Crafted Decor

Throw out the rules when you're decorating your home.
You do not need to have a balance of matching prints.
Your art does not need to match your couch. Or anything else.
Check out a garden in the summer and see how pleasant the balance of colors entertains the eye.
See how many shades of green there is in the foliage of a tree.
Art/craft that you love that is made by someone you love, leaches out into your home atmosphere and warms it up like no Thomas Kinkade can.
You want to look at your art not merely rely on it to decorate your walls.
And you want your visitors to do the same.
I love it when company spends some time perusing my art/photos/crafts on the wall. I love to tell the stories behind them. Sparks conversation and opens doors for sharing on many levels.

Here are a smattering of Art of My Peoples:

I once asked Baby Girl to photograph my garden.
I told her that when I am old(er) I want to paint the incredible flora that has passed by my garden.
She did this and now I have over a dozen framed prints of a good year in my garden. To look at this in the midst of winter, gives me the hope for the growing season and a heart for planning the next garden year.
Don't you love this spunky little ladybug taking on this huge hydrangea leaf?
Baby Girl's Crazily Arty Hubby created this stained glass years ago. He crafted the wood frame from wood on his grandfather's farm.
Until they have permanent residence in their gypsy life, I am the curator.
No prob.

I ordered this sampler kit from a magazine in 1974. Ten years later, it still was not completed. A good friend of mine offered to work on it. In her pity for my procrastinating ways, she not only completed it for me, she framed it and it has become a memory of our long ago friendship. A treasure.

Eldest/Admin talent/hobby took her to a photo class in college that included developing her own photos. I so loved this print showing the gentleness of the lacy Queen Anne's lace butted up against the hard steel of a guard rail near a highway. E/A had it framed and presented it to me for Christmas one year. It is on my staircase and I touch it every day.

On a road trip to see Oldest Sister one year, Baby Girl had just received her first camera (the one I use now!). Anxious to document everything, she took to photographing my hands as I worked on a piece in the car.
My favorite.

Baby Girl took two trips to Africa last year.
This photo taken by Baby Girl's Hubby, shows the playful time she had with the girls of a school there. They got quite tickled as they taught her the word for earring, 'Ogamogamotu'. BG started repeating the lyrical word and began to dance a bit. The girls thought that she was silly and giggled with glee. Love this photo.

I'll even frame poems!
Two poems that mean much to me is from Old Friend, creator of my beautiful stained glass bathroom window featured last year. She is an amazing writer and sent me these poems years ago. They are in my library, named The Renee Busha Not Yet Memorial Library. Named such since she came to my home one week after we moved here, to rip up old carpet and to cover paneling with anaglypta and paint over that. What a friend. The poems are about our accountability in our old age and the other about a pre 911 visit to NYC.

One Christmas, Eldest/Admin created this family montage for us.
I enlarged the center photo, painted some anaglypta for a mat and framed it, with the smaller companion photos, and placed it over our bed. LOVE IT. The photo was taken one Thanksgiving Eve of a very difficult year caretaking my father. Rough patch and I might think that this photo documented the one time when we were able to laugh together. Timely photo. Means a lot to me.

And this silly little 70's crafting present came to me for a wedding present from a co worker at the fabric store where I worked. Crafting was reaching it's hey day and for this young girl to think of soaking my wedding invite in tea and decoupaging it on a piece of wood with some primitive little flowers, well, I thought she was a genius. I was 19 years old. This sweet thing has hung in everyone of my bedrooms for 37 years.

See what I mean?
Don't you just feel the warmth?
I do.
Thank you for taking part in Art Gallery Week at mama's collection!!