More Color

In a continuing attempt to bring color into my home,

I turned pretty fabric into "artwork".

I appliqued the bird onto the blue fabric,

covered a canvas board with the fabric,

and perched it on a blank wall in my living room.

Next I plan on coving the background of my bookshelf with some bright fabric...I just need to find the right fabric.

Color and Silhouette

There are too many neutral (brown) tones in my home, so I am working on some projects to bring in color.

I googled "tree silhouettes" to find a tree I liked. I am a tree fan. I think they are pretty.

Trees and letters - they are so iconic and so lovely.

I also like the simplicity of a two-tone silhouette.

I printed it on cardstock so that you can't see the printer ink on the other side.

Then - the most fun, least tedious thing you will ever do - cut out the tree. All those crazy leaves.

Yeah.

Then I mod podged it onto a colorful scrapebook page.

Frame and display.

A nice little splash of color.

Akk. Don't look too close. It's not perfect.

Stay tuned for more home-colorfying projects.

Old Book, New Art

I found this old, cute book (1962) at the thrift store a while ago. I like the colorful and simple artwork, so I cut out the pages and hung them on a wall.

This picture is my favorite.

I think I am going to hang them in my little boy's room; right now they are here in my work space.

Bats Ripoff

So, I saw this post, and got all excited about making my own bats, and then realized I didn't have any black paper. But I couldn't wait! so I used old magazines instead.

It turned out nowhere near Dana's masterpiece...but the kids are enchanted...and it's all I got (besides jackolanterns) in the way of Halloween decor.

We lived in Austin TX for 6 weeks (last year) and were sooo bummed when we found out the bats were already hibernating by the time we got there.

Cute, Cute Prints!!!

source here

And you can buy the actual prints here. (looove her!)

"LOVE" Canvas Sign

I finally found my camera! And I made this canvas sign without it so I only have the finished product. So I will do my best to explain it...it really is super easy and took me about 40 minutes TOPS!

Supplies: Four 11x14 canvas, acrylic paint (color of your choice), brushes (I used a small roller brush) and stencil cut from Silhouette or you can hand cut them too. 

Here's how....

So, cut out your letters from your Silhouette. I used the type called, architect's daughter and did them about 8 inches tall. Horizontally lay out your canvas so they are touching and leveled (don't want your letters to be crooked), then take the actual letter (not the negative space) and use Elmer's Craft Bond Spray Adhesive to lightly place the letters on the canvas where you want them. When you hang up the canvases, they will be spaced out so I tried to place my letters somewhat over the cracks so it didn't look to balanced and give it more personality. * I also cut out some little birds and added to the corner of the canvas, you don't have to do this but its sure it cute and adds so much. Use whatever design you like---a demask cut-out would be really cute too!*

Then, go ahead and start painting. I started over the letters and did dabbed around them. Use as little of paint around the letters as you can because it is paper and when it gets wet I noticed it started to curl a bit. Once you get around your letters, go ahead and paint the rest of the canvas. I did about 2 coats to get it all even. You are pretty much done at this stage, but don't let it dry all the way before you take off your letters...they will dry with the canvas and it makes it hard to peel them off. When you hand it up just space them out about an inch and you are good to go!!!

This project took me by some serious surprise. I wasn't really expecting it to turn out so much and it really looks like something I could have bought at the store. My husband even raved about it for days and will still bring it up. This is so do-able and very affordable...cost me about $15.

Just a little step into getting this bedroom decorated...more to come!!!

Linked:

a glimpse inside

the shabby nest

Cheap easy wall art

I find cheap frames at walmart, the dollar store and thrift stores then like to add my own twist to match my house.  I have all black furniture so I wanted to bring in some bright colors to match a green orange and yellow fabric on my chairs.  I found this great scrapbooking paper set from Basic Grey the paper is called lime rickey. The colors matched perfectly and had stickers and embellishments to make for easy cute crafts.  Here are a few of the art work to share:(sorry for the poor picture quality)

I just used some of the solid color paper in the pack and embellished it

with some of the stickers.  Super Easy!! Find paper and stickers to match your

style.

I did a mosaic with all the different paper.  Easy. Just cut out squares or rectangles

of whatever size you want.  Mod podge it on and you have cool stuff.

I cut the words out my hand.  I think the white is a little bright. I might

change it to yellow.