the great book wall project

For the longest time, I've had quite the obsession with books. 

As a kid I didn't play with Barbie dolls or baby dolls; I read books. 

#nerdalert

As an adult, I find myself incorporating books into all of our decor.

Books are quite nostalgic.

The worn pages. The smell. The dog eared corners.

We used vintage books as centerpieces at our wedding and many of those books have been re-purposed around our home. 

Over the last few months, I've been working hard (and very, very, very slowly) on this book wall project. 

We have a large open wall in our living room and I wanted to fill the space with one huge installation.

We are lucky enough to live in an area surrounded by many historic homes. Over the last year many of these homes are being renovated. The home across the street from us is one of the oldest in McKinney, housing it's 5th generation.

The owners recently repaired a fence on their property and I was lucky enough to get some of the scrap wood from their old fence. 

Reclaimed wood.

Doesn't it have so much character?

I started off by nailing the wood to some wall studs for extra support.

Books are heavy.

Flashback to 5th grade, when books were so heavy, that you just hadddddddd to have a rolling backpack. Anyone else? The great fad of 1999.

After arranging (and re-arranging and re-arranging) the book placement on the floor, I finally became brave enough to nail each book to the wood.

It literally took me about a month.

Analysis paralysis.

I nailed each book (open, nails on both sides, through the pages) and left about 6 pages to spare in the middle (without nails through them) so that I could invisibly hold them down with double stick tape (covering the pages with the nails in them).

Did that make sense?

That was oddly very hard to put into words. 

Basically: buy all the nails and all the double stick tape and make it happen.

Isn't she lovely? 

A not so blank space

For the last two years I've been hunting vintage marquee letters at every antique shop I visit.

I have a thing for quotes and lyrics, and I've always wanted a piece of wall art that would allow me to swap quotes in and out as I wish.

My dreams have finally come to reality!

Last weekend, mom and I were doing some antique shopping in downtown Mckinney and I FINALLY found my letters!

It felt like Christmas morning.

I found the perfect collection of mis-matched shapes and sizes, just like I envisioned.

I quickly took off to Home Depot, in search of small, thin strips of wood to line the letters on.

I ended up finding the perfect solution in the crown molding/siding section.

The "L" shape of the trim made the ideal shelf to hold the letters.

The pieces were a bit long, so we finally had an excuse to use my new skil-saw!

I get my first power tool and Josh wouldn't even let me play, he insisted on doing it himself.

After we trimmed them, I stained the pieces a dark walnut, to match our bed and chest of drawers.

I have an extraordinary fear of hanging things on walls, which is why we have excessive blank wall space like this.

Everywhere.

It was a bit of a challenge for me to choose exactly which blank space I wanted to fill, but I ended up settling on the space between our bedroom door and our chest of drawers.  

I do have to say that I'm pretty darn pleased with the finished product.

I've got a mile long list of potential quotes and lyrics to display, and I'm hoping to change it out weekly.

For the first display I chose lyrics from my favorite Head and The Heart song "Coeur D'Alene" 

Follow along on instagram @em_kerrigan if you would like to keep up with the weekly quotes! 

A musical craft

Lately, I've been taking on multiple projects left and right, either for the wedding or our new apartment. 

This one was just one craft I've been wanting to do, but I couldn't decide whether it should be used at the wedding or not (and if we will even have any wall space left in our apartment for random art)

The quote "Would you like to dance around the world with me?" is from one of our favorite Dave Matthews songs, which kinda holds a special place for Josh and I. 

With our love for good music and traveling, I was dying to incorporate a vintage map and some paper from an old hymnal.

I printed out the quote, cut out the letters, then traced them onto the old hymnal paper.

Finally, I modge podged each letter in place.

(It was a lot easier doing a layer first and then placing each letter onto the map so that they would stay in place)

Take that World Market

Finding these little buddies at World Market (and seeing their price tag) inspired me to get creative in decorating mine and Josh's future home (that doesn't quite exist yet)

I went to Hobby Lobby and only spent $21 to make my own

Turned our pretty darn cute, huh?

I bought the lightweight cardboard letters rather than the solid wood ones (easier to hang)

I love the idea of using the old maps to cover the letters, but when I was at Hobby Lobby I fell in love with some scrapbook paper with trees.
I also bought some fabric to cover the sides with.
I believe I bought 1/2 a yard.

I traced each letter onto the back of a 12x12 piece of scrapbook paper.

Remember to flip the letter and make sure the paper is facing the correct direction (we don't want any upside down trees!)

If your letters has curved edges then be sure to cut little slits in the side so that it will glue without wrinkling or tearing.

I cut 2 inch strips of fabric and ironed them with the edges folded over so that they touched (making a 1 inch clean strip) 

Did that make sense?

It felt confusing, but it was the best way I could describe it.

I used fabric glue to line the edges of the letter, just to give it a cleaner look.

I really want to try this some more with other fabrics and papers!

If only we had more wallspace in our new apartment.

Oh, btw, we found an apartment.

With a real live yard for Charlie! 

I can't wait to have two dude roommates, 7 weeks away!

Canning adventures: Homemade jelly and salsa!

With a few upcoming parties and showers (and with mom having the summer off) we decided to get busy while we had some semi-spare time.

We wanted to do something very thoughtful for hostess gifts, and settled upon the idea of canning homemade peach jelly (using Ruston peaches, of course) and my mom's homemade salsa (remember?)

The canning process wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but mom, Ellie, and I definitely had fun doing it.

I know I wouldn't be able to give adequate step by directions, but I took plenty of pictures during the process and they are very blog worthy.

Strained peach juice.

(I missed this step of the process, so if you want a tutorial then google would be your best bet)

Hot jars

Sealed lids.

Can't forget the salsa!

We also made little tags for the gift bags as well.

Ta-da! 

Our hosts and hostesses sure are some luckyyyyyy people!

My graduation gift to Ellie

Hey guys it's craft time!

Step 1:

Buy a cheap painting with lots of colors, who cares what it says or looks like.

Step 2:

Write a quote with sticker letters on the painting.

My personal favorite, a line from Dr. Seuss's "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" 

Very appropriate for high school graduation.

Step 3:

Cover the painting with paint.

Spray paint works best for when you peel the stickers off. 

Step 4:

Peel the stickers off!

(Crappy quality phone pic, my bad, the fancy cam has gone into hibernation due to lack of computer space)

Got a long day of knee and hip surgeries ahead, no time to type! 

See ya!