Posts Tagged ‘clock’

inspiration a la lisa

Thursday, June 14th, 2012

In case you don’t recognize this beauty, it’s Lisa Bearnson. She is the Founding Editor of Creating Keepsakes magazine, the premier publication dedicated to memory-keeping. I’ve known her for as long as I’ve been working in this industry – 15 years. She was the one that gave me my “big break” and took a leap of faith in hiring me way-back-when. We worked side-by-side on many projects, wrote a book together, traveled together, developed products together, and … more important than any of that, she is a dear friend to me. The Bearnsons are dear friends to our family.

Flash back: If you’re new-ish to my blog/brand, you might be interested in reading the blog post announcement from nearly 3 years ago when I announced that I was resigning from Creating Keepsakes. It’s a bit of a historical moment in my personal career, and of course Lisa has been an important part of the journey.

When our family was road-tripping a couple weeks ago, we were able to spend a little time with the Bearnsons. So thankful for that. While we were in their beautiful home, I snapped 3 pictures of 3 different home decor ideas that I wanted to share with you – and Lisa is happy to share a little insight on each of these.

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{ chairs }

I don’t know anyone else with chairs hanging on the wall. It’s quirky and original, but it’s more than that to Lisa’s family. She shares: “The chairs are a constant reminder of a talk a promiment leader (Ezra Taft Benson) of our church gave several years ago called “No Empty Chairs”. He said: God intended the family to be eternal. With all my soul, I testify to the truth of that declaration. May He bless us to strengthen our homes and lives of each family member so that in due time we can report to our Hevenly Father in His celestial home that we are all there – father, mother, sister, brother. Each chair is filled. We are all back home.“

The chairs hang high on a wall and can be seen from both floors of our home. They represent each member of our family and remind us of two things: 1) A righteous home is within a “whispering distance of heaven”. We all want to be together in the next life having a grand feast together. We want “no empty chairs”. And 2) Dinner starts promptly at 6:00 pm in the Bearnson home and we want “no empty chairs”. If the kids are late, they have to eat sitting on their chair on the wall! (Just kidding.)”

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{ clock }

This DIY project is so much fun, isn’t it!?The 12 frames are just old frames Lisa collected from around the house, but a thrift shop is another great way to collect some for a very small cost.

Lisa’s friend makes photo clocks and yes – she is willing to sell the hands to anyone interested. Why do I have the feeling a few of you are interested? It sounds like they’re hard to find. And yes, they work. Her company is ForAllTimeClocks.com and the hands are around 10″ – 17″ in length and come in cream, black, gold, dark brown, and white. Contact angie@foralltimeclocks.com for more information.

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{ photo crate }

Lisa found this antique mail holder at a local antique shop. It’s a fun way to showcase current photos and easy to rotate and update.

Many thanks to Lisa for letting me share a few snippets from her home with my readers. She continues to inspire.

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Posted in DIY, home, style & design | 22 Comments »

dinosaur art

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

Things are always changing in our home. I probably rearrange something, switch a picture out of a frame, move an accent from here to there, paint something … every week. Sometimes daily. It’s my little creative outlet I guess.

This is the latest change to our play room. Found this awesome clock at WalMart, of all places. Already had everything else – the frames and stands, the painted wooden animals (from World Market) and bookcase (from Razmataz). And I left Porter’s handwritten alphabet in the smaller frame from when he was almost 5 years old.

The dinosaur art is new. Porter loves to draw. It’s never the same thing. It’s whatever he sees or feels like that day. Recently it was dinosaurs. One dinosaur per sheet of paper.

I love putting the kids’ art in frames or hanging it on the walls or using it as our desktop wallpaper. Not only because I’m their mother and therefore a total sucker for everything they write and draw … but displaying their art nurtures their creativity and boosts their ego. If you missed my post about Nurturing Creativity in Our Children, you can find that here.

So back to the dinosaur art. This is what I did:

1. I scanned each page (at least 300 dpi).

2. I opened up each file in Photoshop and cropped each piece of art so that each dinosaur (with a little space around it) was 4″ x 3″. I knew the size of my frame and just figured it out so I would have 9 sections for the 9 dinosaurs.

3. In Photoshop, I created a canvas size (fit for my frame) and one by one, I dropped each 4″ x 3″ image onto the canvas.

4. I added a bit of text at the bottom. (Mom taught me to sign and date everything.)

5. I saved the document as a .psd (so all the layers are still there and in case I ever want to make changes) and as a .jpg. The jpg file is what compresses all of the layers and you can upload that to be printed.

Oh, the possibilities! Perhaps this is something you could put to good use with your favorite art that came home from school this year? Maybe you have been hanging on to the art from your own school years. Wouldn’t that be cool to create a grid of your own masterpieces?

Now that the file is created – this collection of dinosaurs – it’s super easy to print 4×6 copies of this and send postcards to friends and cousins. That’s next on the list of summer activities.

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Posted in DIY, family & children, home, style & design | 19 Comments »