Canvas + Paint Chips = Awesome Art

I came across THIS awesome idea for using paint chips to create custom art MONTHS and MONTHS ago:

This is my inspiration piece from Life Crafts and Whatever

—and I have been wanting to give it a try ever since. 

one.  because it looks like custom, awesome art that you would pay big money for.

and two. because you get all the chips for free and so it hardly costs you anything!!!  I’m cheap like that.

So I started by collecting a ton of paint chips every time I went to the paint isle in Walmart and Home Depot and then cut them down into uniform squares (and the way I determined the size of squares was just taking the width of the paint chips and just cutting the other edge so that it was a square—it saved me on the amount of cuts I had to do.  However—not all the paint chips I collected were the exact same width—so then I did have to cut some down on both sides). 

Here I am with my adorable sister starting to cut and lay them all out.

And just let me tell you—if you are going to do a large one like I did--you need A LOT of paint chips.  I think that mine had almost 200 squares that measured over 2 and a half inches each.  So I opted to gather all my squares in a few trips rather than stuffing my purse full of 200 paint chips at one shot!

I decided to glue my paint chips onto a canvas instead of a wooden board.  Just because I wanted it to be light weight and easy to hang—and it has such a nice finished edge.  I wanted a really big one—and they just happened to be on sale at Michaels for 40% off and I had a coupon for an additional 20% off.  SO I paid something like $14 for a $40 2 x 4 foot canvas!!!

So I started off by addressing the edge of the canvas first.  I wanted them brown—so I used brown craft paint (don’t be fooled by the little can of stain in this picture—I was going to use stain—but it wasn’t getting a rich enough color—so I decided to use paint instead.) and I painted the edges of my canvas.

Here it is all painted on the edges.  Next I found the center of the canvas and drew some pencil lines making myself a grid so I would have something to keep me gluing all my squares on straight.

Then I did a practice run and laid out all of my squares before actually gluing.  I wanted to make sure that I liked the configuration of colors before I started gluing!

Then I stacked them all into piles according to their row.  Then I laid all the piles in order—and starting in the center I started mod podging them all on to the canvas.

Now—this was the hardest part.  So I don’t have any pictures of this process because I was so in the thick of all the glue and such that I couldn’t take a picture. 

But—what happened here was that as I was gluing the paint chips onto the canvas—they wanted to curl up and not lay flat.  So I would have to press them down as best I could and then lay a flat board over them while I moved onto the next section.  And finally after finishing gluing all of the pieces down—I turned the whole thing over and let it lay face down on the table with a few boards on the back of it to hold it down so that all the paint chips would be pressed flat!

This worked out all right in the end—but during this whole process I thought it was going to end up a DISASTER!  I was just thinking that I had wasted all my time and money on this wild project!!

(As I am writing this post—I just went back and read the post from my inspiration piece—and she used SPRAY ADHESIVE instead of mod podge!!!  I wish I would have read more carefully and done that!  It would have saved myself a lot of grief!!)

But finally that part was over and I could move on to the next part.

So next I put two coats of mod podge over the paint chips to seal it. 

Then I took some dark stain and put a good layer of stain over the whole thing and let it sit for a few minutes—then wiped it off.

I actually ended up wanting it a bit darker—so I did that step twice.

And I have to admit that I am in LOVE with the finished product.

I LOVE how big it is on the wall.

And I LOVE the pop of color that it gives the entry way.

But most of all—I LOVE that I made it, and that it only cost me $14!

Safety Pin Bracelet

The other day I saw someone wearing a bracelet that looked like this:

I fell in LOVE with it. 

And ran to the store and picked up all the necesarry ingredients to make one for myself.

So here is what I did.

First I started with these three items.

A bag of Safety Pins (Walmart $2.00)

A box of beads

(Also at Walmart--and ALSO $2.00--one bracelet uses about 1/2 the box)

And some stretchy beading elastic (Which I already had on hand!)

I decided I wanted a random pattern to my bracelet--so I took my beads and dipped my safety pins into the box and randomly strung each one full of beads.

Which left me with a pile of these:

When I had a big enough pile (around 80 safety pins) I cut 2 pieces (each about 9 1/2" long) of the elastic cording and tied them together with a knot at one end.  I didn't make this knot REALLY tight as I wanted to untie it later to tie it to the other side of the bracelet.

Next I started stringing on the safety pins--alternating their orientations so that it looked like this:

If you are making one of these--you may have to tug the elastic cord into the little slot where the safety pin closes--if you have thinner elastic it might just slide in.

Once I had them all strung--I undid the first knot and tied both ends of the bracelet together with two separate knots.  I also added a touch of crazy glue on top of the knots to make sure they stayed secure.

And that is it!

Easy Schmeasy!

 

A fun, cute, colorful one of a kind bracelet for about $3.00!

Well--it will be one of a kind UNTIL you make one for all of your friends and family members! 

Trust me--these are so fun to make--I only started making them last week and I have already given away 2 as gifts and kept 2 for myself! 

It looks super cute with smaller beads as well.

So--if you are a friend of mine--please act thrilled and surprised when you are given one of these for your next birthday!

P.S.  As I am looking at these pictures--it is pretty obvious that I never could have made it as a HAND MODEL with my TOE THUMBS--but You know what?  I think my WRISTS are pretty darn nice looking (minus all the freckles)!  I think I could have been a REALLY GREAT WRIST MODEL!  Oh well.

Linking to THESE parties.

Big Boy Tie

My little baby turned 10 this week. Boy how time flies! So I have been making all my little guys these really fun Little Guy Ties lately. But they are the ones with the little strap that velcros behind their necks.

And I was thinking that a 10 year old might want to start wearing Big Boy Ties. SO for his birthday I made him his first real manly tie. So here it is.

And here is the man wearing it on his 10th birthday!!

Isn't he SO CUTE? And SO GROWN UP!!! I LOVE this guy!!

Happy Birthday Connor!!

Reversible Headbands

I saw these Headbands at the Long Thread and decided immediately that I had to make some for Me and Nicole! I love them!!

**Just a side note: If you are going to make them--use the pattern from the Long Thread--but don't follow the instructions--I thought they made it way to complicated! Just sew around the edges of the interfaced fabric pieces (with right sides together) and then turn it inside out and topstitch around it and add your elastic then) MUCH EASIER.

SO I went to the dollar store and got an 8 pack of head band elastics (for $1)--then sorted through my old scraps of fabric, added a little interfacing

and VIOLA!

Cutie Patootie Headbands that cost almost next to nothing. One elastic out of the 8 pack makes 2 headbands (You just cut them in half and sew each end into the edges of the headband--Which means you can make 16 headbands out of your old scraps for $1).

Even I wear them and LOVE THEM!!

The two smaller ones are Nicole's size and the middle one is the "adult" size--but I wear her little ones too and they look just fine!

I finished sewing them and asked Nicole if she would model so I could take this picture--but she was in the middle of playing with a friend--so she is not looking to impressed in these pictures. But you get the idea!

Boys Ties

3 Boys in Ties

Is this not the cutest sight to see? My three guys all ready for church in their brand new ties that I made for them? I am in LOVE with these little ties!

(For those of you who are dieing to know where I got the pattern--you can find it HERE. It is not a free tutorial--but it is DEFINITELY worth the money! It is done by my FAV blogger at Make it and Love it!)

I made these little green ties out of my old nursing cover (that my awesome sister made for me). I am definitely not going to be needing it as a nursing cover anymore--but LOVED the fabric. SO this little project was PERFECT for it!!

These Orange ties were made especially for my son Landon--who is in love with the color orange. So I let him pick out the fabric for these guys. (They need to make more fun fabrics in orange!!) But they still turned out cute!

And aren't the ties SO CUTE paired with a little sweater vest? (Don't mind the water mark left after the toothpaste spittle clean up!) What a CUTE BOY!!!

I LOVE RE-PURPOSING!!! AND I LOVE THESE TIES!!

I have made 6 of them so far and have plans to make a bunch more!

How can I not when I have 3 boys?!!