Guest Post - Life Made Lovely

Hello there Sparkle Power readers!  My name is Heather from Life Made Lovely, where I share about taking the life I've been handed and how I choose to make it lovely through design, vintage, family, and faith.   

For the last year or so I've been working at updating our little home to better reflect the people that live in it.  Things are finally beginning to come together, and the result is a space that feels more like my family and I than ever before.  In our home you'll find a lot of vintage, handmade and re-purposed items, all with a modern touch to keep things feeling fresh.

Today, I thought I'd share one of my favorite corners with you.  It's my workspace that now resides in our completely un-formal living room.  Our house isn't a large one, so we want to make a point to use every inch that we can, which is why we opted to ditch a formal living room space and created a reading/working space instead.  Every day, while my 2 year old daughter naps, I can be found in this space either working on a new design for a client, writing a blog post, or just staring at Pinterest. Regardless of what I'm doing, this new to me space keeps me feeling refreshed and inspired.  

My vintage three panel Korean Air Lines wall map is one of my all time favorite  finds.  I paid a mere $36 for it!  To keep little fingers (we have 2 little ones in our house) from ripping the seams of the map, we opted to finish it off with molding. This wall lacks a window, which made it a perfect home for my map, but also makes it a bit dark.  Adding a strand of twinkle lights to the space fixed that problem and brought in a dose of happiness and light.

My desk is made from a leftover piece of butcher block from our kitchen remodel and a pair of trestle legs from IKEA.  I found the chair at a thrift store for $5, painted it a modern shade of grey, and distressed it a bit.  With my pretty pillow from IKEA it becomes a perfect home office chair.

I created the gallery wall over my desk by using prints from Etsy, my kids artwork, a print created by me, and some vintage bits and pieces.

I love mixing vintage, industrial, handmade, and modern together to create a really personal moment...just like this.  My son created the clone trooper drawing when he was around five years old, and beside the fact that I LOVE how he drew it off center, I love how I can take something he made and turn it into more of a feature just by framing it in a simple modern frame and then adding a huge and chippy vintage frame around it to add it it's importance.  To make my 2 year old daughter's water color feel more important I framed it with a vintage frame I paid just 50 cents for.  

Creating this useful space in our house cost very little money, but has made a huge difference in the way we use our home.  The room that used to be dark and hard to use, has now become a lovely space that the whole family gravitates towards. As a way to help spread a little lovely around, I've created a free downloadable print just for Sparkle Power readers!  Click the link below the image to download your own 8x10 print.  Enjoy!!

8x10 Free Printable From Life Made Lovely

Thank you for letting me share my little space with you and your readers today, Candace!  I hope you and your family are enjoying these precious first few weeks with your sweet baby boy.  -xo Heather