Paint Chip Display {DIY Art}

It's my 11th installment of DIY Art for Your Home!

This little idea is so simple that I'm almost embarrassed to include it on its own day! In the few months I've had this piece though, I've been surprised at how flexible it is and how many people remark on it.

I first whipped this up for our guest room in our home in Ohio. It was in this collage display above the bed.

The collage wall was a work-in-progress, but before it had much time to progress, we decided that room would better function as our oldest son's room and a guest room on the side. So, I moved the collage wall out to the hall. Here it is, with the paint chip display front and center!

Notice how muted and soft the colors look when displayed next to other soft colors?

Well, then we moved. And while our bathroom has gotten most of the other things in the above gallery wall, I loved how the paint chip display looked when paired with bright colors!

Now this simple piece of art is a happy addition to our classroom!

But what is it, exactly?

The frame was something I found at a yard sale. It was $1 and had a terrible picture in it. I was collecting things to use in Josiah's nursery gallery wall, pictured below. I didn't have a picture to use before Josiah was born, so I took the frame apart, dry-brushed it with white paint, then used those little metal staples that keep the glass in place as something to string twine through.

See it there on the right? I thought I would replace the string and clothes-pinned cards with a real picture of our darling little boy, but I never did. I loved the textures of this gallery wall as is, but that's for another day!

See you tomorrow!

Chalkboard Wall {DIY Art}

Sometimes art doesn't need to be confined to a frame or be something you can take off a wall and move to another room. Sometimes it just requires a pint of paint and a few hours of work. Something like this.

Yes, I'm talking about a chalkboard wall! I painted this wall in the kitchen of our home in Ohio. Here it is with some birthday graffiti!

I painted this wall the backsplash with a pint of chalkboard paint and had plenty leftover. If you're not into black, chalkboard paint can be tinted whatever color you choose at a hardware store.

Yes, sometimes DIY art for your home is a whole big wall!

And sometimes computers put monkey wrenches in one's plan. For some reason my power cord wouldn't work for a couple days this week, so I missed a day in my 31-Days Series, but today you get two! Aren't you lucky!

A Chalkboard {DIY Art}

Today is the 9th day of my series!

I've had this chalkboard for about a million years. Minus 999,987. As in, I remember writing certain initials on it in 7th grade!

Currently, my chalkboard lives in my son's room with a cute saying on it: So, there's this boy... he kinda stole my heart. He calls me Mommy! Pretty much sums it up.

Although my chalkboard was always a chalkboard, I did re-paint it a few years ago. It was scratched and didn't erase well, so I used chalkboard spraypaint and gave it a new life. You could easily make one with a large, framed thrift-store painting, for example. Just tape off the frame and give the painting a few coats of spraypaint. Or spray the glass in a large picture frame you don't use.

Chalkboards are so much fun! Do you have one?

Initial Canvasses {DIY Art}

It's Day 8 of my cheap-and-easy DIY Art Series!

Today's art is another easy canvas-painting idea that you've seen in our classroom.

During the first week of school, and needing more art on the walls, I remembered an idea I'd seen on Pinterest where you tape your child's name on a piece of paper then have them paint over it. When the paint is dry, remove the tape to reveal the name in clean, crisp white letters.

Totally awesome idea, right? Well, without really thinking it through, I started in on letting the boys do just that earlier in the summer. The problem I ran into right away was the example child's name is LILY. My oldest is JONATHAN. 

Who gives their kids such long names anyway? And how do you tape down curvy letters???

This time, however, I was ready with just ONE letter per child. The curvy letters aren't perfect, but hello, it's a kid's art project! Perfection would be so boring. 

Since my kids are pretty young and I didn't want brown canvasses, I only gave them one color at a time, and only a small sploch of it. They painted to their heart's content. My kids preferred paint brushes to fingers (not me!!!), and the only help I gave them was asking them to stop blending (no brown!) and helping them get every white spot on the canvas.

We used tempura paints, by the way. Always what I used in my classroom when I was a real teacher. This project would be super fun for a kid's room, either their initials, their whole name on a larger canvas, or one canvas per letter to spell their name! Or use colors in your decor and paint your last name and hang the canvas or canvasses in your living room or entry! Try it! It's so fun!

The boys love having their art displayed in our classroom!

Hope you enjoyed Day 8! Here is a list of links for the previous days in the series:

Day 1-Easy Monogram Board
Day 2-Photo Canvasses
Day 3-Family Rules Sign
Day 4-"Run Like a Girl" Medal Display Board
Day 5-Best Daddy in the World Sign
Day 6-Children's Art Display Board
Day 7-Kid-Painted Canvasses

Kid-Painted Canvasses {DIY Art}

It's Day 7 of this month's series, DIY Art for Your Home!

Yesterday I showed you how I made a sign with the Picasso quote, "Every child is an artist." Today I have an example of just how true that is!

In our homeschool classroom hang four different canvases painted by our boys when they were quite small. The larger canvas I helped Jonathan make as a gift for Gary. Jonathan had just turned one.

Gary had the canvas in his office  at work--and still would, but he doesn't have a desk job anymore.

The other series was just a little memento of the fun our boys had fingerpainting while they were quite young. Jonathan and Jared made multiple copies that we used as Christmas gifts to grandparents when each boy was 1 1/2 years old. Josiah's, on the right, was something I just had him do when I was organizing the classroom. Life was just too chaotic last Christmas to get the project done! Sorry, grandparents!

I previously had the canvasses in the boys' rooms, but I love how the colors worked in our classroom at this house. The boys love seeing their work displayed all over the room!

Do you display your kid's art?

Children's Art Display Board {DIY Art}

Today we have another of my favorite creations to share with you!

  
It's Day 6 of my month-long series for October!

It's also the weekend, so I'm doing another re-post, this one from April 2012. You most recently saw this sign in our classroom tour, but it's a little beat-up due to frequent moves. I will glue the clothespins back on soon, and it'll be as good as new!  
  
Kids can be prolific artists. I love being able to hang my sons' artwork somewhere visible and the fridge just doesn't cut it sometimes!

In my recent hall makeover you saw my developing gallery wall that includes this art display board. I love how it turned out, but the idea was not original. This pin is what really got me started on this project.

Source: Random Thoughts of a Supermom

I had the perfect board hanging around so I painted it blue. Why blue? Um, because this shade of blue is my new favorite color. It's from our master bedroom ceiling--which is reason #2--I had it around! Yay for free!
 

I thought maybe I'd just use my Cricut and black vinyl and be done, but I'd seen an interesting technique using contact paper instead of vinyl, painting over the letters and then peeling them off so your words are the color of the base coat. Had to try it.

For you A students taking notes, the contact paper was super easy to work with and cut just fine in my machine. I eyeballed the layout and when everything was good enough, I really rubbed those letters onto the board with a used-up gift card. Who needs fancy tools? 

I slapped on a couple coats of slate-black paint and started the task of peeling off the letters. That's when I ran into trouble. I don't have a great record of straight lines and paint, and this was no different. Some letters bled, others peeled off a tiny bit of paint. 

I gave up and the board sat around in various resting spots in our house... Seriously. I found these process pictures in my "February" folder. It's April now. 

Eventually I prevailed and with the help of a Sharpie to smooth the outline of the letters it was good enough. 

The next step (which I apparently didn't photograph) was to paint clothespins and glue them on the board with hot glue. In less than an afternoon, my project was done at last!

I used long screws drilled right through the board and into the wall. Professional, I am not. I hung the board low enough that my boys can hang their art whenever they want to. This is a collection of those awesome water color pages where the paint is already in little dots all over the picture--do you remember doing those? My husband apparently had this book when he was young. Aw. It's vintage! 

(Am I the only one bothered by things from the 80s being called vintage? Yikes!)
 

So there you have it! This project took, oh, a day, give or take three months. It was also free as I had everything on hand. The boys are loving that they can see their art on display!

*****

Thanks for joining me for Day 6 of the series! Have a great rest of your weekend!

Best Daddy Sign {DIY Art}

I'm pulling out an oldie, but this was a popular post and I still love this sign! It's Day 5 of my 31 Days of DIY Art for Your Home! Yes, we're even blogging on weekends!

Before there was Pinterest, I saw this sign and knew I wanted to recreate it.

I believe credit goes to The Handmade Home

 
I made my version for my husband Gary for Father's Day 2012. It would be a great gift for a birthday or Father's Day, and can easily say "Grandpa" instead of "Daddy."

I chose to keep my version simple by using a piece of board, my Cricut and black paint.

First I sanded the wood down to make the edges smooth, then I stained it with 'special walnut' stain. You should totally wait for the stain to dry, but I cut out the vinyl letters with my Cricut and started sticking them on while it was still wet. Well, vinyl doesn't stick to wet stain, so I added a little poly to make them stay in place and it worked great. Still, don't do what I did! Have some patience and wait for the stain to get good and dry!

If you hadn't noticed, I didn't pay too much attention to my inspiration picture and my quote is a little different. Oh well--it still rhymes!

The next step in the process is to smear black paint all over your kids and freak out that they might touch something! No, really, they've done this before and know the concept. Well, except for the one-year-old who was super tight-fisted, except when he tried to lick the paint! His hand print isn't perfect, but that's ok!

I added my kids' names with more vinyl letters, then sealed it all with poly.

Daddy likes his new sign and we have a lasting memento of when our boys were 5, 3 and 1. Aw...

And there you have it, five signs that you can make for your own home or give as gifts. Have a great day!