making art more personal and fun

Over the years I’ve added a lot of fun and wacky art to our home. I’ll frame pretty much anything if it brings me joy!

Much of my art, including the pieces pictured below, comes from one of my favorite charities, Art Enables. The marvelous people who run this nonprofit help developmentally-disabled adults create and sell art. They give people community, a sense of pride, and a small income. I had the pleasure of meeting the artist who made some of the paintings I bought, and he was so gracious and excited about his art.

We’ve also decorated our home with some mementos of the early days of our relationship. The sign pictured below was a gift from me to him on our wedding day, and it reminds us of a song by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. I also framed a postcard of a diner in Richmond that was an important place for us when we started dating. Seeing it always makes me smile.

Along our stairs I hung my daughters’ ballet shoes from when they were teeny. As you can tell, these shoes saw a lot of wear — the younger one in particular went through a time when she wore these shoes every day with a sparkly purple dance outfit, no matter what we were doing. Such sweet memories.

My mom came up with the idea of framing the kids’ art in big, inexpensive frames from Michaels. We took out the paper that came with the frame and flipped it around to make a solid, white surface, and then we used washi tape or scotch tape to affix the kids’ art to the white paper. It’s easy to swap the art every few months, which is awesome.

But my absolute favorite piece of art is a painting by Mike Warren replicating a photo from vacation in August 2019. We captured an awesome shot of all four kids jumping off a dock, and Mike turned it into a beautiful painting. You can read more about that process here.

What are your favorite ways to make art in your home feel more personal? Let me know in the comments!