Home: Our Happy Tree on Canvas

In the 6 1/2 years Kyle and I have been married we have moved 8 times. Yes, we've moved twice in one year, two times. We have been pretty transient. College will do that to you. Now that Kyle has a "real" job, we bought a home, and we are grown up people, we are finally settling down in one place for a little bit.

We haven't ever felt compelled to do much decorating in our apartments. We knew we wouldn't be there long, so we just didn't. 1 1/2 years later, our home is still the same way. Most of the walls are bare or have one lonely picture hanging on them. It's time to change that! We're here to stay and we want to make our home feel like we belong there. 

Kyle is a designer. It is his profession, but also it is innate in him. It is what he loves to do. He has a constant flow of ideas running through his head. Not a little trickle, but a real stream of ideas. And it is starting to rub off on me as well. Kyle had an idea to create a large painting of a tree to place above the couch in our living room. 

We wanted it bright and happy. We love color! We went with lime green and as close to cyan as I could find. It is hard to find a good cyan. I was surprised at what a difficult time I had finding just the right blue. P.S. That lime green is the same green Kyle used to put an accent stripe around the sewing desk he made for me last year.

We laid out our canvases, on our guest bed of all places, down in the basement away from child hands. We put on a light coat of gesso to prime the canvas for painting. And then got to work.

I don't have any pictures to show of Kyle actually painting on the tree. My hands were full and I just didn't think to use a tripod. Kyle made a file of the artwork and using our projector, projected the image onto the wall. I held up each of the six canvases while Kyle worked quickly to paint in the image.

It turned out pretty awesome. We both love it. But, it needed a frame. Last summer, Kyle tore down our old decrepit deck, and saved the reusable wood. He took a few pieces and made a frame. 

The frame really finishes it off. What a happy tree! And that is the beginning of the never ending task of decorating our home.