~it started with a photo~

This is one of my favorite photos of my kids and husband when we vacationed in Cancun a year ago.

We spent hours each day in that clear turquoise water and

 I wanted something special to remember it with.

I contacted Melissa after finding her on instagram, and asked if she 

would paint it for me.

I told her my requests, no boat, and more muted hues to go with our decor.

Do you want to see what she came up with? 

~It's simply amazing~

This is the photo she sent me over email.

It couldn't be more perfect.

The colors, the people, everything, perfect.

Here it is hanging in our bedroom.

Love, love, love it.

Thank you Melissa for creating this piece of art I will cherish forever!

xoxo

~thrifty thursday~{beachy whale towel rack diy}

I am really excited about this project!

I have been looking for a cute way to hang our towels by our hot tub, and I think I found it.

Can you guess what this piece started out as?

My parents recently took out their broken hot tub.

The piece below hid their electrical panel, and, 

it was going to the dump, so I rescued it.

I found this cute whale silhouette.

You can use any image. 

Search google for free images, or try clip art.

Print out your image and enlarge it to the size you need at your copy center.

Next, cut out the image and place it on your piece of wood.

I tacked mine into place so it wouldn't shift around.

Then, carefully trace around your image with a sharpie.

Now it is time to cut out the image.

I used a jigsaw, but first drilled a hole as a place to get my jigsaw started.

I gave the whale a little mouth as you can see.

I could've left it as is, but at this point I decided to freshen it up a little with a whitewash.

I lightly sprayed white paint and primer spray paint all over the whole thing. 

When it was dry I sanded it all over.

Then I rummaged through my studio and found these hooks and added them at the bottom. 

I hung it near the hot tub and added the towels.

I got the towels at Joss and Main a while back, but Serena and Lilly 

has some similar ones here.

Pretty cute huh?

I just love it for summer.

xoxo

~a spring picnic~

Wishing I was here again….

For the full post, click here.

xoxo