DIY - Chevron Canvases

I LOVE looking through Pinterest and finding all kinds of projects I could do at home.  In fact, I like looking at the different projects so much that I find I rarely actually do a project.  Every once in a while I'll make the time to put one together, though.  I was inspired by this canvas that I found through Pinterest.

There is a spot above our kitchen sink in our little rental town home that has desperately needed something to help bring it some color and dimension.  I've been thinking about doing a couple small canvases there for a long time and thought that a simple chevron pattern would be fun.  

Finding an hour to sit and paint, however, is difficult with an almost-six month old.  Even when he is napping, the house is beckoning to be cleaned, laundered, organized, and de-cluttered.  But on this day I decided that the dishes could wait and I would do some painting instead. 

While Evan napped, I completed this little project in about an hour. All I used was a few different bottles of acrylic paint, a small painting sponge, painters tape, a small paintbrush, and two small canvases.  In this case they are 12 in x 12 in.  

 I started by creating a light edging to the canvases to help center them and add a little interest.  I used some gray paint and lightly dabbed the color on using a sponge. Then I used my painters tape to create a chevron pattern and painted the stripes yellow.  I thought the yellow would give a nice pop against the blue that is in our kitchen.

I can be really impatient when it comes to waiting for paint to dry (who really can patiently wait for paint to dry when you're working on a project!).  So I let these canvases dry no more than 10 minutes before I was peeling off the paint and examining the finished product.  Here they are hung above the sink:

Sorry the picture's a little grainy - took this a little late in the day.  I can't decide if the yellow is a little too bright and I'm thinking I might do a light "white wash" over the entire canvases to help tone them down a bit. For now, though, I'll let them be and see if the brightness grows on me :)

Have you done any chevron patterns in your home? I find chevron patterns all over Pinterest in various projects and ideas. I saw one done on a pillow and another on a quilt - both look like fun, too! If only I was better at sewing :)

Beginnings Always Start With Cookies

So I'll admit it, I'm really bad at keeping up with blogs.  I tried it two years ago after getting married and failed miserably after just two posts.  I honestly never thought about posting and my pictures and ideas fell to the wayside. In the last few weeks that has changed, however, as I have watched my wonderful husband begin his own writing blog.  He has been so inspiring in his pursuit of growing as a writer and sharing his passion that I caught his bug.  You should check out his blog and the amazing things he has already written and leave him a comment - he'll love it! 

I'm not an amazing writer like my husband, but I enjoy sharing experiences, pictures (especially those!), and adventures on my new journey of mommyhood.  My beautiful, growing baby boy captured my heart long before I ever saw his face, but its every single day since meeting him that my heart as grown more and more in love with one of the greatest gifts God has ever given me.  As I type my 5 month old baby boy is sawing some Z's through the baby monitor - how grateful I am for a sleeping baby! Words cannot express how much I love this little man and, to be honest, I can't help but share a million pictures of him. So you will see lot of him on here!

Baby Evan started his own journey of solid foods this month.  After two weeks of trying rice cereal on for size, we decided to try some avocado.  He just wasn't sure what to think of it.

We'll keep trying and see how does in the coming weeks - I'm thinking sweet potato is next. So anyway, now you're probably wondering why the title of this blog has anything to do with cookies. Way to be patient! Because there was no way my little man was going to eat a whole avocado, let alone more than a teaspoon or two.  And I didn't want it to spoil in the mean time, and having gone off dairy for the mean time (to see if it will help settle little man's stomach - more on that another time), I decided to try avocado as a substitute for butter in some yummy cookies - banana oatmeal cookies.

They are amazingly simple to make and delicious to boot! You can find the recipe here. Though her recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of butter, you can substitute mashed avocado 1:1 for the butter.  So that's exactly what I did.  I was a little worried when the batter was fairly bright green at first, but after stirring in the oats and nuts, you'd never know there was anything green about these cookies.

In the oven they went at 350 degrees for 10 minutes and the whole placed smelled like banana bread - delicious.  I barely let them cool before I dug in.  I'm pretty sure there are about half of them left even after baking them only this afternoon.  Seriously yummy! They were dairy free, low fat, and smelled divine coming out of the oven.

Do you ever cook with baking substitutes?  I was amazed how many different ways you can substitute various ingredients out to make recipes lower fat and healthier.  Apple sauce is one of my favorites, and I'm excited to experiment with avocado in the future to see what else I can come with.

So there you have it - grammatically correct or not - here's to a good beginning and to hopefully many more simple life adventures to share.  

God bless!