New Family Portrait.... Kinda

I have decided I just can't wait for one big reveal, I have to give you a little sneak peek of my family room.  This is not a totally done space.  I still have a lot to do... like maybe put pictures in the frames.

I can't even begin to tell you how totally happy I am about how this is turning out.  When we moved into our house I knew I wanted a large piece of art for this wall,  but couldn't find anything just right and anything I did kinda like was way more then I would want to spend.  So after a month or two of bare walls I just hung up some stuff I already had.

Here is the before:

As you can tell I took this picture back before Christmas, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what it looked like before.  The lamps I had bought about 5 years ago for $4 each.  When I bought them the base was GOLD and they were UGLY.  So I spray painted them black and then rubbed them a little before the paint dried to let just a little of the gold show through.  Back then my credenza was red, but once I painted the credenza black and the lamps where black and the frames where black and the walls and ceiling were beige the effect was very blah and cave like in the room.  

So first I decided I would just make my own art.  I got the canvases for about $18 each at a local craft store. Then I got two of those little sample cans of Behr paint.  You know the ones that are like $2.94 or something like that.  I got the two colors I was planning on painting on my walls so the painting would really feel like it was part of the house and so I could test them out and see how I liked them before I actually put any on any walls.

I started by painting a quick coat of the light blue on the front and edges. Then, on the front only, I dry brushed on the green color.  Once it was dry I lightly brush the blue back on in a few spots and added a few little drops/splatters of the light blue.  Once that was all dry I free handed the branch.  If you are going to do this yourself and you are nervous about painting the branch I would suggest looking some up on-line do give you an idea, but don't look at the pictures while you are painting.  Just don't.

The birds are my family.  Can you see it?  My hubby and I are the love bird up at the top and then the other 4 are the kids.  I even left room so as our family grows I can add more birds.  To do the birds I downloaded a few pictures of love birds into picasa, cropped them so they would all be the right size when I printed them off.  Then I rubbed the back with a pencil, traced the outline onto the canvas, and painted it in.

Then there were the lamps.

Do you remember this post?

Well here is what I was talking about.

Those are the same lamps I bought for $4 each, but now for the first time I can say I LOVE them.  I just spray painted them aqua blue and gave them a coat of spray on lacquer.   Then I just switched out the shade and you would never know they are my old ugly lamps.  Since doing this I have noticed a lot of people spray painted their lamps aqua blue.  Yeah I am such a trend setter. :)  Umm you know I am joking right?

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