If you are a facebook fan, you know I’ve been posting little sneak peeks of the newest photo display idea going up in our house.  I am constantly looking for new and different ways to display photos in our house.  It is a challenge because I’m bad (really bad) about not printing any of my personal work.  If I do, it’s just a few here and there.  And while shoving a 4×6 in an album is nice and all, I rarely do it.  I want our home, the place we live and love and grow and change to be filled with the everyday captures of our life.  I want my children to be in our home and feel the memories, the history, the little moments.  But even though we’ve been in this new house for almost two years, it still feels very builder cookie cutterish.  It bothers both Jase and I a lot, but we just don’t have the extra funds to do all the things we want to do with it.  Most of the rooms are still blah builder beige, we’re slowing fixing that, but not happening as quickly as I’d like.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I did an in home session for this beautiful family.  I was in awe the second I walked into their home.  It’s warm and thoughtful and filled with things with meaning, new and old.  The colors just flow and their style is divine.  I know they put so much thought into their space during the recent renovations and I had to stop myself from asking if I could photograph their home when I was done taking their family pics.  One of the things I loved was a little photo display on the cabinets separating their dining room and kitchen.  Polaroids arranged with little clips.  They looked awesome and polaroids are so nostalgic.  I have so many memories of my old polariod camera from when I was a kid.  My dad bought me one at a young age and I had so much fun with it.  Not long after that family session I was browsing through blogs on my google reader and came across these amazing polaroid designs by Tina Parker of My Lil Creations.  I bought them immediately, not even sure what I would do with them.  I thought about doing a display similar to Brad & Noelle’s, but wasn’t sure where I could put it.  I thought about it awhile and then it hit me.  We recently purchased this bookcase with glass frame doors.  You can put anything inside the doors, photos, fabric, the possibilities are endless. I initially had other plans for the new bookcase in my office (it hold all my packaging supplies, boxes, albums etc) but instead I gathered favorite shots, snapshots and just images I loved and started assembling them with Tina’s templates.  I knew I wanted a background that was earthy and simple, not black or white, because my office is also in our bedroom (I gave up my office in favor of our playroom last winter).  I couldn’t find what I was looking for in my stash of digital backgrounds and designs, so I emailed Tina to see if she could help me.  And help she did, she nailed it on the first try, I love it soooo much.  Thank you Tina, you are the best!!  I know I shouldn’t share until the entire project is done and complete, but the first ‘sheet’ came in from the lab today.  It’s 15×30 and there will be two and a half sheets per door.  It’d difficult to photograph due to the glare, but you get the idea….

Here is the design if you want to see it upclose….

I can’t wait to go through more family photos and get the entire bookcase done!  I absolutely love that I can display so many favorite images in one place, without a lot of framing.  And I get to look at it all the time!  Just looking at them in passing makes me smile and love each one of these people all over again.  Even on their most ornry days.

And on that note, thank you for your support yesterday.  It made me fell so much better.  I cannot say that today was much better.  But, I decided to treat myself to an iphone this morning.  No matter how bad they act, it can’t trump an iphone.  Dude, I am so smart.  Ha.

Happy Friday!