Obsessed with Vignettes

My two year old loves to pick up an object in one room and place it somewhere in another room. She delights in rearranging my house in 'unique' and 'interesting' ways.  The other day I found the crystal doorknob from my back door mixed in with a grouping of wine corks and milk glass vases on my dining room table.  The next day, it became very apparent that I needed to get my handle fixed when I found the door knob placed neatly on a stack of books I'd left on a corner table in the living room.  I wasn't upset with her though.  Instead, I felt inspired.  Why not move things around in unexpected ways? A door knob with a stack of books. Makes perfect sense.  Is Cassidy a future design star? Maybe.  Am I obessed with vignettes now? Absolutely.

I love grouping unusual objects together. Vignettes are such a sweet way to dress up a corner of the room or add visual interest to an entry way or coffee table. In my opinion, any flat surface could use a little va-va-voom.  Plus, a vignette on a flat space is way cooler than your pile of bills and your car keys. However, vintage skeleton keys might look nice...

This is a vignette I created in my foyer.  It makes me happy to see it as I walk to the front door each day.  As you walk around your house, there are so many objects that you can group together to make pretty displays.   Challenge yourself to rearrange and regroup a little...even things that don't seem to go together(like an egg, a crystal necklace, a gravy boat and a vintage camera).  Find inspiration in the things you love, or the things your two year old loves, and go with it. 

I started this vignette with a pair of casement windows from my old house as the back drop.  Add in a small stack of books, a crystal doorknob(thanks, Cass!), a red lantern and a little bird on a stack of parisian plates under a glass dome and viola!  va-va-voom.  Looking at the picture, I think a charcoal colored chalk paint on the desk would really make the whole thing pop.  See? Inspiration can come from any where, at any time!

Lastly, this book looked amazing to inspire ideas for beautiful surfaces.  I plan on picking this up next time I'm at Barnes and Noble. My husband saw the  book cover picture and wanted to know where that was in our house.  Love his attention to detail. I'm hoping the book will give me a great idea for my coffee table.  If I find one, I'll share it with you.  I'd love to see your inspired vignettes, too!

Update: The Closet Project is on hold. I'm waiting for my darling husband to stop working for just one day so he can show me how to use the table saw. The new cubbies I bought to organize our toy shelves are far too heavy and I need to give a little extra support to them. After that, I swear, I will conquer the closet monster. Or go certifiably insane from the mess.

Misadventure #1 of at least one million

Have you ever been so overwhelmed by a project, that instead of facing it, you run away like a little girl and hide?  That has been me for the past two weeks.  Ever since I decided I would tackle the toy closet project, I've somehow managed to find other things to do and as of today, my toy closet stands empty.  It looms over me and it is mocking me every time I step on a toy or hurdle a lego city to get to the sofa.  The idea of it has gotten so big in my head, that if you ask me to describe the dimensions of my closet, I'd swear to you that each shelf is 80 feet long and 6 feet deep and that the closet itself must be at least three stories high.  I had the energy and motivation to take every toy out of the closet, but I just can't seem to find the gumption to reorganize it and put it back in.  Alas, misadventure number one in my quest to finish the projects that I start. 

As I began clearing the shelves, I also started browsing pinterest for clever storage ideas and cute closet organizers.  Then, I began browsing cute little girl rooms, which turned into browsing for cute kitchen ideas which turned into....you get the point.  Pinterest became my proverbial covers from which I took refuge of the closet monster.  These are two of the ideas I liked, though, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Looking at things that have been organized makes me feel motivated again, and the good news is that we have company coming next weekend.  Why is that good news?  Well, now there is a deadline and I will have to get the toys back in the closet or else my company will have to learn to hurdle as well.  Left to their own devices, my children would happily turn the lego city into an entire solar system of legos complete with space stations and alien invasions.  I might lose the sofa altogether.  Company can be a strong motivator towards getting projects finished.

Motherhood can be so unbalanced, but it can also be the choices we make that can create that unbalance.  Last week, I chose to run from my project, but this week, I think the closet monster has met it's match. 

Working hard to reach status quo

I stepped on no less than 16 toys walking from my family room to the kitchen today.   Looking over the toy trail, I am amazed by the amount of chaos(most of it in shades of pink) three small children can create. I admire their curiosity, their tenacity and their genuine desire to learn but, oh, the mess! Stifling the desire to run around screaming like a banshee,  I had to take a deep breath.  What's really important here?  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a clean house, but how can the kids fully enjoy themselves if they worry about being neat? 

I once read that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Every night my husband and I put the kids to bed, come downstairs and pick up the mess that was created by my family all day.  It doesn't get better than clean, though.  How is it that we work so hard only to end up just achieving status quo?  Some nights, I feel insane to keep trying.

But then I looked into our toy closet and realized that there was no way the kids could put any thing away.  Nothing had a home any more.  I don't know about you, but normally I would just close the curtains on the toy closet, sit down and have a glass of wine.  If you can't see it, it doesn't actually exist, right?  Not this time.  In the spirit of my New Year's resolution, I am reprioritizing my to do list and setting out to reorganize our toy closet.  I'll post the finished product picture next week.  Wish me luck!

New Beginnings

Tomorrow is the beginning of 2012.  I've begun prepping my kids that their teachers are going to ask them if they have a new year's resolution.  I realize that it's totally a guise to get them to talk to me about what they want out of their current lives.  My 9 year old resolves to do more chores and my 6 year old wants to play more Xbox.  I'm suspicious that they don't quite get it, but they could be fooling me. 

So many people tell me they don't make New Year's resolutions.  I do.  Every year.  I'm not afraid to put out there what it is I expect for the coming year.  It might not always work out as I envision, but I think it's good to create a plan. My resolution this year has to do with following through on my projects.  I enjoy starting projects.  This past week alone, I began to recover the bench at the end of my bed, put together drift wood to make a floor standing driftwood tree, repaint my mudroom, rearrange my family room, repaint my sunroom and put away my Christmas decorations.  I finished the mudroom(I'm obsessed with the color of butterscotch pudding right now) and the family room, but that is all.  So, I resolve to make 2012 the year I finish what I start.  I'm starting this blog to keep me on track and to let you all in on the adventures and misadventures along the journey.  And somewhere in the midst of all of it, I'm going to be the best mom I can be to Alex, Kyle and Cassidy.  It's my first step toward finding balance amongst the chaos of motherhood.