I'm now officially a HOME-MAKER!!

A few years ago I was able to go out west and had the opportunity to stay for two days with my dear friend Addy Cagle. The Cagles were living with Addy's family at the time and so I had the opportunity to meet her family and stay in their home. They were so welcoming. One of my favorite things about their home was all the amazing paintings they had of scenes from Christ's life. Every room I went in touched me in some way because of spirit their art evoked. Ever since my trip there one of my biggest temporal wants (LOL) have been to have paintings like this in my home. HOWEVER, since in no way can we afford anything that luxurious at this time I decided to get a little creative! Here is what I did...

Some time ago we were lucky enough to get a Greg Olsen calendar for free through the church. I don't really remember how, I think he donated a bunch of box loads. Anyway, we didn't actually use the calendar and I didn't want to thow it away because he has some really beautiful work. Since moving, our place has some pretty bare walls - we have just never had this much space before!! So I finally decided to do something with the calendar. I took it completely apart and picked some of my favorites out of the paintings. This is one of them...

The size was a little too big for an 8x10 so I bought a fairly inexpensive document frame 10x13 matted with an 8.5x11 opening. I just think that these look WAY better and more professional when matted. I don't usually like to go too cheap on frames because they generally fall apart pretty easily but these seemed to work out fine. They were six dollars at WalMart (where I usually don't like to go, unless absolutely necessary!).

Inserted the "painting." And, I was so surprised at how amazing it turned out. I mean, in no way does it compare to the Huge immaculate slash wonderful paintings that the Holladays have, but for our small budget I think it's A plus. :)

I did two more and hung them over our cubes. To hang them I actually used the new 3M Command picture hanging strips and I have to say, I was a little hesitant but they do work really well! This is what it now looks like....

This one is a litte bit more of a close-up. It looks as if the one to the right is smaller than the other two, but they are actually all the same size.

I have to say that for $18 dollars plus tax this little project turned out better than I expected AND I get a little bit of the feeling that I have some beautiful paintings of Christ in my home. Maybe one day I can upgrade haha, but for now I can be more than happy with this!

Thanks to the Holladay family, again, for their hospitality AND for displaying some of the most spiritual yet stunning pieces of art I've ever seen.

I'm pretty sure this counts as a tutorial, so now when people ask me my job... I can say homemaker!! :)