My new dining room!

A few days ago I discovered the store Amenity Home and I absolutely fell in love with one of their fabric prints. I just adored the organic, simple, and modern feel of this piece. The only problem? At a steep price of $330, I knew that my pocketbook was too slim to accomodate my tastes.

So my brain started turning and turning--I had to have this artwork in my home!--and I came to the conclusion that I could try to paint this pattern myself. Now, I'm not an artist by any means but I can (kind of) draw and (kind of) decorate. How hard could this project be?

Well, it turns out that my artistic talent is kind of rusty. I went to Michael's and bought all of the supplies I needed (a big canvas, paint, brushes) and everything started out pretty well. The branches looked decent enough and I was pretty proud of my choices of color. But then I tried to tackle the leaves and they looked just...awful. Like puffs of cotton balls or nastiness times five.

But I think I salvaged the project well. I even painted a second piece to go along with my first one. And now, I have a brand new dining room! (Which is kind of ironic since Justin and I will most likely be moving at the end of April since our rent is going up.)

This morning I actually re-painted the piece on the left. The branches weren't as dark as I wanted them so I painted them a slate gray. (The color gray is my new obsession.) I also want to remark on the clock in the picture. I got it on sale for only $20! Justin doesn't like it though because it's so big. He calls it Big Ben. But I don't let this bother me because a.) I LOVE big clocks and b.) I LOVE Big Ben.