Donna Hawkins, January, Something on Every Bare Wall

Shortest introduction possible (since my post is so long):

I'm Donna.  I live in Midway.  I'm married to Bevan. We have 2 kids, Anna (3 yrs) and Dallin (8 months).  I'm Nora's little sister (how lucky am I?!)  I ski, I hike, and I dig in the dirt.  That's me!

As many of my friends and family know, I can be kind of an anit-horder. I attribute this to a simple life growing up with not a lot of “stuff”.  The first 4 years we were married, we lived at my parent's cabin. I didn't really collect anything, even though I knew we'd have a house some day that would need to be furnished. I guess I was afraid that if I had stuff, then I would be “settled” and I didn't want to be settled. I was so proud of myself in college that everything I owned could fit in a car. My décor was posters that could be all rolled together and shoved in a tube. Even on my mission I had less stuff going home than coming in. I gave away a lot of my clothes and only kept my most favorite study materials and souvenirs. I spent my last evening in the garage of the mission home playing ping pong with the elders while the other sisters were busy redistributing the possessions in their luggage to fit under the 50 lb weight limit. This doesn't count the boxes they already shipped home. True story!

When we bought our home in Midway 3 years ago, it was pretty bare inside. It took months to buy beds and years to buy rugs and décor. I still had mostly bare walls in most of the rooms, with the exception of the kitchen, living room and our 2 main bathrooms. Once again, my anti-horder tendencies prevail. I didn't want to spend money on something that I absolutely wouldn't LOVE and stare at forever! This is why my walls are so bare. With Nora's project motivating me, I buckled down and got serious with just finding anything. I knew this would take more than one month, which is why I assigned 2 months in the schedule for this project. I won't spend time in all the details of it, but I will focus on a few things that I thought would be of use to my fellow man.

1.  Poster Frames. I love these posters from college and some of them I wanted to decorate our family room with... but I didn't want to spend $30-$40 to get these funky-sized posters custom-framed at Michaels or Hobby Lobby. They're posters!

I found a couple companies on Amazon that specialize in custom frames. They're not super nice frames, composite wood and plexiglass, but for posters... they work (especially for the price). Craig Frames and ArtToFrame. Every weird size you can imagine. I guess if I was more crafty, I could just make frames... but that's what Prime is for!

2.  Use what you have. I have this old leopard painting from growing up that I snagged from my parents house when they moved. Ironically, one of Nora's college roommates painted it for me because I was obsessed with leopards. The clock came from Bevan's Grandpa's house when he died. Leopards and old clocks go together, right?

Not really, but at this point, who cares?! Not every room needs a “theme”. They both have meaning and that's what matters.

3. Crafts. Alright, I DO have time to be crafty, but not very often. You can't find these on Prime.

My grandma used to make these and several of them hang in the cabin. I didn't dare ask Mom for them, so I decided to make some of my own. I also have an interest in flowers and plant identification. Last 4th of July, we were hiking with Nora and her kids in the mountains and Paige and I just starting picking flowers. We dried them and made a display for Paige. There were extras and I got the idea to make 2 to go above our bed, sandwiching our Willie Holdman. Ya know, nature-theme, right?

Whatever. The hardest part was finding out what some of the flowers were. Anyway, the point is that wall décor doesn't have to be a science. Next month: the kids' room and the master bath!