Maira Kalman "Elements of Style" Exhibit at the Frist

I know I am a million years late to the game, but oh my goodness - Maira Kalman is amazing.


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Over the years, I had seen her illustrations online and loved them. In May, I finally put Elements of Style on my Amazon wishlist but never bought it. I went with my friend Michelle to the Frist on Sunday and was thrilled to see that there was a Maira Kalman Elements of Style exhibit!

Three bright, beautiful rooms featured her Elements of Style illustrations. (If you aren't familiar with the book, it's a book on how to write well from 1920. E.B. White updated it in 1959 and Maira Kalman's illustrations were published in 2005.)

The illustrations are incredibly clever and witty. The colors are vibrant and beautiful and the entire exhibit exudes joy. I was so inspired by it! I immediately ordered Elements of Style and bought another book she illustrated in the museum gift shop. She writes and illustrates children's books and whenever we get a kid in the future, you can bet I'll be collecting all of those!

The exhibit runs through September 1st and tonight there is a special event to discuss Maira's amazing work. 

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Art Discovery: Minted.com

Last week when all the coolest bloggers were hanging out at Alt Summit, I noticed some of them posting about Minted.com on Instagram. I was super curious about the company, so I switched from phone to my laptop and looked it up. I was instantly stunned by the beauty of the designs and the range of the products! I sent the link to my friend Hilary, with whom I share all my best online finds, and we ooh'ed and ahh'ed over the designs.

Aside from art prints, Minted offers a huuuuge range of printed products like birth announcements,  every kind of wedding paper product you would need (like save the dates, invitations, bridal shower invitations) stationery, journals, calendars, wrapping paper - I mean, the list goes on and on. The choices are endless - and so impressive!!

I'm extremely drawn to the art prints - I have been wanting to collect more art for our walls so I can switch out our small gallery wall above our couch and also add some more art to our dining room.

(I'm also pinning some of my favorite nursery prints for the future! They have the cutest ones and you can even customize them! A lot of the art comes in different colors AND you can add a frame for as little as $5. I know. I'm gushing, but I am in love!)


Here are some of my favorites (click the image to view them on Minted.com):



St. Paul's Cathedral in London - when I went to London in college, St. Paul's was my favorite place. I felt so at peace and so at home there. Then years later, I realized it was where the bird lady sings "Feed The Birds" in Mary Poppins. Destiny.



Speaking of Mary Poppins, I love anything umbrella related. :)



All girls love horses, right??



I want to fill our house with all peonies all the time, which isn't very realistic. BUT, I could hang this print and feel like I have a fresh bouquet year-round!   And more favorites...













 

I love that you can order them framed. Sometimes it's so hard to find a frame and matte that work for your art - this takes all the hard work out of that!

 

Thanks so much to Minted.com for credit toward art! All opinions are my own - I really did fall in love with them last week before they reached out to me!

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Jack Spencer Photography

Sunday, I went to the Frist with some friends to see the Sensuous Steel: Art Deco Automobiles exhibit. It was impressive, but I much prefer art to cars! After we moseyed through the exhibit (ha! "mosey" is not quite accurate - it was SO crowded that "dodged people with cameras" is more accurate. Photography was allowed and people were going cuh-razy with their cameras), we headed upstairs to see the Jack Spencer photography exhibit.


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I loved it. This piece, titled "Dark Horse," was one of my favorites. I'm in a major horse/deer phase right now and I just thought this shadowy, blurry horse and gritty background were so intriguing.

Contrasting "Dark Horse" is "Snow Ponies":



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Both horse photographs are mysterious...but in completely different ways. 

A lot of his photos look like paintings. The colors are so rich.


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I was also really impressed to discover that he began the Lost Boys Foundation, a foundation to help the 150 Sudanese child refugees that were brought to Nashville to live. After one young man was stabbed in a local nightclub, Jack Spencer committed to "the reunification and living enhancement of the Lost Boys of Sudan who have made Nashville their home" through the foundation.

You can read more about the exhibit here. If you're in town, see it upstairs at the Frist through October 13.

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New Fawns Paint By Number

Be still my heart! Vanessa from Thrift Core was having a sale a few weeks ago and just happened to be selling the most adorable pair of paint-by-number fawns. I fell in love with them and happily, I had a $25 etsy gift card (a Christmas gift from my mom) I hadn't redeemed yet. Woohoo!

So, they came and they are wonderful! (I am in a MAJOR fawn phase right now!)


I am working on my office (in our little finished attic) and Andy mounted a tv/monitor at my desk (I've gotten used to doing my day/real job with an extra monitor, so it's nice to have if I work at home) and I'm planning to do a gallery wall around the monitor...these will be the stars of the gallery wall. :)

Vanessa has such great stuff - be sure to shop her store!

And, I love the personal touches she includes! She drew this cartoon on my package:

Owl and fawn friends!!! So cute!

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The Ink Nest: Clip Art and Illustrations

I love The Ink Nest. I bookmarked it in my browser as "Hipster Clip Art Makes Me Happy."

For about $8, you can download amazing clip art that you can use on your blog or in other graphic design endeavors. It's so fun to look through them and dream about various projects!

The cool thing is that they're giving away a set right now! For an FB post or a tweet, you can download the "Bloom" set.

Find out more here!

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Free Download: Time In A Bottle

It's still Jim Croce week on Owl Really! It's my birthday and I can Croce if I want to! :-)

I recently re-did the frames and art above our couch and needed to fill a 4x6 frame. I decided to make some lyric art based on one of my favorite Jim Croce songs, "Time In A Bottle."

It's nothing ground-breaking and I'm not a real designer, but since I made it , I wanted to offer it up as a free download in case anyone else loves the song as much as I do!


Click here to download the PDF! It's set to a full page but you can shrink it down to print it.

If you want to enjoy the song while you browse blogs, here you go!


The really sad thing is that since I turned 31 today, I have lived longer than Jim Croce did. (He passed away at the age of 30.) He was such a prolific songwriter - it's hard to imagine that he was so young when he was writing such amazing songs.

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What A Difference A Frame Makes

Estate sales are my favorite places to find art - great variety and great prices!


A local art gallery closed and an estate sale company has been helping liquidate the art. I went by awhile back and picked up a few piece, including the above piece. 

Soon after I bought it, I found a wooden frame at another estate sale for 50 cents. I then zoomed over to Joann's to pick up a mat that I thought would look nice with it.

When I put them all together though, I was really disappointed. It looked frumpy, I thought. Like hotel room art or something. Very old fashioned.


Meh.

BUT, Ribba saves the day. I bought a bunch of different size Ribba frames at Ikea and brought them home to figure out what should go in them. One was perfect for my art!


I think it looks so fresh now. I don't want to toot my own horn or anything, but it almost makes me think of something Jenny from Little Green Notebook might have. (She has the BEST art and gallery walls!)

It's going above my chest of drawers in our bedroom. I'm looking around the house for 2 smaller pieces to hang next to them in a little arrangement.

I wish we had our own Ikea - it's such a pain to have to drive to Atlanta or beg friends to pick something up for you! Now that I have Ribba frames, I think I might be obsessed. Gotta get my hands on more!!

Edited to add: Welp, I wrote this post on Sunday night and broke this frame on Monday night. I hung it with command strips and noticed it was crooked. I took it down and leaned it against the wall on top of my chest of drawers temporarily and it came crashing down into a ton of pieces. Very, very disappointing!  Anyone local heading to Ikea soon??

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What I Bought From Sugar Millie

Yesterday I blogged about shopping Sugar Millie at GasLamp Too.

So, what did I get? A paint by numbers barn! I love it.



What drew me to it, exactly?


It's not finished! This is my second unfinished painting - I bought a deer painting at an estate sale over the summer. It's the first paint by numbers piece that I have bought to keep for myself. Can't wait to find a frame and a home for it on one of our walls!

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House Tour: Our Bathroom

Last week, we finally had some much-needed repairs done to our bathroom. We had a leak which ended up ruining some drywall. We got the drywall replaced, I painted with a deeper shade of teal (a $7 gallon - thank you Home Depot "oops" paint!) and we hung a new curved shower rod (which I LOVE). I switched out some artwork and voila!


The folk art print was a gift from Carolyn and features lyrics from my favorite hymn, Come Thou Fount. I picked up the little blue alarm clock at the Brooklyn Flea, the portrait is from an estate sale, and I can't remember where I got the bird years ago.

The 60s art is from the Downtown Antique Mall and the shower curtain is from Anthropologie and was a generous gift from a friend after she and her husband bought a house and it didn't match their new bathrooms. I had been coveting it for awhile and was so thrilled when she passed it on to me!

I wish I could get a better overall shot of the bathroom but it's so tiny, it's hard to take a photo of it.

I will hopefully post more "house tour" photos in the future - I am working on getting more projects done! I think our house is my ultimate canvas and I want to document it!

Have you done any easy updates lately??

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Rebekka Seale Sparrow Print Giveaway

Soon after I moved to Nashville years & years ago, I met Rebekka Seale but actually didn't know what an amazing artist she was. Fast forward to the past few months and we've been reacquainted through the blog world. I came across her blog earlier this year and then she visited and left a comment when I featured Melodie's bamboo bar (as they are close friends).

I knew when Christmas came around, Rebekka's Sparrow print would be at the top of my list - and happily, I received it!

I wanted to share Rebekka's beautiful work (featured recently on Design*Sponge), so I am giving away one of her Sparrow prints (just like mine!) to a lucky winner!



To enter to win (1 mandatory entry and 2 bonus entries [for a total of 3 possible entries]):

1. Mandatory entry - please subscribe via Google Friend Connect or the RSS feed and leave a comment saying you are a follower.
2. Tweet the following and leave a comment with the link to your tweet: Enter to win a @RebekkaSeale Sparrow Print from @owlreally! http://bit.ly/zH3YXF
3. Share the contest on your blog and leave a comment with the link.
   

Make sure I have a way of contacting you. If your blogger profile is set to "no-reply" or your email address is hidden, please include your email address in your entry.

The contest will close next Monday at noon central time at which time I will choose a winner using random.org!

Be sure to follow Rebekka's blog and shop her Etsy store!

Linking to: Free Pretty Things For You

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Decorating by Andy

For a year or two, I had a collection of frames full of different art above the couch. I got pretty tired of the configuration and thought the art might be a little too girly, so after we got married and Andy moved in, I took them down.

I tried to figure out a new configuration, replacing some of the art, but I am having major decorator block! I redecorated another wall instead because I just couldn't figure out what to do above the couch!

I guess Andy got tired of the "nail graveyard" hanging above our couch (I am definitely going to remove the nails and use 3m command strips when I next hang something there) because I came home Saturday to find this:

Upon closer inspection...

Hilarious! Andy really doesn't care about decorating but he added his special touch. Should I take the hint and remove the nails and figure something out?? :)

I have a plan, I just have to find the right fabric for it. When we got his new desk, it came with amazing, huge pieces of styrofoam. I plan to cut a large rectangle into 3 smaller ones, cover them with fabric, then hang them up. We'll see how it goes - I will definitely be updating the blog about it since it's one of my "30 before 30" items!

Hair Art

Yesterday, Design*Sponge posted hair-focused artwork by Roxanne Daner who I had never heard of, but I loved the illustrations and found them especially interesting since I also had been drawn to hair-related art lately.

A few weeks ago, I went to an estate sale of a local artist named Juanita Crider. I bought a handful of items, including some of her artwork - 2 in particular were vintage portraits of lovely ladies with beautiful hair.

The first is unmarked - it is signed "Nita Crider '67" but there is no other information on it:



The second is labeled on the back: "Sandra's Coiffure" and it looks like at some point she was selling it for $10. There's no date, unfortunately.



I am especially drawn to the painting of Sandra. I have it resting on our dining room buffet currently while I think I will sell the other painting in my booth. There are only so many portraits of strangers I feel comfortable having around my house and I think I've reached my max with Bartholomew (I'll have to tell you about him sometime) and Sandra. :)

I like to wonder who they are and where they are now. Did Sandra always wear her hair like that or was this a special occasion? If you'd like to dream and wonder along with me, post your theories in the comments!