I'm Thankful for vinyl wall art

It is almost Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday.  So many times I feel like my life is over flowing with reasons to be Thankful - a warm home in the winter, hot coco, a good book, family, warm socks, my children and so many other little things.  I decided I wanted to make a wall art canvas to list some of the things I am thankful for to display in our home.  I also wanted to try my hand at vinyl since I have been intimidated up to this point.  (there are alternate ways to do this at the end of this post). Here is what I came up with: 

 I designed the word art in my software program (SCAL, MTC, Silhouette software).  I tried to pick fonts that fit the words and then organize them so that they would fit on my canvas.  The canvas is 11x14.  I bought a lot of these canvases when they were really cheap at Michael's. They are the perfect size for placing on shelves and on bookcases. 

I painted the canvas orange first (the color you want to show through).  I put vinyl on my mat and cut the words out and then peeled the vinyl around the words off and then all the O centers, a centers etc (that was the hardest part!) leaving the stuff I wanted to keep on the mat.  Then I cut my transfer tape to size (you NEED this stuff) and rub really hard over all the words so they would stick to the transfer tape.  Then I lifted up the transfer tape slowly making sure all the letters were picking up as well, if they didn't I would put it down and rub again. 

Vinyl isn't hard but it is time consuming for something like this will a lot of words.  I probably spent 3+ hours on this project. 

Then you lay the transfer tape on top of the canvas and rub really hard again.  I started in one corner and worked to the opposite corner (vertically) and then peeled it back a little at a time.  

After all the words were attached to the canvas and the transfer tape was completely off.  I painted over the letters and everything in brown.  I waited until it was completely dry and got a pair of tweezers and pulled off each letter. 

  

Alternate ways to do this are:

1. to cut the words for card stock and use it as a stencil.  So you'd paint the background color first and then use the orange for the words. You'd have to use a strong temporary adhesive though.   

2.  I could have used left the vinyl on.  I had white vinyl but I could have bought orange vinyl and left it on - that would have been easier but I used what I had on hand. 

3.  If you don't have design software - you could cut each word out separately and then arrange on the canvas and glue the letters down.

4.  You could use an arrangement of letter stickers

5.  You could use letter stencils and just use that.

6. Letter stamps and acrylic paint or ink. 

Foreign Currency art projects

I went to my friends house yesterday, and saw this piece of art that her mom had done for her with all of the money that my friend bought back from her travels in Asia. I thought it was such a cool idea - instead of just throwing it away or keeping it in a jar, make a piece of art out of it. I think the piece is really contemporary, and the colors are great - it can go with any other decor - and has a great story!

I thought it would be cool to find some other ideas that you could do with foreign currencies, as a "free" souvenir from travels.

mmmCrafts had a cool idea for a coin charm bracelet. Just drill holes into the coins and get bendable metal to hook onto a chain bracelet.

Instructables.com shows how to turn coins into fridge magnets

AHC arts & crafts, has a ton of great project ideas for children and teens - browse to find some of your own ideas!

calendar art

When you have a calendar, you usually enjoy any specific photo for one month. But calendars are a great, and inexpensive, way to find art for your home. Especially near the end of the year, you can find huge discounts on art that you can customize to your personality. Most famous artist or photographer has a calendar. You can frame them or use them for other art projects such as colladges or mod podge projects.

Reproducing famous paintings - from Jules

I always loved modern paintings with their simplicity and the way they can bring in some bright splashes of color - but although I appreciated the artist and the work, I always thought that they don't look that hard to paint! I had often played around with acrylic paints and don't really do well with drawing people or flowers or something, so I thought a modern painting would be fun to try out.

Piet Mondrian was one of those painters, who was famous from his paintings of black lines randomly filled with red, yellow and blue. So, I thought it would be fun to try and reproduce the look.

Than got into painting with me, and he found a Mondrian picture online and measured the distance between the lines so that we could try and replicate it to the exact specifications.

We then got drafting tape (which is sold at any arts/craft store) and laid it out on a canvas. Drafting tape is great to create modern paintings because you can create a design, fill in the spaces, and then rip it off to show a cool design. Just be sure that its down all the way so the paint doesn't seep underneath the tape.

The hardest part is mixing the paint, but with Mondrian replications the colors are pretty bright and pure and look pretty similar as they are in the tube.

Ta Da!!

What are some types of modern paintings that you think would be easy to paint?

Matting Made Easy

I'm going simple today with technique that's easy & looks great -- plus, it's a lot cheaper than the alternative.

I'm definitely one who has never had a picture "professionally" matted. If a frame comes with a mat, then I might use it, but unless it's a really nice piece of art I couldn't justify paying for it. Plus, even if you just buy a single mat at the store, they're not cheap. (Or maybe I just am...) So if you're like me, consider matting to-be-framed pictures on cardstock! We do it for scrapbooking all the time, but I think it's overlooked for framing.

I've done this a few times before, mostly out of necessity/lack of materials, but was reminded of it's greatness while reading this post on Thrify Decor Chick. (It's a long post, so this is the picture to look for.)


She uses colored poster board that matched the color of her walls. At first the reflection looked like the larger picture had stripes on the bottom half of the paper which I think would be work well too.

The ones I've done are really simple. Black & white even...

My first time doing this I was when I made one of these picture frame boxes for our wedding reception for the cards to go in.

I was trying to do everything ultra cheap and decided to use some 4x6 pictures that I had already printed from snapfish (I think) with my favorite white border. I had a bunch of extra 12 x 12 black textured cardstock leftover from another project that I cut to size and glued the photos to them.

I loved how it looked with the white border from the photos.

For this one, I had used my mom's embroidery machine to make this for Jeremy for Christmas one year and just matted it on torn scrapbook paper and white cardstock. Easy right?

Just a start, but tons of possibilities with this one. I've got lots of empty frames sitting around that I'm excited to fill with cardstock-mounted-images. Hope this helps to keep the juices flowing!

Mod Podging a memory book

Hey - It's Jules again! Traveling is one of my main passions, so I wanted to post about making artwork out of memories from travels or experiences. Scrapbooks are great, but sometimes you want to put up something on the wall or on the coffee table that you can look at everyday.

About two years ago I went to France with my boyfriend Than. He kept a beautiful journal of his perspectives that was inspiring to read, and in addition to the photos we took, I wanted to give him a Christmas present that would showcase both of these.

 - I bought a small black cardstock photo book with a spiral bind - I liked the small pages. 

 - I love buying old calendars to put in frames or use in colladges, so I had one with old pictures of France that i cut up.  

- Then I typed up portions of Than's journal with a cool font.

- I made a background colladge of the old paris photos along with our own pictures. Mod Podge is my favorite thing ever. You can just paint it over and it drys clear. 

-Over the pictures I put strips of the phrases that explained the photos beneath them. 

- I separated the pages that they should dry - and wha la!(Is a good idea to put some tissue between the pages or they'll stick)

For some awesome modpodge ideas - and until I put up my photos - check out this blog

Mod Podge Rocks!

Photographing Life - First Post by Jules

Hello All! This is Jules and I'm making my first post here. I'm 28 and am currently a poooor, grad student :). I used to be a "young professional" in DC and became a little disenchanted, so wanted to go back to school - I'm now earning my International MBA in Denver. I have a great group of friends here that make life awesome, as well as a great guy (I'll call him Than) that just moved out here too. I work part-time at an Rug Gallery where I do the website and tech stuff and then also research and sell beautiful rugs and antiques from around the world - so I'm surrounded by colors and shapes and great stories. Inspired by that, my topic today is about observing your surroundings to inspire your art or creative projects, and using photographs as a great way to decorate any space.

I love going on long walks to look at things, to hear the city or nature, and to find new perceptions. Than is an amazing photographer and when ever we travel, go hiking, or just walk around town he's always snapping photos and then they come out breathtaking. We love photoshop and you can play around with it and do awesome stuff or you can do it online on several websites like snapfish.com or getfunky.com-- see the sample photo on the right.

One day I'd love to print out hundreds of these, put them in nice frames and have them around my house - with their stories and memories. So much better than store-bought pictures!

Black and White photos can make a simple photo seem expensive. Dusk is a great-time for a photowalk - shadows can do wonders for depth. Food on a plate - look how gorgeous it looks in b/w!

Parks have some create scenery. Taking pictures of a scene you may see everyday and think nothing of could be amazing just by playing with the colors and lighting on photoshop.

Restaurant Signs are often elegant and could be great for pictures in the kitchen or eating nook.

A child's discarded toy has awesome imagery with the soft fabric against the brick road. Can't you imagine this photo in a child's playroom?

Hope you found this interesting! Now, look through those family photos and snapshots that you have from your digital camera and have some fun with them. See them as a starting point and see how you can change them to make them unique and artistic, and blow them up to hang in your home!

See ya next week! xo, Jules