The approaching holidays often encourage us to try to update our home, just a bit, for the inevitable visitors. You might be tempted to buy some new linens, vases, or knickknacks from a big-box store. I propose you consider something a tad more challenging, and much longer lasting: Original art.

Every home makeover show includes the creation of questionable, cheap “art” to hang on the mark’s walls. Original artworks, even hastily constructed, formulaic paint splotches, make a room feel pulled together and personal.

So if you’re not rolling in money right now, you needn’t despair. But you also don’t need to get out the paint rollers and make a mess. The country - your city or town - is teeming with artists anxious to sell (or even barter) their work. Many have online presences, and I’ll list some below, but I encourage you to talk to friends and friends of friends and find some local artists to patronize too. This needn’t be through galleries; art colleges usually have holiday shows featuring student’s art under $100. The cheapest way to buy is to find the artist you like, go to their studio, and ask if you can buy directly from them. Ask to see drawings and watercolors. Find some photographers you like. Works on paper are usually cheaper than works on canvas.

When you are working directly with artists, do be sensitive about prices. Artists who are signed to gallery representation or are currently in art shows may not have the latitude to offer lower studio prices, so it is best to establish this upfront. Alternately, galleries can take significant commissions on sales (up to 50%), and artists may rely on increased profits from direct sales to offset a very small profit on works sold through a gallery.

Poke around the following links and find some lovely stuff that’s far less expensive than your weekly grocery bill.

20x200: You’ll want to sign up for the mailing list to buy from Jen Beckman’s online gallery. She releases limited editions of photographs and prints by different artists on Tuesday and Wednesdays at 2 pm. The 200 $20 prints often sell out immediately, so be quick with your trigger finger, and you can amass a collection of significant artists for Starbucks’ change.

Tiny Show Case: This online gallery curates a very of-the-moment selection of small prints that would look happy in an Domino Magazine photo shoot but it also includes some less pop-oriented and thoughtful landscapes.

Duane Keiser: Duane Keiser is known as a pioneer in the painting-a-day blog world. He paints one small painting within an hour every day, or hereabouts, and lists them for sale on ebay. His paintings are small, intimate, and lovely. Prices usually start around $100.

Two artists following in Keiser’s footsteps are Abbey Ryan and Jeff Hynes. Their daily paintings are similar to Keiser’s in size and scope, and both painters are sensitive and competent.

Many other painters have started to work this way. Hynes has a list here. The Daily Painters Guild (some of the best of this bunch), The Daily Paint Works, and Daily Painters websites collect dozens of painters (of varying quality) working in this mode and price range.

I think that parents often forgo wallpaper in because pasting up wallpaper seems much more difficult than simply painting a wall. The process actually isn't difficult - cleaning the walls is perhaps the hardest part - and it doesn't create the fumes and mess of paint. Wallpaper also seemed to have been neglected by serious designers for years, but no more. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of boutique design firms producing fantastic paper. You can even make your own wallpaper paste to make sure you know just what's going onto your walls, and save on your budget, too. (More on that later.)

Friday marked the opening of an exhibition of children’s wallpaper and books at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York. The museum holds the largest collection of wallcoverings in the country, and this exhibition pulls out some of the most whimsical. Check out a few on their website for inspiration.

Here are some of great papers, all available online, and all reasonably priced.


Graham-Brown’s "Frames" paper is popular for children’s rooms, and inspires filling in the frames with original on-the-wall doodling. This site also carries a variety of other papers, and child-friendly wall-decals.


Rose and Radish carries Cole and Son’s “Woods” paper, first issued in 1950, which would be lovely for a child’s room.


Flavor Paper carries all sorts of fantastic patterns, hand-printed in New Orleans’s ninth ward, including this pop scratch-and-sniff (yes, it smells!) banana paper. The site also offers other less Warholesque options.


There are some great reproduction cowboy, atomic-age, and animal prints at Design Your Wall.

There are also a few sites that sell wonderful rolls of vintage paper, perhaps your greenest choice. Vintage paper falls into the same price range as new paper. Try Second Hand Rose, Rosie’s Vintage Wallpaper, and Hannah’s Vintage Wallpaper.

Cooper-Hewitt’s website also reminded me that you don’t have to paper a whole wall to reap the benefits of paper. Their site shows one paper whose images are meant to be cut out and pasted into scenes, or designs, of your choice, like an wall appliqué.

You could make wall appliqués out of anything - pictures from an old book, magazines, fabric, or cut from wallpaper. Simply glue them up with some wallpaper paste.


Or, if you’re clumsy with scissors, you can buy them from Brooklyn-based Romp. You’ve probably seen a picture of their giraffe wallpaper decal. I think there is a law that every story about a child’s room in any interior design magazine has to show their giraffe.

Finally, here’s an easy, effective, and non-toxic wallpaper paste recipe. There are a lot of recipes on line, but this one caught my eye because it includes an ingredient intended to act as a preservative, which many others don't mention. It's from care2.com.

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour (wheat, corn, or rice)


• 3 teaspoons alum


• water


• 10 drops oil of cloves (natural preservative)

Directions
Combine the flour and alum in a double boiler. (If you don’t have a double boiler, set a smaller pan inside a bigger one that contains enough water that can be brought to a boil without overflowing.) Add enough water to make a consistency of heavy cream; stir until blended. Heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened to a gravy texture. Let cool. Stir in the clove oil. Pour into a glass jar with a screw top. Apply with a glue brush.

Makes 1 cup. Shelf life: Two weeks, refrigerated.

Have you had any success stories or challenges with wallpaper?

As a busy parent, I bet you (like me) sometimes have a hard time following through with your goals. What does it take to be successful with setting and achieving your goals? The busier you are, the more important it is to set realistic goals and experience the satisfaction of completing them!

When a goal fails, it is generally due to one (or more) of the following factors:

1. The goal was unreasonable.


2. You weren’t clear enough about your desired outcome.


3. You didn’t keep your commitments.

The best minds of management use a consistent standard to determine how to set goals that are the most likely to be successfully achieved. When it comes to personal or family goals, the requirements for positive outcomes are no different. Let's take a look at the gold standard for corporate goal-setting, known by the acronym SMART, to help set goals that will help maximize your chance of success.

SMART goal-setting means that goals meet certain criteria which are essential to your ability to successfully accomplish them. The letters of the acronym mean that a goal should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Let's look at each element in detail.

Specific: The more clear you are about the desired outcome, the more likely you will be to achieve it. When setting a goal, write out exactly what you want to achieve and be clear about the benefits you’ll realize after completing it. For example: Clean out the garage is not very specific. Organize the garage, sort the five boxes in the corner, install the shelving and take the kid's used bike to the Goodwill is much better - you know when you have accomplished your goal, and you'll feel great when you are done!

Measurable: It is important that you know exactly how to measure your progress as you work towards completing your goal. This will help you stay on track and maintain a connection to your commitment. It will also give you a clear picture of when the goal will be complete. You might decide it will take two weekends and a total of six hours to organize the garage and you will know it is complete when you can (finally!) park your car in it.

Achievable: You need to decide exactly what it will take to meet your goal. Who can support you, what resources can you use and how much money will it cost? In order to clean out the garage, you might ask for help from your family. You might also make sure you have the tools required to install the shelves and some extra boxes for hauling stuff away; if there are resources you would like but can't get or afford, be reasonable about your expectations when outlining your goal. In terms of inner resources, you might need to tap into your motivation in order to make it happen. There is a reason you have been putting it off! Make the cleaning fun by putting on some music while working or offer yourself a fun treat after it is done.

Reasonable: Making sure your goal is reasonable is the most important element to being successful. Consider all the other things going on in your life and ask yourself, do I have the six hours that is required to complete this project? Make sure you are being realistic about how long it will take to complete your tasks as well. Underestimating is a common trap in failed projects. You also want to set the bar high enough that you stay motivated and feel a sense of achievement when it is finished.

Timely: When would you like your goal to be complete? Setting an end date will give you both a target and keep you on track. Finishing the garage by Oct. 15th when your parents are coming to visit is a lot more likely to put you into action than, finish it next month!

One final element to insuring success is to create accountability. Tell someone else the details of your goal and ask them to check back in with you about it by a set date. This creates an anchor outside of yourself to insure you will follow through and adds a person to motivate you!

Being successful with goals can inspire your whole family and teaches your kids a lot about what it takes to complete tasks, whether they are household chores or important school or personal projects. By inviting them to participate in the process, you are being the best kind of parent, an involved one. After all, we are here to teach these little people about what it takes to be a successful human!