As part of my attempt to be more simple and live the life too, I am trying to pare down my "wall stuff".What do you have on your walls and what did you remove when you were beginning your simple living quest?

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Illini Bob's wife....mom to 3 little chiefs

My fiance and I have only lived in our Apartment since the end of December. Some of our pictures are still in boxes in the closet. I'm still looking for some really good deals on frames that go with our living room. Saying that, currently we have 3 home interior pictures that we've had for several years. I have a cute quilted multi-picture frame on the wall between the LR and the kitchen that is all cloth and quilt, it states: Families that are stitched together with love seldom unravel. I got it at a craft store as a close-out on sale for $5.00. It's red white and blue--well worth the money in my opinion. That's pretty much it. Oh-I forgot the kitchen- I have about 5 different cow thingys on the walls in the kitchen that I got in a yard sale for 25 cents a piece. They are really cute, too. That is all.

I only have a few things up as the things I have are important to me so I don't want anything to distract from them. I try to keep it simple. I have a large framed mirror over our couch in the living room and our wedding picture collage on another.

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Proud mommy to adorable Kinsley

MY BLOG!

we just have pictures of our family on our walls. It saves money and who doesn't like looking at them?

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Loving wife to Matthew 6/26/04
SAHM to Jacob Matthew 4/19/03 & Evelyn Grace 2/15/06
Baby #3 due 3/14/09

Family pictures and ski posters. The house is color coordinated but the only theme is we have ski stuff because we ski.

In my living room I have a wall of frames holding 4x7 pictures. I call it the Family Friends and Places We've Been Wall. No 2 frames are a like, most are old or vinatge. There are 38 frams so far... they are arranged in a random way - I started in the middle and worked my way up down left and right. I also have a cuckoo (sp?) clock and my daughter's very large graduation picture.

The kitchen I have a couple tin trays hanging, a metal sun, a plaster dragon fly, a couple things the kids made me when they were in elemtary school, a set of fancy plates that are white with a blue design.

Dining room I have a grandmothers clock and 2 antique fruit prints, TV room there is a framed USA map the previous owner left behind. It has push pins and lines drawn showing all the places they travelled. I think its neat so I left it... it inspires me to do more travel.


I have a lot of bare walls, I am hoping someday soon to get the rest of my stuff up

Nothing! My dh had to redo all the walls when we move in 10yrs ago and won't let me nail anything on walls!! it really looks ok! Our walls are painted a color and I have pretty curtians, so I don't think I really need anything!
I do have a family picture on my fireplace.. It clips to bricks..

I've also been in the mood the past couple of weeks to simplify. In my kitchen I have a few cow pictures. One large one that is the type you can buy at Fred's or Wal-mart where you can slip into a large frame without the glass. My mom in law bought this for me and it is cute. I placed a shelf under it, flower swag around one corner, and a med. sized clock that I bought from fred's also. I had a larger cow clock I got tired of it and took it apart to cut the picture of the cow out and placed it around the hands of my other clock. I do stuff like this all the time. My suggestion as I'm learning this also is to surround yourself with things you absolutely love. My sister has so much Home Interior stuff on her walls that it's overwhelming. She thinks it's not decor if it's not Home Interior. I'm not knocking the stuff as I have a few pictures myself but they were either purchased at yard sales or flea markets. I can't afford those prices. In fact I have one large picture of a momma holding a baby in garden that I bought from her for ten dollars. I have it positioned between two floral mirrors that were built within our mobile home. I have simply placed a swag above it that's all. DH came home remarked how the living room looked great and felt as if we had more room after I took some pictures down and rearranged some furniture. MY advice to you would be to figure out what you truely love and perhaps watch decorating shows or look thru decor mags. and books. That's what I do to get a clear idea and maybe come up with a few new ideas. I'm not finished with my living room yet and that's what I'll be working on today.

We have framed paintings on our walls. Dh only wanted real artwork when we started out together, and so we invested in a number of nice paintings that his great-uncle painted (he's an accomplished artist). Since then we have slowly added to the collection - over 7 years now - and we love it. We just moved 4 months ago and all the paintings are hanging now, but i still need to paint the walls a color so the paintings really stand out. Currently they look bland against white walls.

Mostly the paintings are cityscapes of European towns in Germany and Italy. They're all gorgeous!!! I'm glad dh wanted to do things that way - these paintings are really the only valuable items we have in the house and we get to enjoy them all the time.

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~ mama abroad

"Be the change that you want to see in the world." -Ghandi

check out my culture shock blog: A View from the Outside

my photographs that I have taken on my trips or I took and printed in college and won awards etc!! and that is only a few then the only others I keep up are kids artwork and pics of our family!! I love to see faces and have stuff on the walls that mean something to me!! and of course my kids are number 1~!!!

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Kelly mom to 2 gymmonkeys!!!