Star Art for Jacob

Jacob's grandma got him some metal stars for his birthday.  We decided to make some art with them to hang on his wall.

The plywood is 21"x21".  I measured out and marked the lines for the 7" square boxes.  Taped it all off and then primed and painted the squares I wanted white.  Then I glued the stars on and nailed the trim pieces on.  All that was left to do was add some picture hanging wire to the back and hang it on the wall in Jacob's room.

Repurpose A Picture From A Book

I've been looking for two small pictures to put in the frame I found.  Then I realized we had 2 Black Beauty books and one was all chewed up from when Dozer was a puppy.

I cut out the 2 pictures I wanted then colored them in with colored pencils.  Inexpensive and easy!

 Here's the one I cut out and colored for our bathroom.

Cheap Kitchen Art

I honestly can't make up my mind what I want to do with this spot.  If I had thought it out better before hubby built the cabinets I would have had that cabinet made larger to fit the space.  Then I thought ok well we could make a small cabinet to go there like one to hold wine or something.  But we don't drink wine so I think for us it would be silly.  Then I tried some hanging metal baskets that I put together and didn't like that either.  Hmmmm

So for now I put up some EAT art that I made from pictures I printed from HERE.  There is a whole collection of different letters and even more stuff in other albums.  I printed them out on card stock and then cut out the letters.  I taped the letters to some brown card stock.  If I had glue I would have glued them but I was out of glue and doing this the cheap way!

As for the picture frame it was an old one I had floating around.  I spray painted the frame with with a dark walnut spray paint and then spray painted the matte with an off white color.  Then I put it all back together.

Here's the spot I can't make my mind up with:

Here's how it looks now:

Still to do:
Trim (crown & baseboards)
Cabinet doors, drawers & shelves
Cabinet end panels & trim

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Art Above The TV

The area above the tv in the family room was a big blank space.  I came across several chevron art ideas on Pinterest and especially liked the chevron growth charts.  I already made a wooden growth chart  but I liked the chevron idea so I used a scrap board to make some art.

I took an old left over piece of oak.  It was already stained on one side so I flipped it over and used Minwax walnut stain on it.  The same color as our mantle.

Once the board was stained & dry I used some scrap scrapbooking paper cut into strips.  The strips are 2.5" wide.  I used spray adhesive to adhere them to the board.

I used some left over white paint to paint the areas between the strips of paper.

After I was done painting I pulled the strips off.  There was some bleed through with the paint but I didn't care. I then used sand paper to clean p the lines and distress it.

 I attached some picture hangers to the back of it.  Then marked where I wanted to hang it on the wall and put wall anchors in to help hold it.  Then hung it on the wall.

I know it looks crooked but it's very much level.  The floor isn't level so the tv stand & tv aren't level.

Picture Gallery Wall

I've added more pictures and still have a few more to add to finish filling in the wall.   I really like how it is turning out.

Here is the in progress picture.  I still have a little space left to add a few more frames.

This is how it started out.  These are pictures of before hubby built & put the new staircase in and during and then the red paint........I loved that red paint at the time but then quickly got tired of it!

 Pictures 3 & 5 are of the stairs before we tore them out.  Picture 4 was before we finished staining all the parts of the stairs.  Picture 6 was the red paint after we finished the stair case and dry walled the basement.  7 & 8 are in progress to what I we have going on now.

The gallery wall is coming along.  I like all the mismatched frames.  I also like gallery walls with matching frames! 

Basement Family Room Paint

I decided to do away with the red!  It feels like a larger and brighter space now!

Here's the staircase and red paint before:

If you want to see pictures of how our staircase started out with builder grade stairs that were once upon a time carpeted (I don't have pics of the carpet only pics of after I took the carpet off) you can look HERE

Here's the staircase and new paint now:

The loveseat and floor lamp in the first picture have been moved to the living room.

The cow print is from Marshalls.  I picked him up this past week for $29!  The boys and I were walking through Marshalls and as soon as I saw it I instantly grabbed it off the shelf! Cow Picture LOVE!

Here's another red paint before:

Here's a very messy picture of the new paint!  Please ignore the mess.

That chair has been moved to the kitchen and the mantel has been cleaned off and now looks like this:

I do plan on hanging the picture and the candle holders up on the brick.  Again that is on the "one of these days" list!

The horse print was from Ann's Whimsey on Etsy.  She was wonderful and had great communication!

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Framing a Horse Print

I found this horse print on The Graphics Fairy website and wanted to frame and hang it over our bed.

Here's what the original image looked like:

After playing with some of the editing tools on PicMonkey here's what I came up with.  I wanted it to look old and vintage!

 I uploaded it to Winkflash and had it printed to the size I wanted.

Luckily, I had a frame that was a free find and wanted to use it.  It came with a mat already but was the wrong size for the print.  I found and ordered a smaller mat off Amazon to fit the print.

I then took a flat spray paint and painted the mats an off white color.   I taped the mats together then taped the print to the back of the mats.

Now it looks like it was meant to be.

The print behind the smaller mat looked like this:

The print double matted:

Now it hangs on the wall.  I used a heavy duty wall anchor for the screw and some heavy weight capable picture wire to make sure it stays put!

Abacus - Like Pottery Barn

Here's a project I made at the end of 2011.

I first saw it in a Pottery Barn Catalog then I came across a DIY version of the over sized abacus on By Stephanie Lynn Under the Table & Dreaming.  So again to hubbies workshop to find some scrap wood and to Lowe's for the dowels and corner braces.

I used Minwax's Early American stain and General Finishes Java gel stain to finish the wood.  I then used the drill press to drill all the holes and some glue and finish nails to nail the 1 by together after inserting the dowels. 

You can find a step by step tutorial on her blog.

Here is the Pottery Barn version of it.  The abacus is no longer for sale at Pottery Barn.

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Here's how it turned out:

I then hung it over our staircase:

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Pieced Pastimes