art on your walls~revised

I suppose if you walked down a busy street asking every one you passed only the question "what is art", you would come up with just as many different answers as you did people. To some art is defined by what they find hanging on the walls of a prestigious gallery for all the world to see and for others (like myself) art is more easily defined as a way of life. Motherhood is a prime example of living an artful life because there are so many avenues to express how I feel for my family through baking, sewing, quilting, cooking, gardening, teaching and the list goes on. So I love the idea Hillary posted of the baby's room at Wee Wonderfuls (here's think link), such a beautiful display of her art!
I have always held a fancy for finding unique ways to decorate our living space (i.e. we have a tight budget) and when we first moved into our old farm home I wanted to get a little creative with wall art so I started by making my own stencils. Now ten years later there are so many stencils available out there you could practically create any environment you could imagine.

This lovely birch tree came from Stencil 1.
This site has everything from leaves, blossoms to sparrows and antlered deer!
They also provide friendly how-to instructions and a gallery of ideas for those of us a bit new to this, but remember it's only paint and if you don't like how it turns out you can always paint over it and try again. Oh, be sure to check the discounted paints (mistints) at your local hardware store like Lowe's where you might be able to find paint anywhere from $1- $5 a gallon.