One Frame Down...

Those of you that have been around here a while (thank you, love you!!!), you know our hallway has gone through a bit of an evolution.  I tackled my first stencil project on those walls...

...and then I even hung a few frames. 

Not long after they went up, I realized I wanted something more.  I decided to hang a few mini-galleries on each wall. 

I liked it, but I wasn't satisfied.  I wanted something a little bold...something that made more of a statement.  So I did what any insane person would do...I removed all the frames (don’t worry, I only hang stuff with 3M picture hanging strips), rolled over the hours of stenciling I had originally done and started stenciling, again.

I’m 99.9% certain my hubby thought I was nuts, but I had a picture in my head I just couldn’t shake.  

After a veryyyyy long day, I had the results I wanted all along!  I was smitten.

...except for the fact that I had to re-hang. all. of. those. frames.

UGH.  I, legit, loathe hanging things.  I really don’t know why I hate it so much, but I do.  It’s one of my least favorite things to do...which is evident by the fact that our halls are still bare.  Yup, I re-stenciled well OVER a year ago, and have yet to hang a single frame back up.

Until now!  Thanks to UncommonGoods reaching out to review one of their products, I quickly found some motivation to hang at least one piece up in our hallway!

UncommonGoods is a super cool company, out of NYC, that supports artists and designers.  Half of what they sell is made by hand and most of it is created right here in the USA!

Their site is super easy to navigate, and allows you to shop by category.  I headed straight to their art page (here) and fell in love the minute I came across this piece, Balloons Over Brooklyn Bridge.

The print looked so good online, and was even better in person!!  It came matted and mounted on matboard. All I had to do was pop it into my frame and hang!

Like their name suggests, UG sells many interesting and unique gifts.  Mother's Day is just around the corner and they have a page dedicated to buying gifts for her that you can check out here. If you want to make sure you're mom's favorite, then click here to get her something good! ;)

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Thank you UncommonGoods for providing me with the art for this post.  All opinions are 100% honest and my own!

More Easy DIY Art.

As you already know, I’ve created a ridiculous amount of very amateur art for our home.  It’s fun to use little money and a bit of creativity to spruce up our space.  My latest “creations” include two amazing brights...coral and citron.  Mixing these invigorating colors with my favorite blues add a super fun pop to our home...perfect for spring and summer!

Two of the pieces I made were painted over old designs.  You might recognize them from my last post...

I mixed my colors mostly using a combo of $0.99 acrylic paints from my craft stash.  First I painted over my beloved stripes from Christmas to create blank canvas.

Then I started layering my favorite colors, and ended with a little liquid gold leaf.

After that was finished, I turned my attention to revamping a piece from last spring.  I truly loved it as is, but needed to freshen up the color scheme.  So I swapped out the hot pink for bold citron...just painting the new color over the old.

Then it was time for two new pieces.  Well over a year ago, I found two sizeable gold frames from Michael’s.  Both were on sale for $8...a deal I just couldn’t pass up!

I didn’t have a plan for them at the time of purchase, so I hoarded them in my junk craft room.  

One day I had a light-bulb moment and realized they’d be perfect to hang on our expansive wall that houses our barn door.  I didn’t have proper paper to paint on for these frames, so I simply flipped over the “picture” that comes with the frame and painted on that.  It wasn't ideal, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. ;)

A few brushstrokes later and I had new art!

For wayyyy too long they sat on our fireplace mantle because, well, I hate hanging things.

Several weeks went by and was finally forced to hang them because we were having company.  (Isn't that always the best motivator?!?!?!)

I absolutely love the statement they make in that formerly boring corner.

I love getting four "new" pieces of art for next to nothing!  

Anyone else swap out and recycle their art?

I Heart Art.

I really do.  I may not be the best at it, but I have a blast creating swap-able, inexpensive pieces to hang around our home.  I've dabbled in super amateur art before. Here, here, here, here, here and here.

Then last spring I created a few more pieces on some scrap wood I had stashed in our hall closet.

This past winter, I painted another scrap piece to help make a statement next to our Christmas tree.

After we took all of our Christmas decor down I was craving a bit of spring.  It's been very chilly, and once the holiday season ends, I am NOT a fan of the colder, darker months.  To combat the current season, I added pops of coral and citron to our great room.  An inexpensive way to get these colors into our living space was to update some of the art I previously painted above.  I can't wait to share it all soon!!

Anyone else ready for winter to end?!?!

Radiant Orchid Art.

Lately I've been on a bit of a painting kick.  Something about spring's arrival has compelled me to bust out my paint brushes and some fresh new colors to liven up our home.

I was inspired to create my latest abstract piece when a good blog friend challenged a few of us to tackle a DIY project using Pantone's Color of the Year, Radiant Orchid.  I have seen mixed reviews regarding this color, but I have to admit, I'm a fan.  I think it adds a nice pop when I pair it with my favorite tried and true blue hue.

I did a little research to see which colors were deemed orchid-y enough and came across several awesome options in this post. The winner for me, though, was Behr's Orchid Kiss.  After seeing it in Alex's home tour, I was sold.  

I headed to Home Depot to pick up a sample, and while I was there, I fell in love with a combo of three colors....Behr's Pale Orchid, Behr's Orchid Kiss and Behr's Balmy Seas {the same color as the accent wall in our master bedroom.}

Once I had my colors home, it was time to get to work.  

I found a scrap piece of birch wood laying around in my craft stash and I painted it white for a base. Then I pretended I had painting skills and started adding color to my "canvas".  I kept a separate brush for each color and just added a few lines of the first color, then the second color and then the third.  I repeated that process over and over until the coverage felt right.  After that, it was time for some shine.  Lord knows I can't finish a project without involving gold in some way, shape or form. ;) So I pulled out a fourth paint brush and layered in some metallic on top of a few already painted areas.

Now, clearly I am no artist...but for just a few bucks {seriously....the paint samples were about $3 a piece} and a small amount of time, I was able to hop on board with a major trend of the year.  Plus, it may have inspired a possible room refresh in the near future! ;) 

Now head over to check out the crazy talented ladies who took on the Radiant Orchid challenge with me!

From top left moving clockwise: 

1. Flower Pots from Dimples and Tangles  2. Secretary Desk from Cuckoo4Design  3. Abstract Art from Retro Ranch Renovation  4. Wallpapered Powder Room from The Chronicles of Home  5. Painted Tray from Dwellings by Devore  6. Cross Stitched Jewelry Organizer from Primitive and Proper

How do you guys feel about Radiant Orchid?  Do you give it the thumbs up or thumbs down?!

Ombre Art.

I have been on a major art-making-spree lately.  We had a lot of blank spaces on our walls, and I was determined to fill them up.  I started with some cheap and easy art for our bedroom, a mirror makeover, some DIY wood shelves, a lovey-dovey wood painted sign, and now it’s time for me to show you some ombre canvas art.

To be quite honest, the only thing I knew when I purchased this large canvas, was that it’d fill in the gaping hole above our made-over file cabinet.

To begin the piece, I grabbed my go-to paint colors {grey and blue-greens…anyone surprised?} and an old paint brush.  I started with grey at the top and thought I’d work my way down to the darkest teal I had.  After I painted the grey on, I realized it’d be fun to put a quote on the canvas…so I dug through my craft supplies until I found some vinyl letters.  I eyeballed the quote “all you need is love” onto the canvas and prayed it was semi-centered and level. 

To keep the bleeding of paint to a minimum, I painted over the letters with white paint first.  Once that was semi-dry, I poured on my next color and just worked my way down the canvas.

After all the colors were done, I carefully peeled all the letters off while things were still wet.  Then I left it to dry over night.

Although the quote is a bit off-center {I mean, I did eyeball the placement}, I'm still happy with my new ombre art!  The cool colors pop beautifully above our yellow file cabinet.

Plus, I love having positive, uplifting quotes to read when I leave our room each morning. :)

Cheap and Easy...

We’re talking about artwork here people!!! ;)

For quite some time, only two things hung on the walls of our master bedroom…my favorite mirror and the jewelry organizer I made from an old paper towel holder and a frame.  I knew I needed to get a couple more things on the walls, but I didn’t have a huge budget to do so.  Thankfully, I was able to get creative and use a lot of things I already had on hand to fill our walls up a bit.

For my first piece, I headed to our basement and found some old stain and a piece of wood I purchased at Michael’s months ago.  Once the stain was dry, I got out my Crayola paint brushes and some white craft paint.  I wanted to stencil a line from our wedding song onto the wood for a simple, but meaningful project...but then I decided to get all craaaazy and just use my own handwriting.  It would add even more of a personal touch, and it’d force me to forget my perfectionist, OCD ways go out of my comfort zone.

I practiced the words a couple times on a piece of cardboard.

Then I threw caution to the wind and went for it.  The spacing isn’t perfect...and neither are the letters, but that’s okay.  I pretty much knew that was going to happen when I nixed the whole stencil thing.

For my second, third and forth pieces, I used some computer paper, craft paint, a foam brush and a couple stencils from a pack of Martha Stewart stencils {purchased from Michael’s the same day I bought the wood piece}.  I squeezed some white, gray, aqua and black paint onto my cardboard that I wrote on earlier...dipped my brush into a couple colors...and dabbed the colors onto the computer paper.  The patterns I used from Martha were smaller in scale than the piece of paper I was using {most were supposed to be used as borders on things}, so I just repeated the pattern over and over until the whole page was covered.  As the paint dried, the pages slightly rippled.  I expected this to happen since I was painting on, well, computer paper.  I was hoping it wouldn’t be a big deal and that they’d flatten out when I framed them in my 50% off Michael's frames.  Thankfully, they did. 

Here are my ummm, “masterpieces”. Ha!

And here is how everything looks hung in our room.  It might not be the most perfect or permanent art, but it works for now {and for our budget}.  

Anyone else get their Picasso on lately?