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July 28, 2013

DIY Burlap Prints

I am ready to share my next post with you! I have officially finished the new look to my living room. I was very happy with the way it turned out. I have shared with you some of my DIY living room but this one I'm more than excited with the way it turned out!
All over the web I have seen pictures where people showcased the last letter of their last name in a frame. I loved that idea and couldn't be happier to do it myself...until the wonderful idea went bad. I had this vision of putting painted wood for the background and placing an 'S' on it.
I picked up a beautiful frame to showcase this idea. I spray painted the frame and got right to work on my project. I then put the idea together, placed it on my wall, and was absolutely disgusted with the way it turned out. I left it on my wall for about 5 months trying to figure out what I was going to do with that beautiful frame and the 'S' because I loved the 'S' too.
Well I'm here to tell you that I finally put that frame to good use and couldn't be happier with the way it turned out. So let's get started!
 The before and after shot of the lovely frame I bought for $5.00.
A few nicks and scratches but nothing I couldn't fix.
I spray painted it and it turned out beautiful! Just what I wanted!
 Next I laid out how I wanted the boards to look and the order I wanted the colors.
I then painted them and was ready to put it all together.....
 I glued it together, gave it an antique look, and put the 'S' in the middle.
I hung it up, put some wall candles beside it and it looked pitiful.
It looked nothing like I had envisioned.
With all the disappointment, I left it on the wall trying to come up with a plan for my beautiful frame.
I was hopeless and even stopped my DIY living room for a couple of months to come up with another plan.
Finally it hit me....I was looking at some burlap, (it was around the 4th of July), and there was printed stars and stripes on the burlap. That was it...put a picture on burlap and frame it! I couldn't wait to put the plan into action. I decided to go with a tree and some birds since that is the 'theme' in my living room.
Here's a reminder of the refurbished frame.
Here's a reminder of the ugly background the frame had before.
Here's the print on the burlap!
Have you seen where people use an iron to put prints onto fabric?
Lucky for me we own a business that does exactly that, only professional.
So I sent the print idea right over to my Hubby who transferred it to the burlap!
I used the ugly boards as a foundation for the burlap.
I hot glued the burlap to the boards.
I then hot glued that to the frame!
Here is my new picture! I can't tell you how much better it looks on my wall!
I just love it. Finally my beautiful frame has something to showoff instead of destroying it.
If you look closely you can see the 3 birds in the tree...they represents my kids. Jaden, Cameron, and Zane! You can also see why I was so excited to share with you this DIY project. It was a DIY project gone bad but now I'm happy it went bad because I like this a lot more!
The burlap picture now matches my Burlap Vases and everything in my living room is now starting to come together! It took some time for me to finish my living room but it was worth it. I can't wait to show you some more of my DIY living room.
So what do you think...do you like? Do you think it looks better than the boards and the 'S'? Well I did love the 'S' so make sure you check back with me to see what I did with the 'S'...it has a new home and I love it!

Link Parties: Huckleberry Love, Keeping it Simple, Sew Many Ways

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July 26, 2013

DIY Decor Made With Tile


I am happy to say that I have finally completed decorating my living room....at least for now. I had to put it on hold for a while because something just wasn't right (don't you just hate that). So I took a break to come up with a new plan. It finally came to me and finally I finished my living room!
So today I will share with you one of the finishing touches.
In my past blog post I rambled and rambled, even I was got sick of me :) So I'll get right to the point and make it short and simple! Enjoy!
So here is a little something I threw together to place above the entryway between the living room and dining room. It was super simple and gave it just the right touch!
I bought some tile....nothing fancy.
I then traced the letters where I wanted them to be to get an idea how it would look. You can kind of see where I traced on the middle tile, but look close.
I painted the tiles with the color scheme of my living room.....blue, red, and green.
 I then put the stencil down where I had traced earlier.

I then blotted some paint onto the tile.
I then made 4 pinwheels and hot glued them to the tile.
I put a button in the middle for a little added touch.

And here it is.....
Simple, cheep, and didn't take long to make.
It fills the empty wall...although my Hubby did make the comment that I'm 'décor happy'.
Not true...I just don't like undecorated walls. O.k. maybe I do have a lot of decor but it's my house it's exactly how I want it and I love it! Right?
Anyways it adds a little flavor to the wall and when I get a chance I'll hand some flowers beside the tile pieces.
Simple can go a long way especially when you made it with love. It's unique and you won't find it anywhere else!
P.S. Men need to know that us Woman love our decor as much as Men love their sports!

July 24, 2013

DIY Canvas Photos Using Tissue Paper

I'm really excited to share with you my next DIY project for my daughter's NYC themed room. As I mentioned in a previous post Jaden (my teen daughter) loves her ballet and plays some piano. On the wall that the piano sits I decided to make that wall a Broadway wall. I have seen many canvas photos around the web and was anxious to try one. Unfortunately most of them involved using a laser copied photo and all I have is and ink jet printer which most of us have. Plus it involved taking what seemed like a million steps and I don't have time for that.

I wanted something simple that only took minutes and to achieve that canvas photo. I seen on some sites where people used tissue paper and modge podge. Of coarse I always have both of those lying around and it was only 2 steps...print the photo onto the tissue paper and glue the tissue paper onto the canvas. SIMPLE!!! I was excited to try this but at the same time a little hesitant. For one it was tissue paper. Print onto tissue paper...I don't know about that, but I was willing to give it a shot. The other...it seemed too good to be true. We are talking about two easy steps to achieve beautiful canvas pictures.
Well let me be the first to tell you that it was so easy and they turned out beautiful!!! At first I was a little intimated working with tissue paper because it is so fragile but it was easier than I thought. So let's get started!
Awhile back I came across some canvas that was on sale. I couldn't pass up the deal and bought them. I had 3 of them just hanging out and thought it was time to put them to use. Jaden my daughter had some photos from her ballet recital that I just loved. Each had horrible backgrounds so I made some background changes using Gimp 2. That's usually the site I use to make changes to pictures. I then did some investigating and used Pixlr to add some touches to the pictures. I absolutely loved it. It was fast and so easy to use. In the past I used other sites but they were more difficult to understand and took forever to download and so forth. So here are the before and after shots of the pictures.

This is my favorite picture.....the 'elegant' look
There's always got to be a crazy pose when taking pictures of teenagers...I wanted to highlight the red lipstick with a red background (that's one thing they stress in recitals...red lipstick)
The 'Broadway' look......the whole costume on stage
I thought I did a pretty good transformation for someone who don't know much about giving pictures a whole other look.
Now the fun part!
I got card stock paper...I wanted the tissue to have a sturdy foundation since it would be going through the printer. I didn't want it to jam or tear.  I left some room on the tissue paper so I could tape it down in the back.
I then printed out the photos onto the tissue paper.
This is what it looks like with the card stock underneath it.
This is what the photo looks like on the tissue paper when you take it off the card stock.
Don't worry how it looks because it will change once you put it onto the canvas with modge podge.
Make sure you leave that extra tissue paper around the edges...you will need it when gluing.
Next you will want to put a very thin later of modge podge onto the canvas. It needs to be a very thin layer because if the tissue paper gets too wet, it will rip. I learned this for myself...learn from my mistakes.
 Now after playing around and messing up I finally figured out that the best way to put the tissue paper onto the canvas was putting a little modge podge on the side of the canvas and gluing down the extra tissue paper on the side. It holds the tissue paper down so you can lay down the tissue.
The reason for this is.....I first tried laying the tissue paper straight onto the canvas but it wasn't straight and it had to be just perfect without getting bubbles, which was way too hard.
By gluing down that side first it hold down the tissue paper and you can line it up. You can then tug at it slightly and lay it carefully onto the canvas. I'm not sure you can really see it in these pictures so maybe my explanation will help even though I give poor instructions. Thankfully I'm not a teacher.
Next you will want to get out any bubbles. Usually when trying to get bubbles out I like to use a credit card to smooth out the bubbles. DO NOT do this...it will tear the tissue....lesson learned by me. Instead with your finger lightly press on the canvas. I was so surprised how well the bubbles disappeared.
Next cut as close to the picture as possible. It's o.k. if you don't get all the white off because you can glue them down on the side and because the tissue is white and thin it blends right into the canvas.
I did have some creases  (as you can tell in the pictures), but I actually liked the look so it didn't bug me. It gave it a 'vintage' look.

I also have what appears to be 'scratches' when looking at the pictures. That is from printing the dark picture onto the white tissue paper. Because the ink was dark it took a lot more ink which caused the tissue to become wet and bunch a little when printing.
When I was done it was kind of wrinkled but the next day I was surprised to see that when it dried the surface smoothed out for the most part.
Getting the picture to line up with the canvas was almost impossible for me so I didn't mess with it much. So as you can see in my photos they are not straight.
Because of the way I needed to print the photos to make sure all of the design fit on the canvas I had to have some white showing.
I have to put hanging the pictures up on hold...I have some other decor I am waiting on. So here's a taste of what they will look like when they are on the wall above the piano.

Now I have some pretty canvas photos for that pretty daughter of mine! I'm actually a little jealous...I want them hanging on my wall!
TIPS:
#1 Put on a very thin layer of modge podge on the canvas.
#2 When laying the tissue paper down go from one side to the other (that's the reason for gluing one side of the extra tissue paper to the side), not top to bottom or vise versa.
#3 Do not use anything to smooth out the bubbles, use your figure and slightly press the bubbles down.
#4 There are some imperfections but after it dries it looks a lot better and it leaves that canvas look.
#5 Canvas is very forgiving...if you mess up, go right to the sink and wash off the tissue paper and start again. It comes off easy and canvas dries fast so you don't have a long wait.
#6 Light colors work best when printing onto tissue paper. The darker colors smears when printing onto the tissue. I actually had to make some changes on the black and white picture and make the background a little lighter than what I had planned...and even then it smeared some, but it still worked for this project.
#7 The lighter colors blend better with the white tissue....so when I used the darker colors it left visible creases of white where the black was...again it didn't bother me too much due to the fact it gave it that 'wear and tear' look.
#8 I printed this onto a 8x10 canvas...I personally wouldn't go bigger that that.
#9 DO NOT modge podge over the canvas, it will tear the tissue paper.
#10 When all said and done if I didn't have to go through the trial and error part it was actually a very simple project. It didn't take much time at all. The last canvas was the only one I didn't have to do a redo on and it only took minutes to complete. I said to myself "If only I didn't have those mistakes this would have been one of the easiest projects I have tackled in a long time". I will be doing this again! Most of all enjoy your photos!