A Great Weekend and a doable art project

We had a very full weekend! Saturday morning was spent cleaning. We cleaned the entire house. Scruba-dub-dub. Tom spent the whole morning scrubbing the kitchen floor, and I did the bathrooms and the rest of the house. I had some extra special snuggle time with Jack and those moments are always the best!
Tom's parents come on Wednesday, his Grandma on Christmas Day and then we head to the Cabin (yes, Cabin with a capital "C") on Saturday. I'm looking forward to being away for a little while to spend some time as a family.
We are a family that hangs out together a lot. We like to. We like to run errands together and go places together. But, Tom's been working a lot this week, even late Saturday night, and he is going to Chicago tomorrow for two days, so it's been a little hit and miss with all of us lately. It will be nice to play for a week.
Gus is getting tubes when we get back. I hope he can make it that long without an ear infection. It amazes me that he is still such a happy-go-with-the-flow baby even with a sinus infection and double ear infection. He is amazing.

The rest of this is about our weekend project. We have a two-story entry (it sounds fancy, but it's not) and it leaves a ginormous blank space in my life. I was going to put this there, but it was heavy and I actually wanted to be able to reference it when the boys get older, so it went to the mudroom/laundry room. Then, I wanted to do a huge mural using a projector, but we couldn't get the projector...such is my life. Never easy...so I freehanded it. Seriously. I'm not an artist, but I figured, how hard can it be to draw some branches and leaves? Well, it's not "hard", it's just not that "easy". I had an idea from some scrapbook paper that I liked, and did my best...take that seventh grade art teacher who gave me a B.
Here's the paper:

I didn't want to spend a ton of money on an artist canvas, those run about $90. So, I got a drop cloth canvas. Five bucks. And it had a protective plastic backing so I wouldn't have to worry about paint on the floor! Another plus, especially with my history of paint spills...eh hem, the carpet in the boys' room...

First I drew it on with chalk. Then I took the leftover black paint from the island and bathroom cabinets and painted it on. That's right. Leftover latex paint used to paint stuff. Not art....eh.
By the way, I'm a huge Behr fan. I love their paints. (They should pay me to say that. Please Behr, pay me to say that.)

 

It wasn't that bad....just time consuming. Thank goodness the kids went to bed well!

And here it is:

Tom built the frame out of some inexpensive 1x1. (He's the handy one. We all know that.) Then I stapled it to the frame. If I was an angry, lonely woman and wanted to cut my ear off I could totally be famous. Totally.

I love it! It looks great up there. And it's something that we did! I think it was a total of $7.00. This is a vey doable project for someone that is not artistic, like me. Especially if you have access to a projector and a handy hubby, but not mine. You can borrow him. But you can't keep him.

Ahhh....I'm at peace with the blank space in my life.

Now, if only I could stop eating cookies...

Okay, I'll share. Cottage Instincts, Met Monday, DIY Day, Today's Creative Blog and Transformation Thursday here I come! Aren't they all so clever!