How to create your own wall of inspiration!

Parenting is a full-time job that people tend to underestimate. Every time I look back to my childhood, I realise how different those days were ,how families were closely knitted and supported each other in raising well mannered, positive kids ( well, not all of them). My maiden home was a safe space, one that radiated warmth and joy. I still reminisce over the days where my family huddled together over dinner and watched my parents and siblings squabble over religion, politics and literature. That table was our small world: our jubilant yet mundane small world.

Years later, when I became the mom of three girls, much changed yet the table remained. I started using that table for homework and artwork too. From Cairo to Abu Dhabi to Orange County the table has been an integral part of our parenting and how we would want to inspire our girls. It may appear strange, but we don’t leave the dinner table immediately after we finish the food; instead, we would talk and talk and talk. By the time we moved to our OC home, all my girls were old enough to give their opinion in setting up the the table. and I wanted the area around the table to emit the inspiration and pep talks we have while munching on hummus and carrots.

The following is how we created our inspirational wall. We looked at a lot of the Pinterest walls we found online and were quick to catch on that different sizes made a difference.

1) So we went to budget-friendly stores in Orange County like T-J Max, Ross and Home Goods and found the following quotations which speak to our family values: Love, Faith, Sarcasm, Coffee and Dreams.

2) Next, we realized the wall ought to be more personalized, so we DIY'd some of the projects

"For you, a thousand times over" is my favorite Khaled Hosseini quote and "Let your Resilience Shine" is a painting my daughter did for one of her feminist workshops.

Even then we felt like the wall was still not an accurate representation of who we are so we found it pertinent to create some more DIY's with

Our individual resolutions of the year to serve as a visual reminder of our goals and tasks of the year

and a family bucket list of all the amazing trips we had planned for the year

3) Lastly, we decided to add symbols of all our past homes and a creative way to do so was adding number plates. The Abu-Dhabi number plate was the only one we found; however, we are still on the lookout for others (please message us if you find any).

The inspirational wall is our proudest DIY project mostly because how customisable it is. Are you interested in creating an inspirational wall? share yours in the comments below.