Ben's art

One of these days I'm going to get Ben's room clean at a decent light hour & take some pictures of it in its new home, which is the teeny tiny bedroom that once was the office/extra room hybrid. It's not that exciting & it's smaller than his old room but I think it has more character thanks to two corner floor to ceiling windows, which I love. Unfortunately, even with the windows, it's darker than his old room but this will pay off in the stinkin' hot days of summer when the reverse cycle air conditioning doesn't quite reach down the hall properly. Our "master" bedroom (can hardly use that word to describe our itty bitty room without laughing) & his new room don't spend the day collecting sunlight so it's usually quite bearable at night.

Anyway, the whole point of this mini-post was to give you a sneak peek of the little gallery wall we've put up in his new room & in particular the awesome new print we picked up for him on etsy.com.

As always, I must start by asking you to forgive my photography. I think I stole Marcel's iPhone for these lovely snapshots but you could give me Anton Corbijn's camera with him giving directions over my shoulder & you'd still see my goober head in reflections or I'd have everything out of focus except for my thumb. It's a gift, it truly is.

Available from Xander Thurteen on Etsy

I think I've made it pretty clear exactly how obsessed Ben is with Toy Story & its characters. Unfortunately for him, I refuse to decorate with the licensed merchandise available because even I have standards. Yeah, that's right. But when I spotted this my heart grew two sizes & I purchased it as quickly as my clicking fingers would allow. 

$12.00 (US) for the print, my friends. And just a tiny bit more for shipping from the awesome land of New Zealand. And here's where I'm going to blow your mind with my geniusness. I buy awesome affordable art like this gorgeous print, buy or dig up a cheap frame then go to a professional framer & have them cut a mat to match. It is not cheap to have things actually framed by a pro but mats are quite affordable. The place I used this time (Lemon Tree Framing) cost $30, which is more than I usually spend but they have the machines to do it in-store so they turned it around same day, which made me the happiest lady on earth. They are also incredibly friendly & all around awesome - they even added a sturdy string mount thing on the back because my poor discount store frame only had a terrible little hook - so they will forever get any & all Eisele family framing & matting. 

My love of cluttering things up makes me want to add one more thing to this little wall of stuff right below Buzz & Woody but I'm trying to restrain myself ... unless I find something just right. We'll see. I'll give you a closer look at the rest of the artwork (all cheap - the tiger was actually 25 cents from a thrift store near my college back in the day)(yep Dana, that's our tacky dorm room tiger that I will never get rid of!). 

Okay, I need to go save my poor husband who is reading bedtime stories to Ben, even though that's normally my job. It sounds like he's hyping that kid up so we're up for some good times tonight. Please send help.