TELL me: how COOL is this?!


In preparation for moving, we have begun the arduous task of 'cleaning out.' For me, the absolute two worst areas are: the garage (which turned out not to be too bad after all) and my office (which turned out to be worse than I was expecting.) It's pretty much the one room in the house that I haven't de-cluttered AT ALL since moving last time. In fact, methinks that I've been carting around the same junk-in-need-of-getting-rid-of for oh say...about 6 years now.

So could I just up and throw out 6 years of Real Simple issues without giving 'em one last look? I suppose that I could have; but then all the moving them around would have been for naught. So I decided to quickly leaf through and pull out stuff that inspires me. In on issue, for example, I discovered these way-cool ways to funk out a room on a budget. Mio V2 designs wallpaper and other surface coverings (you can even design your own). Audrey really wants us to do something like this in the living room for her birthday. If I did this, I wouldn't do a whole wall, but probably just the size of a large poster-ish-size.

I am always amazed at how creative humans can be. And am especially inspired to see how people, who are both artistic and resourceful, can completely transform spaces without spending much money. I mean, it's easy enough to create an incredible looking room if you buy a room out of a store. But visit the Taizé community/monastery in France, for example, and you will be impressed by how they create such a peaceful, reverent and glowing aesthetic with simple terra-cotta bricks, tealights, and massive swaths of cloth. Light, texture, color, it's incredible how these simple elements transform. I was especially struck by how beauty, art and creativity were lived out as a form of worship to God, without even the slightest hint of materialism mixed in. Somehow, simplicity and appreciation for aesthetics balance in a way that seems so difficult to achieve in our world.

Now how fun is this sticker from ModernSeed?



Now I know that some of you crafty, creative people out there are thinking: 'well you could easily paint that on your kid's wall' But no, not I. There is also something deeply spiritual and wise about knowing your own limits. Anything that I might paint on my kid's wall is sure to depress her and I'm just not ready to have my baby to think that I suck. At 19 months, Audrey draws about as well as me. Ask Lissa and Alanna at Club Ed--I tried to help them do a bulletin board display for the store a few years ago and we ended up calling it 'Apocalypse Now.' There was alot of stapling and chalk drawings of volcanoes that looked like a nuclear wasteland. What was supposed to be a cheery scene looked like Irwindale, California. (For those of you who've never had the pleasure of visiting, you are missing n-o-t-h-i-n-g. Just picture Kevin Costner floating around on his raft in the movie, 'Waterworld.' That's basically Irwindale.)

As for me, wall stickers are a more realistic option. Or-- ever since I've seen it in real-life, I do have a new appreciation for what terra-cotta, tea lights and large swaths of cloth can do for a room. If artfully done.