hang the frames.

I work from the middle first. The toothpaste method works great for me. Put a small dot of toothpaste on the back of the frame where the nail should go and place your frame on the wall exactly where you want it to go. I leave the brown paper up so the toothpaste stays on the paper and I nail right through the paper. Once the nail is in, I rip out the paper and it is perfect.

Last step is to add photos. This is my favorite part. The process was fun and I love looking at the pictures everyday.

The numbers in the frame is our wedding date. I found free number images online and printing them in black and white. Using a spray photo glue, I attached them to poster board and placed them in the frame.

I added a little chalkboard to one side. I bought a canvas at a thrift store and painted a few coats of chalkboard paint over the entire canvas.