HMH has been featured!

Wow! The lovely sisters of At the Picket Fence have featured Heart Maine Home and my DIY paint swatch art! 

 

Thanks, Vanessa and Heather! As a new blogger, it's a great thrill to be featured on another blog and to meet two ladies who are so sweet and encouraging to a newbie like me. Stop by their Inspiration Friday party today and see all the amazing stuff everyone is sharing -- you will definitely be inspired.

And now, since it's the Friday before a three-day weekend for me (does anyone else have President's Day off?), I'm going to share a few things around the blogosphere that caught my eye this week and may inspire me to tackle some projects over the long weekend. In no particular order:

Shannon at Hase Haus's DIY checkered bedskirt. Lovely!

This adorable boot tray from Maillardville Manor (via Apartment Therapy). I'm trying this one...

This file cabinet transformation that took it from ho-hum to super fun. I have a file cabinet that could use a similar treatment. Via Apartment Therapy.

And...Edy's Girl Scout Samoas Cookie ice cream. I love when Girl Scout cookie season comes around. :)

Enjoy your weekend, all! Here's a hint at what I know I'll be working on...

My Home Ideas

A simple centerpiece

Months ago, I saw Sabrina Soto on HGTV's Get It Sold make a beautiful centerpiece by wrapping plain glass pillar candle holders in gauzy fabric, and I loved the idea. Then, a couple months later, I started reading Thrifty Decor Chick's blog and saw she had done the same thing, with gorgeous results. I took it as a sign from the universe that I needed to give it a try too.

I bought a few various sized candle holders from Michaels and broke out a few votive holder left over from my wedding. I searched around for a little while for the right tray to arrange them on, and finally lucked out with this pretty mirrored tray from Target. (Here's a similar one.)

By this point, it was Christmastime, so I held off with the fabric and instead wrapped the candle holders in red and gold ribbon, and added some mini silver ornaments.

Once the holidays were over, I swapped the ribbon for some white gauzy fabric from Joann, using hot glue to adhere it. I soon found out that the fabric I had chosen was a little too stretchy for the project, and I had a hard time getting it flat around the glassware. I also realized that it was prone to fraying around the cut edges (and I still haven't figured out how to fix that! For now, I'm ignoring it...).

Here's what it looks like in the daytime.

But it really shines at night!

I added some of my cork collection for some warmth and texture.

I like how the mirrored tray reflects the candle light. So romantic!

What do you think? Pretty, right?  Any ideas for taming those frays? I'd love to hear them!

See Sarah @ TDC's version here.

See how we finished that dining room table ourselves.

Like Heart Maine Home on Facebook! 

A day for love and chocolate

Happy Valentine's Day!

Portland's historic downtown is once plastered with paper hearts, the work of the mysterious Valentine's Bandit (read more here). I'm feeling the love!

I like flowers and all (okay, I love flowers), but I still think something chocolate is the best Valentine's present. What can I say -- I'm a sucker for the sweet stuff.

This was my first time making whoopie pies, and I was pretty happy with the results by the end (let's just say the first couple pans were not as good...). The recipe comes from Moody's Diner, a coastal Maine diner known for its traditional pies as well as its whoopies.

I won't give you a whoopie play-by-play because, well, frankly I'm not very good at cooking. I will tell you that you'll need a REAAALLY big bowl and a strong mixing arm for all this dough (I may or may not have gotten chocolate all over myself). For the filling, I used a cup of shortening and a half-cup of butter, mostly because I ran out of shortening, and I thought it was divine (as much as I love chocolate, I think the filling is my favorite part!). And I gave them a little Valentine's bling.

Hope your day is filled with love -- and chocolate!

My first gallery wall

We have a nice big wall in the kitchen that was begging for a gallery of photos. I love the look and how much latitude you have to make it personal and unique. The blogosphere is full of gorgeous gallery walls for inspiration that are all different but all beautiful:

Design*Sponge

All other photos from Decorpad 

But I was a little nervous to tackle it myself. I contemplated it for a while, but was stricken with indecision. I envisioned putting dozens of nail holes in the wall that the hubs would have to fill when all was said and done. 

But that big wall kept staring at me, imploring me to give it a shot. Since I'm not great at visualizing something, I knew I couldn't just launch into it without a plan. So I grabbed some old wrapping paper to make templates.

I had two chunky, matted 8x10 frames I wanted to use, so I started with tracing them onto the backside of the wrapping paper and hanging them up on the wall with Scotch tape. 

Then, I grabbed some random 5x7 and 4x6 frames I had around the house and traced them to make templates. I arranged them around the 8x10 frames, trying to keep even spacing and vary the horizontal and vertical orientations. Luckily, the Scotch tape allowed me to pull things off and re-stick them easily without damaging the wall.

I ended up with this:

What's on the back of the paper? Dinosaurs.

Once I knew how many frames I needed and how big they needed to be, I headed out to Target (where else?) and stocked up on some more that would coordinate with the ones I had. 

Then began the fun part -- putting holes in the wall. For each frame, I measured how far the hook was from the top of the frame...

...and then measured and marked that on the paper template. I actually put the nail in right into the paper template, then pulled it off.

Then, I hung each frame. I do admit, once I stepped back and looked at it, I did tweak some placement a little (but luckily those holes are still covered by the frames. Don't tell hubby...). I also decided to add a frame on the bottom left that wasn't in my original layout.

I was a little nervous about mixing wood tones, but I think it still looks cohesive (except that really light one in the center, which I'm planning to sand and stain a shade darker). 

It fills the space much better than just the two big frames alone.

Want to take a virtual tour of the photos in the frames? Of course you do! (Some of the photos have changed since that last shot above).

For photos, I used a combination of photos of us and landscape shots. The hubs standing on top of Mount Battie in Camden, and one of our favorite lobster shacks on Orrs Island (both in Maine).

Two beautiful and very different beaches: Aruba's Palm Beach on top, and Small Point Beach in Maine.

Clockwise from top, a canal in Venice, lily pads on Webb Lake in Maine, a found pair of flipflops at Popham Beach State Park in Maine. (Not in the shot is a picture of the hubs and I from our engagement session, on the left. It's the same as the shot included in my Valentine's vignette, so I decided you all didn't need to be objected to its lovey-doveyness twice).

And this is me, checking out the scenery (or pretending to, because I didn't have any quarters!) at Land's End in Maine, of course. This photo was actually taken on my birthday in January, when it was unseasonably warm -- I actually put my feet in the ocean!

Making this gallery wall was easier than I thought it would be, and I love the end result. And I definitely like the ability to switch out the photos when I get bored with what's there -- a simple and cost-effective way to refresh the room on a whim.

If you're pondering trying out this trend, go for it! It's not as scary as it seems.

Have you already made a great gallery wall? Share it in the comments below!

Also, I invite you all to like Heart Maine Home on Facebook!

DIY: Paint swatch art

With a house full of walls to fill, I'm always on the lookout for cheap and cute art. When I saw Joi at Nuestra Vida Dulce's fun and modern-looking paint swatch art, I wanted to give it a shot too. I have a ridiculously embarrassing amount of paint swatches, so I was happy to put them to good use.

Joi used uniform squares to make her art, but I decided to try something a little more varied. First, I laid out all my swatches and picked a palette of greens, blues, grays and creams that were all on the cool side. Then, I used my rotary cutter, grid and mat to cut the swatches into various squares and rectangles in one-half-inch increments 2" and less -- e.g., 1" x 1.5", 0.5" x 0.5", 2" x 0.5", etc. -- mostly because that's how my grid is arranged.

I took the insert from an 8" x 10" frame and flipped it over to the white side, then measured in from the sides to make a 5" x 7" rectangle in the center. Then, I just started arranging the squares so they fit into the 5" x 7" rectangle. I didn't really have a process, except I tried not to get two of the same color next to each other, and tried to vary up the order of the sizes (i.e., not get too many smaller squares next to each other).

Once I had it looking like I wanted, I started sticking them to the paper using scrapbooking adhesive. I worked from one side to the other, lining them up as closely as I could to avoid seams. Luckily, the adhesive wasn't so sticky that I was able to peel off squares easily and readjust if I needed to. 

I decided to include one small burnt orange square, to mirror the design of our slate floor in the entryway (which actually has a couple orange tiles, but it's mostly blues and grays). Many of the paint swatches I had were similar in tone to the floor, since we used that as inspiration for our color scheme.

Here it is matted and hung in the kitchen.

If you get up close, you can see a few tiny gaps between the squares -- it was ridiculously hard to get all my edges straight, even with the grid and rotary cutter, and line them up perfectly. I still love the way it looks, though.

All in all, it was a fun project, but it took a lot more time than I anticipated to arrange the layout. I think Joi had the right idea using uniform squares -- that would have taken a lot less time! I think I'll try that next time. I might also try making the squares bigger than I want them and overlapping them to prevent gaps. I still have plenty of swatches left over, so I might make another piece for the living room.

The best part? All it cost was the frame. I bought this one at Target for $12 because I liked the size and the large mat, but you could easily repurpose a frame you already own or buy something cheaper at a thrift store. 

What do you think? Pretty cute, huh?

Sorry for the bad light. The kitchen only gets diffuse light in the winter, apparently!

I'm linking up to Christina's Adventures' 20 Below Thursday. Stop by and check out all the great under-$20 projects!

I'm also linking up to At the Picket Fence's Inspiration Friday party. Come and get inspired by everyone's creativity!

Before and after: Our dining room table

Our first major purchase for the house was a dining room table. We had a nice big formal dining room and a dinky four-person table that, though adorable, is pretty old and has seen better days. We shopped around for a high-quality table that was also affordable and didn't find much. Since we knew it'd take some abuse from future children, we wanted something that would last, something solid and made of real wood, not particle board and veneer. We decided to buy an unfinished hardwood table from the Mill Stores, a New England furniture chain that sells lots of unfinished furniture.

We picked out the biggest table they had, with two leaves and a full extended length of 96 inches, plenty of room to seat 10 adults. A 20% off coupon saved us a cool $100, and within a few days the table was in and ready for us to pick up (and as we watched three dudes wheel it out with a dolly, we realized we were totally unprepared to get it out of the car ourselves. Thank goodness for good, strong friends just a phone call away!).

Mill Stores will finish furniture for you, but we opted to save the money and DIY. When I say we, I mean the hubby. This was 100% his project -- the only thing I did was help pick out the stain and get the drop cloth underneath the table. It took a lot more work than we anticipated, with the two leaves and the legs, and multiple coats that needed time to dry. But the end result was totally worth it.

Since we bought the table before this blog, and since it came in pieces that we didn't assemble until they were all finished, I don't have a before shot. This photo from the Mill Stores' website will have to suffice.

The table comes with turned legs, but we opted for chunkier farmhouse-style legs, which you can see below

The hubs sanded everything by hand using 320-grit sandpaper, using a power sander only in a couple spots. Then he applied a pre-stain. 

We picked a dark mahogany stain -- a nice mid-range tone that we felt would outlast trends and be timeless. It also ended up matching the hand-me-down dining room chairs we already had -- score! 

He applied the stain with a rag, putting on excess stain, let it sit for a couple minutes and then wiped off the excess. He let each coat dry for more than a day, and once everything was stained, he applied three coats of Minwax clear semi-gloss poly for a durable finish. He sanded lightly between all coats to ensure everything was smooth.

Here he is, hard at work. You can see that one half is stained and the other is still naked.

 (Please excuse the crummy phone and nighttime photos!)

Ready to see the after? Here it is, in all its extended glory:

Isn't she a beauty? I love the look of the grain.

And the hearty farmhouse-style legs that the store wanted to charge us $100 extra for, but I managed to talk them out of it. They call them Shaker legs.

The hubs busted his butt to get the table done for Christmastime, so we could have our families over for brunch.

And here's what it looks like without the two leaves. (More on that centerpiece another day!)

Didn't he do a fabulous job?

The hubs was nice enough to share his tips for finishing wood furniture:

• Use a pre-stain, no matter what kind of wood you're working with. It helps the stain apply more evenly and avoids blotchiness.
• Even if a piece says it's ready to finish, it's still a good idea to hit it with some sandpaper and ensure it's smooth and nothing has been dinged while moving the piece.
• Use a foam brush for smooth application, and work in slow, even strokes to avoid bubbles.
• Sand between every coat, and avoid using steel wool, as sandpaper is more effective.
• Don't be afraid to use lots of poly at the end, but make sure to wait at least 24 hours in between coats. If you want a satin finish, it's best to apply a coat or two of semi-gloss or glossy poly and then finish with one coat of satin. Satin poly tends to be hazy, so a few coats of it will likely obscure the look of the wood grain and appear cloudy.

We're super excited to have a table big enough to host our families and friends, and it has so much more value to us because of all the hard work we (okay, he!) put into it. We still need to invest in some chairs, but we're a little nervous about how long it would take to do all that detail work. We'll see when we decide to tackle that!

Once again, the before:

And the after:

And here's what the dining room looked like with our dinky old table. You can see the leaves of the new table in the background.

I'm linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick's Before and After party. Stop by and see all the amazing transformations!

I'm also linking up to the DIY Showoff Project Parade, so stop by there too and check out the great DIY projects!