I've been trying to decide what to do with our guest room lately. I picked a great blue color that I loved called 'Robin's Nest' from the Pottery Barn line up to paint the walls, and we had dark stained wood furniture and a white bedspread. The bones are there, but there isn't much in the way of personality to the room. A while back I found these buoys in the Pottery Barn catalog, and my creative side sparked into high gear.
I just knew that I could make a set of these for much less than the $64 they wanted for the set of them, plus I didn't really love those colors for the guest room. First off, I asked my brother if he could cut me some wooden buoy shapes that I could finish. He did, and for a mere $8 in wood, I had my project off and running!
Next, the inspiration piece for the colors. I found this great frame at Hobby Lobby and LOVED it! It was just the right amount of kitsch and the perfect colors for the room. It was also half off, so I had to have it. My plan is to put a black and white pic of the kiddos at the beach in it. I'll get around to that eventually...
Next came the paint. Luckily I had a lot of the right colors to choose from. I ended up grabbing the leftover paints from: (in no particular order)
The Guest Room
Mistress Monstress' Bathroom
The Boys' Bathroom
The Master Bedroom
and
The leftover paint from Mistress's furniture
I started off by painting the wood shapes with the leftover white paint from the furniture. I gave them all a complete coat, that way if anything showed through it would be white.
Then I started taping and painting the different colors using the Pottery Barn buoys for inspiration.
Once they were painted and the tape was off I dry brushed over all of them with a grey/blue to give them an aged look.
Add some twine and voila! Three nautical buoys for the guest room. I opted not to add the numbers for now, I may change my mind later but at this point I just really liked them as is. Someday, I'll finish the guest room and show it all off, but for now here is the jumping off point for a nautical, beachy, retreat for anyone who comes to visit!
Anyone who has traveled with children knows they don't travel lightly! Kids have a lot of stuff, and there isn't much of a way to get around that. Thankfully, mine are all old enough that the plethora of baby gear no longer needs to go with us, but they still want to take some of their treasures with them when we go somewhere. We travel a LOT, especially in the summer. We often take off for a weekend at the beach or a day trip to a museum somewhere that involves an hour or more in the car. I came up with the best solution to curbing all the stuff in the car on the trip...hobo sacks! Each of the kids has one sack, and anything they want to take with them on a car trip has to fit in their sack. It is also up to them to keep track of their possessions on the trip, as Mom has other things to worry about. :) 
