Living Room "Artwork"

We've been in our house 2 years on Friday. Wow, has it already been that long?! We've had the living room in a nearly-finished state that whole time. The big items that was always missing was some sort of art piece behind our sofa where there is really, really big, blank wall. After pouring through idea after idea, we decided to try our hands at something like this we saw on Pinterest:

So, I went to our local Goodwill to look for some frames. I came home with a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colors! Nothing that a good ole' can of ORB spray paint couldn't fix! I was able to snag all of these frames for a mere $20! Can't beat that anywhere!



We then went to Michael's and Joann's, because we had coupons for both and thankfully they are right next to each other, and got some fabric and matting paper for about $10.

Early Saturday morning, we loaded into the car and made a family run to Home Depot. Picked out our board, had the handy-dandy employee cut it down to size (6.5 feet) and then picked up our stain, the braces and few other odds and ends, and for about $45 we were out of there and on our way back home to get to work!

It took 4 DAYS to get the board just right! After applying our first coat of stain, we weren't particularly thrilled with the color. So, we just mixed it with a stain we had leftover from the crib project, and it ended up being just what we wanted! We wanted to do it right, no matter how impatient I became to just 'get it done', I waited the full 24 hours in between staining so that it could dry before I sanded to apply another coat!




Then, the big install night came! It took about 1.5 hours to do all the measuring, centering, measuring, centering, measuring, centering and you get the point! And then.....




How pretty is it!?!? I just looked at it from all different angles including walking in and out of the room several times, for about 30 minutes!

Project Breakdown:

Board- $8.00 (they cut the board for free!)
Braces- $20.00 (they were sold in packs of 2, so we have one extra for another project!)
Stain & Sandpaper- $15.00
Picture Frames- $20.00
Fabric, Matting- $10.00
Accessories- $0.00 (I had most of these on hand around the house)
TOTAL- $73.00 (definitely can't buy a nice and large piece of art for that!)



BEFORE:

AFTER:

Foodgawker

Lately I have been making lots of yummy treats that I have found on foodgawker.com. That site is fantastic, but a total time hog! Unfortunately for a lot of the recipes, I haven't had my camera close by, so no pictures of banana white chocolate almond muffins, blueberry muffins, yogurt dill bread, buffalo chicken pasta, golden lemon roasted chicken (so easy and inexpensive!), paprika potatoes, variety quiche, and rataouille just to name a few! Last night however, these looked so good, I actually went upstairs and got my camera to capture the awesomeness!

These were suppose to be Gouda-Stuffed Mushrooms, but last week when I bought the gouda, I didn't anticipate having to wait a whole week to make this recipe, and we ate it all before last night! So, I had plenty of mozzarella and cheddar on hand, so that's what we used! I also used cilantro instead of basil, because I had some fresh in the refrigerator.

So, without further ado, here is the evidence of yum:

The inspiration recipe can be found here:

http://circle-b-kitchen.squarespace.com/food-and-recipes/2009/12/2/gouda-stuffed-mushrooms.html