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!

Kids Bathroom Makeover—Installing Board and Batten

A couple of weeks ago I gave you this sneak peek at our kids bathroom makeover.  And I think a few people were wondering at my interesting choice of color for the walls as it looks a little like pea soup.

But there was a reason I chose this particular shade of green.  And that reason would be this FABULOUS shower curtain I found at the CSN store:

Don’t you love it?  I looked for a shower curtain high and low and everywhere in between!  I was beginning to think that the perfect shower curtain just didn’t exist.  And then I found this baby.  (And just as a side note—it was $21.99 but it came with a small flaw in the fabric and so I called them and they knocked $10 off the price—so I only paid $11.99 for my PERFECT shower curtain!!—and you can’t even see the flaw—can you?)

Then we decided to add some fun and interest to the walls of the bathroom.  I had found these instructions from one of my favorite blogs (320 Sycamore) for an inexpensive way to do board and batten and knew this would be perfect for this room.

So we purchased a bundle of inexpensive Lath pieces from Home Depot.  My hubby sanded them down and we installed them about 10” apart. 

Even I wielded my little pink hammer for this project.  And oh how we wished we had a nail gun.  But even still, installing the pieces was quick and easy.

Next we added a 1 x 4 piece of primed MDF for the top.

Then my hubby filled all the holes and sanded them all down.

Next it was up to me to caulk all the edges and paint it up.  This was the time consuming part.  But I think it turned out awesome!

Next we added some handy little towel hooks and put up my FAVORITE bathroom art: pictures of MY BABIES.

Its not 100% finished yet.  We still need to paint the trim around the door (and I would like to paint the vanity cupboards eventually as well) and we are going to be framing up the mirror as well.  Oh yah, and I also think I might want to paint those picture frames.

But for now—I think we can call this bathroom improved.

Before:

After:

And now we can check another room off our list!

The Making of a Manly Desk

As I promised yesterday, here is the redo of our Treasure Chest Desk and chair.

It started off looking very old and very girly.

But this desk was for my 11 year old son.  So we needed to modernize it and give it some testosterone.

So before you start any wood working project—you should always prep your surface for painting.  Usually that means SANDING.  I HATE SANDING.  Like with a passion.  But I wanted a good paint job .  So I tried the cheaters route and used this:

I put a little on a cloth and wiped it all over the surfaces of the chair and the desk.  To be honest—I have no idea if it worked well or not.  The paint job turned out great so I guess it didn’t hurt it.  I really should have tested one drawer front with it and one without to have a side by side comparison.  But I didn’t.  So for now we will all just pretend that it worked great and I didn’t waste $6 on this stuff.

Next came the paint.  First we put on our very attractive spray painting masks which my husband makes me wear because of the massive amounts of spay painting I do.  He doesn’t want me losing any more brain cells than I already have.  He shouldn’t worry, I don’t have much to lose!

I found the perfect color of spray paint for this boys desk.  It is a dark grey and it happened to come in the Rust-oleum ultra 2x the coverage in gloss.

The gloss part was not my favorite.  But sometimes you have to sacrifice your finish of choice to get your color of choice.  And I do LOVE the color.

And can I also say that I LOVE the double the coverage paint.  This is the first time I had used it and I am in LOVE!!!  It really means what it says about double the coverage.  What normally would have taken a billion coats and 12 cans of spray paint (ok…I exaggerate.  But it would have taken a lot) took 2 light coats and only 3 cans of paint for both the chair and the desk—and I still had some left over!)

So here is the chair:

Before:                                             Middle:

 

After:

And then came the drawers: (Sorry about the shadowy pictures in my garage)

Before:

Middle:

Spraying the hardware with some ORB:

And After:

Then I took some scrap book paper and made some drawer liners for him in fun colorful prints:

 

And ta-da.  A very masculine looking desk for a very deserving 11year old.

Next time I will give you a tour of his new room and a breakdown of how much it all cost. 

That should be fun!

Kids Bathroom Sneak Peek

We have been up to a fun project in our kids bathroom.  I can't wait till it is all finished and I can show you the finished product.  But for now I am going to give you a little sneak peek!

So lets remember where we started. 

This is the bathroom before we bought the house:

I loved the size of the bathroom when we bought it--but I HATED the shower doors.  My husband, however, liked them.  So they stayed for about a month.  And I hated every second of them.  I hated cleaning the bathroom with them in, I hated bathing the kids with them in.  I just plain HATED THEM!!!  But my hubby thought they were great.  Right up until I asked HIM to bath the boys one Sunday morning before church.  Apparently he learned that bathing two boys with annoying shower doors was not all it was cracked up to be!  And I am happy to report that those shower doors were dismantled and taken down the very next day!  YIPPEE!!

So here we are with the shower doors removed and the painting started.  (And darn my camera isn't showing the colors very true.  Just know it is a green shade of AWESOME!)

But we have MUCH more to show you.  Hopefully in the next couple of days! 

Fingers crossed!

I'm Back AND with Hardwood Floors!

I can't believe how time has flown by!!  I am sorry it has been SO LONG since I last posted.  The whole process of buying and closing on our new house was EXTREMELY LONG and PAINFUL--with many unexpected twists and turns.  But we did finally close on and move into our new home and have been spending EVERY WAKING MOMENT since--fixing it up and making it ours!

Remember what it looked like? 

It has been such an adventure!  We have already tackled so many projects in this house and yet still have SO MANY more to tackle.  Many of the projects we knew we wanted to do when we bought the house--and then there have been some that were unexpected--like having to replace carpets that we thought were in great condition--but actually were SATURATED in EVERY SINGLE CORNER WITH CAT PEE!!!  And having to replace LOTS of sets of window blinds because they weren't functional.  And having to paint EVERY SQUARE INCH of the ENTIRE HOUSE because the previous home owners had a love affair with sponge painting and the rooms that weren't sponge painted were painted super poorly with what looked like 1/2 a coat of coverage (AND they were the sloppiest and messiest painters EVER!!!  There were drips and dribbles of paint all over all the trim work and everything!!)  Oh well. 

So I have TONS of projects to show you!  Some are finished and some are in the in-between stages.  So in no particular order--I am just going to start posting about all the random things we have done and are doing in our new house.  YIPPEE!!!

So today we will start in the kitchen, dining and family room. 

This is what we started with:

Then came the DEMO. 

Out with the Lino.

Out with the carpet.

And can I just ask--has anyone else out there ever ripped out lino before?  Are ALL THOSE BILLIONS OF LITTLE STAPLES REALLY NECESSARY?!!  It took me HOURS to pound all those suckers down!!

Here is the front room full of our new HARDWOOD FLOORS!!!  And minus the carpet that we thought would be staying.  But SURPRISE--the previous owners used these two rooms as their cat rooms.  Enough said.  Out with this carpet too.

Aren't these hardwoods beautiful even when its just sitting there in a pile?

Then our great friend and neighbor laid the flooring for us--and he managed to escape without me taking a picture of this momentous occasion!  Darn it!

But don't they look great?

Next we started experimenting with the stain color--behind the fridge so we could cover it up if necessary.

And we got the color we were looking for.  A warm brownish red tone.  Not too dark but not too light.

Then we started painting before he finished off the floor because once he started finishing them we couldn't be on them for several days and then it was move in time.  So here we are painting until the wee hours of night.

This next picture is just to document the AWESOME paint roller that our painter let us borrow.  We hired out the job of painting our two story entry way and the painter ended up being the nicest guy in the world and let us borrow his MAMMOTH roller and tray.  THIS BABY WAS THE BEST!!!  It is twice the size of a regular roller and cut our painting time in half--which was wonderful since we were painting most of our house with the same color--we were able to use it for the whole house!  Love that thing.

And then the floors were finished and we moved in.  And I didn't take a picture of them in all of their naked glory.  But here they are with all our stuff moved in... and toys on the floor (apparently).

And can I just say how much I LOVE HARDWOOD FLOORS!!  They were worth all of the hassle!  I think they will even look better when we finish off the kitchen and all the trim in WHITE.  But one thing at a time!

 

I will be back with more very soon!  Thanks for sticking around!