619 miles

before & after: stylish display

A friend from work asked if I could make a large felt board for him to display his collection of patches. In the military we wear patches on our uniform and there is a tradition of creating special occasion type patches. You can also get patches for different schools you attend or different units you work with. Some are clever, some are funny, and some are just collected because they mark a point time of our career.

I agreed to make him a way to display his patches, but I wanted to mix it up a bit. I immediately came up with an idea to add some style to the project. Yesterday I talked about projects not going as planned, but turning out even better. Today's project went exactly as I had planned and I think it turned out GREAT! 

I collected various sizes of thrift store frames to make a collage instead of one large board to hang all the patches on. He wanted room to expand so I kept that in mind when I was deciding how large to make the overall arrangement. I layed them out on the floor to come up with an display that I thought looked good then I took a photo so I'd remember:

 

I added a little bright white felt and some oil rubbed bronze spray paint and I think we have a very stylish way to display some patches:

 

 

 

I used cardboard for the frames that didn't have any backing and I painted it all with some white paint I had on hand. I cute the felt to size and taped it to the back of the cardboard and backer boards. I plan on backing each one with paper to clean it up and then adding hanging hooks to the ones that don't have any.

I am so pleased with how it turned out! I hope my friend likes it too.

currently...

...I am chilling on the couch feeding my addiction to all things turquoise & blue (and helping Cam play angry birds on my iPhone), while Reese is snoozing on the floor next to us. A nice relaxing Sunday morning.

I've been devouring this blog, House of Turquoise, for the past 2 days, talk about eye candy!

And I have been pinning all this ridiculous eye candy on my newest favorite thing Pinterest!

Here is a screen shot of one of my boards. It's THE coolest way to collect and share images.

art of display - collections

I love when magazines and blogs do home tours.  Whether it be someone famous, or just your average joe, I thoroughly enjoy getting a peak into other peoples' homes to see how they do things, how they make their house their own.  I'm always looking for new ideas for the eventual time when I have a place of my own to design and decorate.  Today I'm browsing through apartment therapy looking at cool collections and displays.  I currently don't collect anything.  I'm not opposed to it, I've just never found something I like enought to collect.  However, looking at these has me itching to find some funky and unique plates to display on my walls or maybe some cool rocks.

As I was typing this I looked around my living room and realized I may just have the beginnings of a few collections.  I've never officially proclaimed "I am now collecting _____" but as I look around I see a couple globes, several old cameras and quite a few pieces of pottery.  Here is a peak at my min-collections:

Me encanta this pottery! I want to design my next living room around this last piece.  I think I could make it work :)