tala life: I create

It has been awesome having a maternity leave for the obvious reasons....spend time with family. bond with Zakiyah and Zion. Make family dinners/eat family dinners. ( normally we don't get family dinners Monday-Thursday do to our work schedule) Just the act of slowing down has been wonderful, well the Christy version of slowing down. But I have been doing some fun changes on the home front this fall.

I got together with my friend Kati recently and mentioned that I wanted to do a chalk board wall in the kitch. She told me she had extra chalk board paint that I could use! PERF! So that day I took advantage of nap time and made it happen. This is a before pix of the kitchen.

After! I love it. I have yet to buy dust-less chalk. Did you know it exsisted? Best invention ever:) We are going to use the chalk board for bible verses. quotes. meal planning. notes. art. and Z2 art. I am excited.

Here is the left wall by the desk area.

the right wall by the patio door. I moved the floral art on the wall by the door. Isn't the ice cream parlor table precious. Our good friend, Shel has borrowed it to us for as long as we can use it. Zion lives at this table. I also switched out our curtains for a more fall/cozy look. They are from a good friend of mine. I think they are from Linens 'N Things. They are a burnt orange Micro fiber. I love them. I have hemp wrapped on them now since we are still using the deck.

Here are the old curtains. They are Pier 1 gold striped. I love them as well. But its fun to switch out seasonally. I still really want to paint the rest of the kitchen this winter. I just can't decide what color to do. Ideas, anyone?

Here is a close up of the curtains. I love myself a good damask pattern.

I also just picked up this awesome vintage tray that is from my Grandma Cherie. It totally reminds me of growing up and having happy hour at her house. Cheese/Crackers and Root Beer for the kids. I put it in my dining room on the buffet.

Isn't it cute?

I also just made this painting on a canvas! I love it. I have been really into layers my art with different textures. I took an old painting from our old house and recycled it up. Considering it was just sitting in our storage room.

Here is the before painting. I love it as well but it was time for change. I started with using mod-podge and glueing newspapers on the canvas. Then I took some sticker letters and wrote out scripture. "The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God." Andy picked out the verse. Then I painted over the stickers with different colors. While the paint was still wet, I peeled off the letters and allowed the painting to dry. Then I took a sharpie and outlined the letters so they popped off the canvas more. I wanted to paint poppy flowers on the canvas too. So I whipped up some flowers and then used some paint markers (best thing ever btw) and wa-la! It was done. I have it hanging on my fireplace stone. I LOVE IT!

I just hung this Bless All Who Enter sign by my front door. My Friend/client gave this to me for Christmas last year. I have been meaning to hang it this whole time and finally got around to it. Great quote for the entryway.

On top of the craziness at our house, Andy, my rockin hus just finished our deck! PTL. I love it so much. It was a long summer project. Digging holes. putting posts up and having it look like a pergola all summer. When we had Kiyah in August, he finally had time to work on it. It was such a busy summer for us so that was the best time for him to concentrate on it. A shout out to Mike, Luke, and Isaac for helping us out! We went with composite deck wood in a light gray and white metal spindles. I LOVE IT SO MUCH!