Yarn Art

Last, but not the least tweak in the living room, and over in that back door corner is a little yarn art.  I’ve seen these made on Pinterest a hundred times but took a notes from Andrea at Harlow & Thistle to make my very own. 

For a little bit, I struggled with what to hang on that door.  Since it got painted white and kind of blends in with the wall, which is great, I still liked the idea of adding some sort of wreath or hanging decor.  It had to be fairly simple and I didn’t want anything floral.  I didn’t want to add any holes to the door so it also had to be something light enough to hang from one of these magnetic hooks*.

I know you can find this tutorial a thousand times over elsewhere, but hey, “Here I go again on my own...” 

Two Frames, One Watercolor

Holy Week is here!  Lent is almost over and Easter is on it’s way!  I’m popping in quick with the what’s and how’s of the watercolor in the kids’ bathroom and then I’m out for the rest of the week to focus on JESUS!  Whoop!  I’ve been reading “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist” for Lent and it’s been such a great read (especially for this mainly fiction reader) and I can’t wait to finish this week.  I love history and when you mix history and the faith like this and read the words of someone who knows what they’re talking about, well, it gets me.  Highly recommend it…

So, the watercolor painting I hung in the kids’ bathroom…I really, really like it.

I picked it up at a yard sale last summer and I’ll never let it go…I mean, I can’t even figure out who wanted to in the first place, right?  It’s not a print but an actual watercolor painting!  Maybe the giver wasn’t aware?  Originally, it looked like this:

I didn’t think the frame was that bad but Anthony said it reminded him of something you’d see hanging in a doc’s office.  I could see it too, I guess.  Regardless, it was a little too big for where I wanted it so I went a-hunting for a smaller frame at Goodwill last week and found this one:

I thought the frame itself was some sort of plastic since it was nice and shiny but once I started sanding it down and prepping it for paint, I realized it was wood.  Ha!  $5 for a 22” x 17” wood frame…not bad!

Anyway, it was papered over on the back, which used to scare me to the point that I’d avoid all paper-backed frames in thrift stores.  But, since then, I’ve cast aside that fear and now I don’t care what a frame looks like on the back.  All I know is that no matter what’s on the back, pretty much any frame can be hacked into and used to display whatever I want it to.  Maybe you’ve been intimidated after seeing that paper too?  Well, don’t be.  Here’s how to take a frame like this apart:
1 – See the paper.  Own the paper.  Forget the paper.
2 – Rip the paper off.  It doesn’t own you.
3 – Under the paper, something will be holding everything in place.  Sometimes it’s staples all around the inside edge and sometimes, like this time for me, it’s small nails.  Sometimes you might even get lucky and just find tape.  If that’s your luck, just rip it out or grab the nearest knife or razor blade and slice along the edges.  If it’s staples or nails, take them out, one by one.  I’ve found a needle-nose pliers works best for this type of thing.  Yes, it’s a little tedious but that’s ok.  Just remember that there’s glass under there so don’t go too crazy banging and pulling.
4 – Once you get all the things (nails, tape, staples, etc…) that are holding the contents of the frame in place out, take out everything down to the glass so that all you’re left with is the frame itself.

Then, wash that glass quick because chances are it’ll need a good cleaning on both sides and put everything back in the way you had it, replacing whatever it is you want with whatever was in the frame when you bought it.  So, glass, mat (if there is one), art (I usually tape it in so it doesn’t slide around when in), cardboard (or other backing, and then nails (staples or tape).  You can even tape or glue some more paper to the back to make it look more professional if you want but I never do because who looks at the backside of a frame once it’s on the wall?  Not me and hopefully not you either because that might be really weird…

But, let’s backtrack a tad to the point where you have everything out of the frame.  If you want to change up the look of the frame with paint or anything else without having to worry about it’s contents getting in the way, now would be the time.  I wanted to go white with this one so I did a quick sanding to get rid of that glossy sheen.  I liked the gold on the frame though so I taped over that so I’d end up with a white frame with gold trim on the inside.

I primed the frame with white spray paint and then brush-painted it with leftover paint I have on hand from painting this wood couch.  I would’ve gone the spray paint route but I’m currently out of white spray paint and haven’t had a chance to grab anymore recently so latex it was.

Before I could stick the watercolor into it’s new frame, I had to trim it down a little.  So, I measured and penciled two lines on the top and left sides; where I’d need to trim to get it to the size I wanted it.

I could’ve taken an equal amount off each of the four sides but I wanted to keep as much of the watercolor itself in view so I cut off the two sides with the least amount of color.


It was now a perfect fit.  What didn’t come out so perfect was my paint job.  Either I didn’t press down my painters’ tape enough or the painters’ tape I used just stinks, but the white paint leaked underneath and onto the gold edge I wanted to keep.  I tried sanding it off but then ended up sanding off some of the gold and now it just looks a little messy.  Maybe I can call it distressed?

I think I’ll just grab some gold paint and touch it up but until that happens, at least the watercolor draws the eye towards itself and not the frame’s paint job…or maybe that’s just me playing the justification/excuse card but either way, since the frame isn’t the star of this show, I really don’t care all that much to rush to fix it.

And that is that.

I hope you all have a wonderful and powerful Holy Week and an even better Easter!

Our Paint Chip Family

Ooh, DIY art.  It's my favorite.  And since I'm really, really, really bad/slow at getting real pictures put into real frames, it's really easy too.

So, when I saw the above gallery wall done by Jessica at Pretty Providence, specifically that framed triangle artwork in the upper left, I was inspired.  I got to work one nap time and created my own version of it in the form of a little abstract family portrait, a very abstract family portrait.See?

It's Anthony and I on the left (he's Neutral Gray even though he's anything but neutral and I'm red/orange or "Red Hot" as Behr calls it...ha!), and the kids are two blues and a golden yellow (or boring "Sunwashed Blue", "Honey Beige", and "Harbor").  It's going to have to get tweaked a little bit here in the next few months but since I did this project months ago and am just now getting around to sharing it, we'll stick with five triangles instead of the six we really need now.  The question that now remains is, what color should the new little lady be?  I'm accepting ideas...

The five of us are hanging in the toy corner in the living room; a little area we moved all the toys to last year when we rearranged this room for better functionality.

Want a little triangular fam of your very own?

You know you do!!  Here's how you can birth one...

Grab some paint chips.  I used chips I had on hand from prior projects.  

(Soapbox note:  I don't condone just going into a home improvement store and grabbing paint chips for free for projecting.  I feel like, and maybe this is a little dramatic, but that's almost stealing.  Somebody pays for those and even though they're up for grabs and free for us consumers, I don't think that means going and grabbing a bunch for non-paint related purposes is cool.  However, I do think that going into a home improvement store to buy something and supporting them financially in another way gives you a little more justification to maybe grab a few for a project.  Just my two cents.)

A few of them were squares so I just penciled a line halfway down the middle on the back to create two little triangles.  Then, I used one of those triangles as a template to cut triangles out of the chips that weren't squares.

Then I just cut out the triangles...with my food scissors, yes.  Sometimes they're just the closest and sometimes I'm just lazy.

 

And then I apparently didn't take or lost any and all pictures of how I got them in a frame but luckily, that's Kindergarten-level stuff.  I just grabbed an old frame I had laying around that I had broken the glass to years ago, stuck a piece of white, matte photo paper inside, and glued my triangles in the order I wanted them to the photo paper.  I used photo paper because it's a little thicker than regular computer paper but really, you can use any kind or color of paper you want.  It's your family.  Make it how you want it.  :) 

Along with our family triangle portrait, I hung this print from Hatch Prints (also used in our recent pregnancy announcement) in a thrifted oval frame that I spray painted white and the mat black (they were a nice shade of gaudy pink), and framed picture of the kids I rehabbed from this thrifted frame:

I bought it for the color of the frame but painted the mat white and then went back in and painted in the gray border for flavor.

This little corner of the living room is set now but we've made some major progress in other corners that I can't wait to share with you.  Stay tuned for one rather large update next week!  I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with boo fantel...

Finger Painting

Let’s reach back to our five-year-old selves and pull out those finger painting skillz, shall we?  Not only will they come in handy for this tutorial but as it turns out, getting your hands dirty with pretty colors can be really stress-relieving…not that I would know about stress.  My life is all butterflies and roses…and tantrums and meltdowns and toddler woes 58%  of the time.

The art I painted and hung above Sebastian’s crib is 80% finger painted and 20% brushed.

It was so easy to do that even if you’ve already taken once glance at it and determined that “no, you can’t do that”, you can.  Yes, you can.

But before tell you how you can, let me remind you (or tell you in case you didn’t see this post) that I bought this green metal frame at a local thrift store for 50 cents.  It had a large piece of discolored foam board fitted inside and so I just painted right onto that foam board instead of buying a new large piece of paper/board/whatever.  The jewel green color is a latex paint (Alexandrite by Sherwin Williams for Lowe’s) and the rest of the colors are acrylics, some of which I already had and some that I purchased at Hobby Lobby.  The acrylic colors I used were black, white, mint, gray, and a yellowy-mustard color.

So first, just for a little interest to peek through under my finger painting, I grabbed some black white acrylic paint and painted b&w stripes in a few random places across the board.  I painted the black stripes first…

…and then added the white ones in between once the black paint was dry.  After I was done with the white I had a good amount of white paint left on the plate I was using so I just dumped it onto the board and smeared it around a little with my hands.
 

At the same time as I was painting this, my cousin Faith was at my house painting a fabric “S” for Sebastian’s room and she had just finished so I grabbed the paint she had leftover from painting that and smeared it around the board too.
 

Then I let all that paint dry.

During the next free naptime, I grabbed all of the colors minus black.  Over the top of the board, making sure not to go over the stripes, I squirted different colors one-by-one in random places all over.
(Except I spooned on the green latex since it came from a test pot. Technicalities folks.)
 

And then I just smeared all those colors together.  The key is not smearing too much that the colors blend to make a totally different color but just blending so that they streak together.  Also, make sure you have enough paint squirted onto the surface of whatever you’re painting so that you’re not having to spread paint around too much to cover.  The more paint, the better.  And also, the more paint, the more texture which is a great addition!
 
As I was smearing, I made sure to not smear completely over the stripes I had painted.  I just smeared around them but over the edges so that they didn’t sit on an island of sorts – stripes surrounded by blank foam board surrounded by a ring of paint.  Make sense?  I just wanted them to peek through.

The painting looked really cool after I was done smearing and the plan was to leave it that way but of course, I tweaked it just a little more by going in with each color and a brush and added some dots around the piece.  I literally dipped the brush in whatever color I was using and dabbed it randomly around the painting.  I also added a few smears of black in the end.

Art definitely isn’t my strong suit but I think this one turned out pretty good, no?
And considering I only paid about $5 from start to finish (most of that went to paint of which I used not even half of each color supply) it looks even better. 
  

So, any painters out there?  Maybe some wanna be painters like me?  Abstract art is the way to go!  If you make a mistake, it just looks like you meant to!  I wish falling on your face in public was more like that…like “oops” you totally meant to do that.  “I just needed a quick thrill to wake me up.  No big deal.”  Or forgetting to zip it up below the belt.  Wearing no-zip maternity paints totally took my zip-it-up habit and tossed it right out the nursery window.

And you wonder why I like long shirts…

.           .           . 

The Hutch Makeover

Or should I say ‘makeunder’ since I was going for a simpler look?  Or is it just weird that I’m writing a whole post about a hutch makeover in general?  Most DIY bloggers showcase entire room makeovers including hutches that they beautifully styled and primped.  Well, not me.  I’d show you our whole living room but the fact is it’s still a little bit of a smorgasbord of things and getting to a reveal is going to take a little bit longer for this tortoise.  But, you can see the mirror I painted here and the pillows hanging out here if you so wish.  :)

So, shall we move on?  Sure thing.

Here was the hutch a few weeks ago: 
 
Was.  It was filled with lots of hand-me-downs (that I truly love) like my grandmother’s milk glass, some frames with homemade art, some thrifted vases, and other random things.  Atop it was another jumble of things that gave the whole thing a little bit of a country vibe which is cool but which is also not my style.

Not on the agenda (or in the budget) though, was a change…until I got my very first issue of HGTV magazine a few months ago.  One page got me and got me good.
  
It was the after picture of a hutch they made over and it wasn’t really the hutch as much as the way they styled it.  As I was looking at all of the things inside it, I realized that I had a lot of similar items in my house.  So, that day during naptime, I took everything out of our hutch and refilled it with those similar items.

Here’s what it’s looking like today:


On top of the things I grabbed from amongst our own things to refill it, a bunch of little diy projects went into it, and also a few thrifted treasures.  Bear with me while I elaborate.  :)



Half of the hardcover books were recently thrifted; purchased based on the color of their spine and that’s it.  The large green and yellow vases were thrifted a long time ago as were the two gold candlesticks, the aqua vase, and the clear bubble candle pillar.
Some of the milk glass made the cut to go back in and the rest will be put elsewhere in the house.



The white storage box on the top shelf was the box my best friend sent last year holding inside it a request to be a bridesmaid in her wedding (this ‘gram).  I can’t part with it.


It used to be black.
 
You can see the rough section on the box where I ripped off the packing tape that held it closed on it’s journey here.  Off with the tape came the top layer of the paper the box is made out of.  I was hoping that, even though it wouldn’t make those spots smooth, a little paint would disguise that whole issue.

So, I gave it a quick coat of spray primer and then a coat of white spray paint.
 

Primed:


Unfortunately, the paint didn’t do the greatest job of sticking and not soaking into the paper where the tape had been ripped off.  So, after the spray paint dried, I painted the whole box with some white acrylic paint I had and that did the trick.


Then I grabbed my gold paint pen (purchased for this project but that failed) and added a little fun to the area where the tape was to further hide the roughness.


Now it fits right in.


The gray and white striped box on the right side of the hutch was a perfume box I’ve had pictures stored in forever.

 
It’s made of heavy duty cardboard.  I just spray painted it white and then laid some tape across it in strips.  Then I painted over the taped and un-taped stripes using some gray paint (leftover from this stenciled rug project), and then carefully removed the tape to reveal the new gray and white stripes.  The blue cut-out vase atop it was a Dirt Cheap find and the sea urchin was diy-ed (tutorial here).  The wood box on the bottom shelf is a bible box I’ve had since I was a wee girl.  I thought about sanding it down to get a more natural wood look but it has a few small latches and hinges to go around and just seemed a little too tedious of a project.

On top of the hutch I did some much needed restyling.  The mercury glass vase was diy-ed (tutorial here in yesterday’s post).  The orb-ish thing is just an embroidery hoop that I bought several months ago for a project that didn’t come to fruition.  The minty vase was a thrift find.  The large frame was an amazing thrift find a few weeks ago!  I got it for 50 cents!  It’s big and metal and it’s the same mint-green color as our sectional.  The print inside it was a thrift find from a few years ago but I just saw the same print on clearance at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago for under $2.  I cut it to fit the frame.
 

You might’ve also noticed the gorgeous knobs this sweet thing’s sporting.


I am in la-la-love with them.
 
[And I also have yet to touch up the paint the old knob scratched up behind them.]
I saw these beauties at Hobby Lobby many moons ago and wished I could snatch them all up and replace every knob in this house with them.  Then, a few months ago, I went through a big closet purge and sold a bunch of my dresses and with some of that cash, I went and bought my knobs.  They were 50% off the week I bought them so I got eight of them for around $16.  You probably don’t remember because they didn’t make the greatest impression, but the original knobs on the hutch were plain, stocky wooden ones that I spray painted with some hammered brown spray paint…blah.  These make all the difference in the world.


And that’s it!

But, for more kicks, let’s do a whole history.  Here’s what the hutch looked like when we first got it from a friend (we traded a twin mattress for it):


Then after we moved to Alabama, I painted it:


Then the knobs made things a little happier:

And last, HGTV happened:


What a journey, no?
 

I think I am so passionate for decorating right now because it’s really a challenge.  We don’t have it in our budget to spend much, if anything on home decor right now, so finding ways to make things pretty while only spending a little bit is so fun!  Call me crazy but it’s the truth.  This hutch is the perfect example of that!  But then again, that challenge puts these crazy ideas in my head too which don’t always work out like I picture.  For example, I looked into getting the cranberry-colored clubs chairs in our living room reupholstered and the cost was way, way, way out of our budget.  So, this crazy person is going to try to do it herself.  I haven’t found the perfect, cheap but quality fabric yet to do so, but when I do, look out…and wish me luck.  Lots and lots of luck…and wine, and help, and maybe advice?  :)

TGIF