it takes two to make a thing go right

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Katie

As in, it took me two attempts to get the silhouettes I made for the YHL/BP Pinterest Challenge worthy of hanging in our hallway and not the dumpster. If you remember from Wednesday, the first attempt left us all with bubbly faces. Boo.

So, yesterday I purchased some black poster board and prepared myself for my second attempt. Big bucks, no whammies.

I taped the extra copies I had onto the poster board and traced around the edges. (I didn’t press down hard enough on the first one and it made the next step much more difficult, but I learned my lesson and pressed down really hard for the next 3.)

Then, I cut out each of the silhouettes along the trace impression line in the poster board. Added bonus: the new poster board silhouettes aren’t as shiny as the printed silhouettes so they reflect less light.

Then, Michael helped me spray adhesive on them and stick them on top of the others. He was much better at lining them up than I was. So glad he helped or you might be reading about silhouette debacle number two right now.

Then, I slapped them each back up on their Command Strips on the wall and started snapping pics :)

I must admit, I think we all look a heck of a lot better without all those bubbles on our faces. And bonus points for less glare. I still may end up framing them (without the glass), but we’ll see. For now, I like them just as they are. Movie reference anyone?? :)

pinterest inspired: modern silhouettes

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Katie

As part of the Pinterest Challenge Young House Love and Bower Power do every season, I decided to make some modern silhouettes to hang at the end of our newly repainted hallway.

I had been planning to create some more personal art for the hall for a while and was totally inspired by all the silhouettes popping up out on Pinterest.

I love these adorable dog silhouettes from The Space Between.

And I like the idea from Apartment Therapy to have the silhouettes face each other instead of all in the same direction.

And I like the way The Domesticated Princess added a pattern behind the silhouettes to update them up a little.

I may still end up making silhouettes of our two dogs, but for now, I made silhouettes of Michael, J, and I. And, to make it an even number, J got two.

To make the silhouettes, I opened each up in a blank tabloid size document (11″ x 17″) in Photoshop and Placed the photo on top. First, I streched the photo to be big enough for my giant canvas. Then, I made the photo layer about 90% opaque and then started tracing the outline onto the blank layer. Once, I had it all traced, I just filled it in and cleaned up the edges.

Then, I saved them as PDF files so I could run up to FedEx Office (I will always want to call it Kinko’s!) and print them in black/white on the self-service machines for 0.20 each, plus tax. So, 0.85 for all four. Woohoo. (I may have splurged and got doubles of each in case I messed up the next step…)

Next, I took them home and cut them out. Easy enough.

Then, it was time to add the backgrounds. I debated using digital scrapbook paper (or making my own digital design) and just overlaying the layers and having the whole thing printed so I could just adhere it to the board, but I waited too late to get started for that option. Then, I thought about using wrapping paper to paper the backs, but I couldn’t find any that I loved the pattern and the colors. So, I took four of the six 16″ x 20″ foam boards I bought (from Michael’s in packs of 3 – for 3.81 per pack with a 40% off coupon) and started taping stripes onto them with painters tape. I made two with horizontal stripes and two with vertical stripes. I know, I’m wild. Then, I painted them all with the green I had left-over from the family room number paintings (Home Decorators Zesty Apple).

Once they were all dry, I glued the silhouettes onto them with my Scotch wrinkle-free glue stick (except for that first one that I wasn’t thinking and used regular old Elmer’s glue and was reminded to use the wrinkle-free kind…).

Then, I hung up the bottom two with Command Strips (and ran out of Command Strips). I was thinking of framing them (without the glass) using some old frames I had, but the frames made them too big for the space – I may still end up framing them, but I’ll live with them for a bit and see…

Then, after a quick run to get some more hanging strips this morning, I got them all hung up. And noticed that the paint must not have been totally dry before I glued the silhouettes on last night because they all have wrinkles now – even the wrinkle free glue ones. Big fail. Need. more. patience.

So, I’m planning to take the extra copies I have and trace them onto black poster board in the next couple of days and glue the thicker versions over these once I’m certain the paint is totally dry. Update: I fixed them by adding new silhouettes made of black poster board – you can check them out here.

O, and the black in the silhouettes makes me kinda want to leave the demilune table black. But if I do that, I will have to definitely get a fun rug!

Check out the projects the hosts of the Pinterest Challenge have posted on each of their sites:
Sherry from Young House Love
Katie from Bower Power Blog
Emily from Sparkle Meets Pop
Renee from Red Bird Blue

Do you love the classic look of silhouettes? I am loving the classic look with the modern twist! And not having glass on the art at the end of the hall so it doesn’t always just show a reflection of the overhead lights :)

Here’s what’s left on hall makeover to-do list:
- Repaint/touch-up the moulding
- Rearrange the “gallery” and include a more interesting, less matchy-matchy arrangement
- Change out the light fixtures
- Update the rug
- Fix the bubbly silhouettes

Feel like you missed a previous post on the hallway? Catch up here, here, here, and here.

9 of a kind

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Katie

I have finally finished my Jasper Johns inspired paintings for our family room. Woohoo. Yeehaw. Getty up.

When I left off in my progress post last Friday, here is what we had.

But it was too dark, so I needed to lighten it up a bit and paint the sides (I went with the dark blue) to clean them up.

Then, it was time to hang them. Yay. I used 3M Command Strips to hang them and started with the center one (#5). Once I got #5 where I wanted it, I hung 2 and 8. Then 4 and 6. Then 7 and 9. And finally, 1 and 3. I hung them 1″ apart and used a roll of painters tape as a spacer so that I didn’t have to do any measurements after I got #5 in place. After that, I just verified everything was level.

Here you can see the entry way and the rug I pulled a lot of the colors for these paintings from.

Here you can see the blue edges. And the stupid subwoofer that goes with that speaker bar I don’t love. If only speakers were ok with being hidden inside of cabinets… Boo.

Admittedly, these paintings are much brighter on the wall than I originally anticipated. I think I’m liking that. But I’m not quite sure yet.

Here’s what is still left on the family room to-do list:
- find/make curtains
- find/make art for other walls
- decide whether or not to use a different (bigger) rug
- determine plan to protect the couch from stains
- make/get smaller kids’ table

Have you made any art for your house lately? Did it turn out exactly like you planned? Do you like decorating with numbers or letters?

Feel like you missed some of the posts about the living room to family room conversion? Catch up here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

easy as 1, 2, 3…

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Katie

Well, not exactly. Especially considering I’ve been working on this little family room art project for a week now and it’s still not done… It all started when I was trying to figure out what to hang on the wall that backs up to the entry way and decided 9 12″ square canvases would be perfect. Now, what to paint on them…

I knew that I wanted to bring in all the bright colors from the entry way rug and any that I knew I might want to use as accents in the family room. So, I was looking at turquoise, green, tomato red, yellow, and orange from the entry, and a couple of different shades of blue from my someday plans for the family room. And, I threw in a brownish color that is similar to the brown in the gray-brown ottomans to serve as a neutral and to further tie them in if when we don’t end up recovering them.

So, I started gathering my supplies. I hit JoAnn for the 9 canvases – they were on a 50% off sale, and I had another 15% off my whole purchase coupon, so with tax they came to just over $4 each - woohoo!

Then, I headed to Home Depot to get some sample paint to use – I bought 8 samples at around 2.50 each. Top to Bottom: Home Decorator’s Luscious Lemon, Home Decorator’s Cherry Red, Behr Orange Spice, Home Decorator’s Zesty Apple, Home Decorator’s Island Oasis, Sherwin-Williams Tiki Hut, Home Decorator’s Champlain Blue, and Home Decorator’s Nocturne Blue.

Now, what was I going to paint…?

I still wasn’t exactly sure. I searched for ideas on Pinterest and elsewhere on the internet and never found anything that seemed perfect. Then, as I was going to bed last Friday night, it came to me. I have been a huge fan of Jasper Johns’s work since I first saw it in high school art class. In fact, I did a project back then inspired by his work. (Must try to dig it out of our basement…) I ended up painting another couple of pieces inspired by his work over the next 5 years. And now, it was time again.

So, now I knew what I wanted to do. Yay. Each of the 9 canvases would contain a number like the rectangles in Johns’s Numbers in Color piece. Only I wanted to use slightly different colors. And mine would be individual canvases. And squares instead of rectangles. So, there were a few liberties…

Jasper Johns. Numbers in Color. Source

I started with the brown and just randomly painted it on all 9 canvases.

Then, I added the green.

Then, both of the darker blues.

Then, it was time to start adding the numbers. My Silhouette wasn’t going to be able to cut numbers big enough to use as stencils, and I couldn’t find anything that large at Home Depot. So, I printed some giant numbers out on legal sized paper and cut them out. Then, I just used painters tape to secure them while I filled in each number.

I did that process for each of the 9 numbers.

Then, I went back and added more color to each of them.

I’m still not done. I was hoping to have them all completed and hanging in the family room for ~~Wednesday’s~~ today’s post, but it just doesn’t feel done yet. So, I’m waiting and standing back to see what it needs next…

Any other Jasper Johns fans out there? Have you every tried to make Jasper Johns-inspired art?

something bout a truck

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Katie

Are you totally singing that Kip Moore song in your head now? Me, too! It’s one of the few songs I’ve downloaded to my iPhone, so I sing it a lot. I digress…

The Easter Bunny (EB) was trying to figure out what to bring our little guy for Easter, and well, the obvious answer was trucks. He loves anything with wheels, even two-dimensional ones that don’t spin, but he especially loves trucks. And to say “truck”. It was one of his first 10 words. Seriously. He’s been ogling our neighbor’s red Hemi truck since the first time he saw it. Who knows where that came from. Michael isn’t even a car guy.

So, anyway, EB (Easter Bunny) didn’t want to give J a ton more little trucks to play with since the toy cabinet is pretty full of them already (and he has a birthday just around the corner). And, EB just happened to know he was even enamored with the magnets on the fridge with trucks on them for various local plumbers or HVAC guys.

So, while EB was shopping at the craft store, an idea hopped (sorry, I couldn’t resist!) into her (you already picked up on me bring the Easter Bunny, right?) head. Truck magnets. Using the already painted little trucks they sell at Jo-Ann, Hobby Lobby, and Michael’s for less than a dollar each and a sheet of magnets.

I’m not sure I can even call this a craft since I didn’t even paint the little trucks. But it was the easiest not-quite-craft I ever did. Er, I mean EB ever did. (To up the craft effort, you could buy the little unfinished shapes they sell at those same stores and paint them yourself.) EB just cut pieces of magnet from one of the self-adhesive magnet sheets and stuck them on the back of each vehicle. And that was it. Well, then EB stuck them on our fridge for a quick pic and then tucked them into J’s Easter basket and went to sleep.

(They stick to our stainless fridge because we don’t have a real stainless fridge. It is called GE Clean Steal - it was cheaper (when we bought it 10 years ago), resists smudges/fingerprints, and is magnetic – win all around.)

Anyway, I thought he’d like these little trucks (technically, 2 trucks, a digger, a car, and a bus), but I didn’t realize they would go over so well. Seriously. He has tried to carry them to bed each night. And, after we explain again each night that they have to sleep on the fridge, he kisses them goodnight and tells them he’ll see them in the morning. No joke. Not sure what it is. I guess there is really something about a truck…

Does your kid like something you’ve “made” for them way more than expected? What was it? Or do you have a kid (or husband or boyfriend) who is head over heels for anything with wheels?

P.S. If you read about my little switch plate switcheroo April Fools’ Day prank on Monday, check back in over there for an update. Spoiler alert: he’s already noticed.

milk paint brings all the girls to the yard

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Katie

Ok, so I know I said I would stop going to meet famous bloggers after my last series of awkward encounters, but since it included a workshop in addition to the book signing, I figured it might not be disastrous. So, on Saturday, I spent the day at Miss Mustard Seed‘s Milk Paint Workshop at Founder’s Hall in downtown Roswell.

There were around 70 people in attendance for the workshop, and I got to meet some other bloggers. (Based on the number of faces I recognized around the room, I think there were a number of other bloggers in attendance, too.) And, Rhoda of Southern Hospitality was there! Thank goodness I didn’t know she’d be there so I didn’t have time to get nervous about what to say. Either that or the third time was, in fact, the charm and we’re now old friends. Once again, though, I forgot to get a picture with her. Next time.

We had supplies at each of our places as we came in to make trays out of cabinet doors, and here is what my door started out looking like. I may have selected my seat based on 1) which cabinet door I liked best and 2) the seat faced where Marian was going to speak from. Which put me close to the back since most of the closer tables with seats facing her had already been taken by the time I arrived. But, as you can see, I selected a very plain style of door. Shocking, I know.

Then, Marian explained how milk paint is different from other paints and how to apply it.
I decided I didn’t want a super-chippy tray, so I added bonding agent to my paint before I got started. (The color I chose was Lucketts Green.) Here is my door/tray after one coat of milk paint.

And, here it is after two coats. Some people applied a different color for their second coat, but I wasn’t feeling that adventurous with my milk paint just yet. I applied my second coat in the same color.

Here it is dried and ready for detail decoration.

There were stencils provided, but I opted to go out on my own. The talented girls at my table (Tricia and Nancy) went first and gave me some (false) hope of my own free-handing skills. Tricia traced one of the paint container lids on hers to make the circle for her laurel design (which is a signature on her blog), so she gave me the idea to trace the lid to make a sort of dotted circle. (I drew the design in chalk first so it wiped off easily.) And yeah, surprising, I know – I went with a K for my grand design :)

I think I may need to go back and straighten up the K a little and beef it up some. Even though we applied wax to seal it, Marian said the milk paint will go right over it again with no problem. And here is my little tray with his handles on. I think I may end up changing out the handles, too. We’ll see.

After the workshop portion, it was time to eat lunch, and it was such a beautiful day that I walked down to NINE street kitchen with my new friends Tricia and Nancy and ate outside with them there. After lunch, we walked through the Canton Street Antique Market before heading back, and I bought a little zinc K (about 3″ tall). #addictedtoletters

When we got back from lunch, Marian held an information session about DIY and her sources for various items. Then, it was time to get my book signed and have my awkward moment. Marian was so sweet, and luckily, I was only nominally awkward, at least for me.

You can read Marian’s post about the day here. Good news: she didn’t report any crazies being there :)

Have you ever used milk paint? Do you have a favorite color from Miss Mustard Seed’s paints? I want to try them all! I bought samples of a few different colors from Mary Anne’s shop, and I know I’ll be back for more. Shocking, I know, considering I’m a bit of a ~~hoarder~~ collector.

kiss me, i’m irish(ish)

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Katie

Top of the morning to you. Ok, so I may not exactly be Irish. But, my husband’s family came to the US from Ireland (albeit a right long time ago), and my family is originally from one of those other British Isles… And, I have the reddish-brown hair and freckles to blend in around there. O, and I have been to Ireland, so that should be worth some Irish points, right??

Anyway, we didn’t get the family room painted yet as I’d hoped (boo hiss), so I don’t have an update for you on that front just yet. Though, I did get out a little spray paint yesterday (before the winds revved up to a million miles an hour!), so hopefully I’ll have some little updates to show you on Friday.

So, back to me and my Irish ~~roots~~ almost-roots. Not sure if it’s the awesome accents, being the birthplace of U2 (I’m a big fan of their early tunes), or that their big celebration urges us to drink green beer, but I’ve always had a bit of a crush on Ireland. Seriously. It was the one place I knew I wanted to go when I visited Europe. And, it was just as amazing as I’d imagined. Must get back there someday.

Sorry, I started daydreaming about my trip from Galway to the Cliffs of Moher… Back to my little pre-St. Paddy’s Day decor. I was inspired by this adorable Valentine’s argyle wreath on Pinterest (though I can’t find the original source of it — if you know, add a comment so I can give them some credit – this thing is all over Pinterest tied to a million broken links). (I love love love argyle and had been dying to finally make some yarn wreaths so this was a double-win!) So inspired, in fact, that I started making a couple of them for our double front doors back in February…

But, I didn’t get them done in time for Valentine’s Day since other Valentine’s projects trumped them. As for what I did accomplish, well, I just made your basic yarn wreaths: straw wreaths (still in plastic wrap) wrapped many, many times with yarn.

Now (a month later), I took those two plain gray yarn wreaths and decided to turn them into St. Patrick’s Day wreaths instead. I found a simple image of a four-leaf clover with the assistance of my friend (google), printed it on cardstock, cut it out, and used it as a template to trace and cut out what felt (ha!) like a million green felt shamrocks (but was really only 27).

I debated between lighter green or white for the yarn and whether or not I wanted 10 or 12 shamrocks per wreath… (In hindsight, I should have considered matching gray yarn so that it wouldn’t show on the back. Oops.)

Then, I tried to tie the shamrocks onto the wreath without glueing them down… Essentially, I’m trying to force these versatile little gray yarn wreath bases to be useable for more than one season by making their bling removable, but it’s not making this little project any easier…

I decided I would attach them by cutting individual pieces of yarn, forming an X across each shamrock with 2 pieces of yarn, hot-glueing the yarn at four points (two per string) to secure them to the shamrocks, and then just looping the strings around the wreaths and tying them on the back of the wreath.

The hardest part was keeping the shamrocks from bunching because of the angle of my strings.

And, here’s my attempt at recreating the inspiration shot from the original Valentine’s wreath. (It loses a little something with the reflection in the windows, huh?) Wreaths St Pattys 10

How are you getting geared up for St. Patrick’s Day? Is it just me or do you read things about Ireland in an Irish accent? :)

I have linked this post up to Craft-O-Maniac and Monday Funday.

pinterest inspired: toys turned art

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Katie

As part of the Pinterest Challenge Young House Love and Bower Power do every season, I got geared up to make some bookends from toys to use in J’s future big boy room. And, I knew I wanted to use cars or trucks for the toys since he eats, sleeps, and breathes them. Pretty literally.

So, onto my Pinterest inspiration…

#1 from Bower Power - bookends made with dinosaurs from the dollar store

#2 from Nellie Bellie – bookends made with giraffes from the dollar store

#3 from Live Love DIY - inspirational non-DIY dog bookends from PB Teen

Then, it was like serendipity when I ran across these little unfinished boxes for $3 each at the Target Dollar Spot.

Using these boxes instead of just using bases for the cars would give me the option to have my project sit on a shelf as bookends or hang on the wall as art. Options. Woohoo.

I painted the outside of each of the boxes white (Ceramcoat Oyster White). Then, I painted the bottom inside of each of them dark blue (Martha Stewart Crafts Deep Sea) and set out to find some cars or trucks to fit in the boxes. J didn’t have any that would work in his toy bins, so I hit the dollar store but came up empty handed. I found this school bus and dump truck at Wal-Mart for $3 each.

Then, I went back and forth about whether to paint all of the remaining inside walls dark blue, whether to paint all of the other inside walls white, or whether to paint all of the other walls royal blue and the “ceiling” light blue for an ombre/gradient effect…

But before I decided on how to paint the last four surfaces on each box, I decided to paint the little cars I found at Wal-Mart dark blue. After I had a couple of coats of paint on the trucks, I did a quick test to see which direction to go next. The iPhone test. Took a picture of the truck with the light background (ala unfinished) and one with a dark background (ala scrap paper). I jumped on Team Blue because I thought the blue one felt more interesting to me (even though this crazy-dark blue doesn’t photograph well).

I painted the remaining sides of the interiors of each box dark blue and added a third coat of paint on the vehicles. And sat and watched the paint dry.

So, there you have it, my version of using toys to make bookends/art. Can’t wait to use these in our little one’s big boy room. Cars and trucks are his jam.

Check out the projects the hosts of the Pinterest Challenge have posted on each of their sites:
Sherry from Young House Love
Katie from Bower Power Blog
Megan from The Remodeled Life
Michelle from Decor & The Dog

Pssst – were you expecting a family room update post today? I’ll be posting about the fake fireplace brick facade on Friday. (If you want to catch up on our family room revamp, you can read about it here, here, here, here, and here.)

valentines-a-palooza

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Katie

Last night, we had two last-minute (is there a more productive time?) Valentine’s projects at our house: 1) we needed to roll out enough kiddo-made Valentine’s for a certain toddler class (plus grandparents, aunts, and uncles) and 2) I needed to create some art to replace the Christmas printable that I’m ashamed to admit was still framed on our entry board and batten ledge. (I love being able to change out the art and pictures so easily with that ledge, but sometimes I just stop noticing what’s there until it’s just like “is that seriously still up there?”. Oops.)

Let’s just say I didn’t exactly prepare, per se, for either of these projects, but I always know I have my ~~hoarded~~ collected stash of crafting materials to fall back on. So, I scanned my craft reserves and formulated the plan – punch out lots of hearts and stick them on things… In the interest of efficiency (and making less of a mess), I decided the two projects should share their main supplies: leftover scraps of colored paper, some textured scrapbook paper, a heart-shaped craft paper punch (That’s Amore by Fiskars), and the sticker maker ~~machine~~ contraption (Xyron Create-a-Sticker).

I should go ahead and warn you that I am not a pink person. At all. So, we didn’t include much pink in our Valentine’s projects. And because I don’t love pink (and don’t always like to follow the rules), we used lots of other fun colors. We used red, pink (only for the cards), green, aqua, blue (only for the cards), and orange from my scrap pile. We only used the textured scrapbook paper for the art since it seemed thicker than I wanted for the cards. The scrapbook papers were by Coredinations and were a red overlayed with a darker red (called Ruby) and a pink overlayed with red (called Kisses).

Let’s start with the art, shall we?

I used a 9×12 canvas panel (yes, I realize it may be weird that I have these lying around in many sizes — what can I say, I like to make my own art), matte Mod Podge, and a brush to apply it with. I started by punching out a ton of little hearts from the leftover paper and the two sheets of scrapbook paper. Then, I laid some of the hearts out on the canvas panel to figure out the color pattern and general spacing and took a quick picture to help keep me from messing it up (5 across, 7 down).

Next, I ran the hearts through the sticker maker and attempted to put them back on the panel in the correct formation — luckily, I used the repositionable sticker cartridge because it took a few attempts to get the spacing right again. (In hindsight, I would make smaller batches of stickers next time so that some were still in position as a guide. I didn’t use a ruler or anything, so they are a little wonky since I just eyeballed it. But, I kinda like it that way since you can tell it was handmade.) Once they were all set, I spread a thin layer of matte Mod Podge all over them and left it to dry. Once it was dry, that project was complete and ready for the ledge. Woohoo. One down.

(No, I didn’t make that awesome Welcome print — I bought it from Anna Tovar on Etsy. So cute, right?)

Bring on the cards. O wait, don’t bring the toddler just yet.

For the Valentine’s cards, I went ahead and punched out all of the hearts and ran them through the sticker maker before the kiddo got involved. (I used the permanent adhesive on the hearts for this run to try to prevent him – or his classmates – from being able to easily remove the hearts and eat them. Yeah, the things I never thought I’d have to worry about…)

Once the hearts were all stickered up, I let him sit at the table and go to town peeling them off the backing paper and sticking them on the white cards (we used pre-cut flat 4 bar cards) I’d laid out for him. He was amazingly opinionated about exactly where each sticker would go – especially for someone who normally just wants to throw cars and trucks on the floor. He didn’t want any part of me trying to help and even tried to apply a few to our kitchen table. (Rethinking the permanent adhesive about now…) Eventually, we ran out of stickers and called it a night. For him, anyway. I then went back and just wrote Happy Valentine’s Day 2013 and signed his name on the bottom of each. Valentines complete. Woohoo.

Gotta say the stickers were a bigger hit with him than I expected. Especially since they don’t have wheels. And he was very specific about how he wanted to create each card which was just, well, entertaining. Think I may need to load up on some more sticker maker cartridges so we can make his upcoming birthday invitations in a similar way. Now, I just need a car/truck/boat paper punch…

Well, Happy Valentine’s Day — thanks for stopping by!

Is it weird that I can hardly bear to part with the cards he made? I may have taken an individual picture of each and every one… He has some ~~hoarding~~ collecting tendencies of his own. Hopefully, he’ll be able to give them to his little friends and not keep them all for himself. Wonder if he’d understand if I told him it was ok to give them away since I pictures of each of them for him… Ha.

deranchification

turning our old drab ranch house into a fun updated home

Category Archives: crafts

it takes two to make a thing go right

pinterest inspired: modern silhouettes

easy as 1, 2, 3…

something bout a truck

milk paint brings all the girls to the yard

kiss me, i’m irish(ish)

pinterest inspired: toys turned art

valentines-a-palooza

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