Canvas Wall Art

SUPPLIES:

• Canvasses ( I got mine from Dollarama)
• Paint
• Paint Brush

I'm trying to get the house decorated room by room.  The main living area had an empty wall, behind where the TV will eventually end up.  I already put two long shelves on the longest wall in the room and put a ton of framed pictures on them, so I knew I needed something other than typical photographs for the other wall.  I picked up a few canvasses from Dollaarma when I was there earlier in the week and I knew I had paint at home leftover from various other DIY projects.  I browsed Pinterest for some inspiration and away I went.  This is SO easy to do.  You literally just paint random lines on the canvas, like this:

 

I added a bit of black to the gray paint I had to make it darker for my next set of lines:

Then I added some yellow:

I added some white to the yellow to make it lighter.  This is a good tip, instead of buying multiple shades of a colour, just buy a dark shade, and add white to make it lighter.  Then I finished it off with some white:

You can use as many colour as you want.  You could do thicker lines, thinner lines, some of each; whatever your little heart desires.  Seriously, SO easy.  You have to wait for the lines to dry before you apply the next colour; that is the most time consuming thing.

HERE they are hung on the wall (don't mind all the kids' crap in the pic)':

 

 

I'm really happy with how they turned out.

Plastic Spoon Mirror

SUPPLY LIST:

• Large piece of heavy duty carboard
• Plastic spoons (# of spoons depends on size you want to make, I used approximately 5 packages of 48 spoons)
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks (lots)
• Exacto knife or scissors - something to cut through cardboard
• Spray Paint
• Mirror

I've always struggled with what to hang on walls aside from the obvious, pictures or artwork.  I get bored of hanging the same types of things all.the.time.  After I finished stencilling the wall in A's room, there was one wall left that was blank.  Her dresser was along that wall, but there was nothing else.  Due to the business of the stencilled wall, I knew I wanted something somewhat plain to hang on the wall.  I already had some DIY canvas art to hang on the other wall, so I didn't really quite know what to put on this wall.  I was browsing on Pinterest (I tend to do this a lot) and came across this "flower" mirror made out of plastic spoons.  I read through a couple tutorials different people had posted and decided that it was within my realm of "expertise" and budget friendly so figured I would give it a go.  You basically just need a large piece of cardboard (luckily muygarage is still full of random empty boxes from moving so I had easy access to this), a multitude of plastic spoons and a hot glue gun/glue sticks.

The tutorials I read instructed you to make a makeshift compass out of scissors, string and a pencil to accurately draw your circle on the cardboard.  I did not do this - ain't got time for that LOL.  I just traced a large garbage can lid, and used a plastic bowl for my smaller inner circle.  Honestly the hardest part of this entire project for me was cutting the damn circle out.  You want to use somewhat heavy weight cardboard so the finished product is sturdy; but I had a hell of a time cutting the circle out nicely.  I wasn't too concerned with it, as the spoons will cover the cardboard.

TIP #1: make your inner circle smaller, rather than larger; you can always cut away more of it if need be, but you can't add back on to it.  The one i made was roughly 22" across with the smaller middle circle being about 10" (give or take).  Honestly try to eyeball it and see what looks good.  If you don't want too many rows of spoons, make the centre bigger.  I think I had about 7-8 rows of spoons on mine so it looks nice and full.

Here was my cardboard circle the first time around:

 

As you can see it is far from the perfect circle, but that's ok.  You don't see it in the end.  Do try to centre the smaller circle though. This was my first one, I didn't take a picture of my second (better one).  For my second one i made my inner circle smaller, which I recommend.  Anyway, you get the idea (hopefully). 

 

Next up, you need to break the handles off of your spoons.  I bought white spoons (48 in pkg) from Dollarama.  DO NOT get heavy duty spoons, you want the cheapest quality ones you can get as they are easier to break apart.  Some people said they cut theirs, I found breaking them worked fine.  Don't worry if you don't get a "clean break" as you won't see any of them, except the final inner row.  I think I used about 5 pkgs (of 48 spoons) for mine. 

 

TIP #2 - take the time to evenly space out your first row of spoons (outer edge).   I spaced mine about 2 inches apart.  Also make sure this first row hangs out over the cardboard edge (about half on/half off) and you want to make sure they are spaced apart enough for the next row of spoons to fit nicely within the row above it.  You don't want them to be squeezed in too much or on an angle, etc.  Once you've laid out a few of them, you should be able to eyeball it the rest of the way.  I didn't do this my first go, and it ended up making things wonky later on, so I do suggest to take the time to mark out the first row.  After that, the rest of them will just fall into place.  This is now the time where you can go into zombie mode; put on some trash TV to watch or some tunes and just glue and stick the spoons on your cardboard form.  This is what you'll end up with in the end:

 

 

I know, the spots where you can see the cardboard gave me anxiety too. LOL.  Once it is spray painted everything will blend together and you won't be able to tell.  Once the mirror is attached and it's hung on the wall, you really won't be able to tell.

 

When I read the tutorials, most said to prime the flower prior to painting.  I found a spray paint that said it was primer and paint, so, I just went with that and did not prime it.  It covered very nicely.  This is the paint I chose:

 

 

 I was going to spray paint this outside, however it was windy AF today, so I made the mistake of doing it inside.  I had a brain-dead moment and was only concerned with the mess the paint might make, and I found an old drop cloth, so I thought I was ok. I didn't even think of the fumes until I was pretty much done, and feeling a bit woozy.  TIP: spray paint OUTSIDE!  Anyway, like I said before, this paint covered well. I went back and forth a few times, and that was that. This is what it looked like:

 

 

Now, I should have mentioned this earlier, and actually I will add this at the top as it is fairly important.. Before you start you should make sure you have and know what size mirror you have.  I guess you don't necessarily have to put a mirror in this; you could leave it as is, but if you are going to use a mirror, I would recommend having one in hand before you start measuring and making this.  I would hate to do all the work and then not be able to find a mirror the size you need.  I found a square piece of mirror at..... you guessed it, Dollarama! It was in the craft aisle and was kind of hidden under other types of mirrors, so be sure you check. I had asked the employee if they sold anything like this and she flat out said no, so i'm glad I took the time to really look.  Anyway, I think the mirror I got is probably 10x10 (I haven't measured it).  It looks like this:

Just be sure to cut your inner circle in a way so it'll completely cover the mirror  To fasten the mirror to the back of the flower I used copious amounts of hot glue and duct tape. The mirror did not come with any type of hook on the back, so I need to figure out how I will hang it on the wall.

Ok I'm coming back to this post a few weeks later.  I'll be honest, once I hot glued, and duct taped the mirror to the back of the cardboard, it sat in my dining room/creating area for a couple of weeks.  I kind of forgot about it.  I still hadn't figured out a way to hang it on the wall.  I wanted to be able to take a picture of how it will look once I do figure that out, so I just slapped a bunch of duct tape to the back and stuck it on the wall.  Here's the finished project:

 

I like it.  One day I may be inclined to make a couple of smaller mirrors to flank the blue one on either side but for now I just hung (duct taped) some canvases I made on either side. 

 

One other pic of A's accent wall, because I love it and it's pretty:

 

 

Paper Accent Wall

Supplies Needed:

12x12 pads of paper (I needed 2)
Adhesive (Modge Podge, glue dots, spray adhesive, etc)
Foam brush
Level
Ruler
Pencil

When we moved into the new place, I really wanted to give each of the kids a nice bedroom. The entire house had to be painted so I chose a nice warm gray colour, but left one wall in each bedroom white, as I wanted to do an accent wall in each.  I didn't really have a vision of what I wanted to do in Jackson's room.  I knew I didn't really want it to be too "theme-y" as a) I wanted it to be able to transition over the years as he grew without having to change a lot of things in the room and b) he really loves anything "boy" (i.e. cars, trucks, planes, construction, dinosaurs, robots etc. etc.) so it would be hard to pick just one theme.  With a somewhat basic colour scheme, I feel I am able to accent the room with the things he loves, in art work and knick knacks, and mix it up without it looking too cluttered.
 
Anyway, I had toyed with the idea of putting up a wall of wood planks which were painted/stained different colours, but decided against it.  It would be a bit pricey and I do not own the tools required for the project (saw, etc) and didn't want to have to depend on someone else to come and help me with it.  I happened to be in Michael's earlier in the week and stumbled upon some scrapbooking pads of paper which were 70% off.  You know me, I can't turn down a good bargain, so I knew I had to buy the paper, but for what?  I had the thought of sticking it on the wall.  My sister in law had painted a wall in their daughter's nursery in a square/grid pattern which I always really loved.  Having just spent hours upon hours painting the accent wall in Avery's room, I knew I didn't want to get into another big paint project.  I didn't want to have to measure and tape out all of the squares, etc.  This paper was already cut into 12x12" squares, and was colour coordinated, it would be perfect.  It retails for $29.99 a pad, but at 70% off it was $8.99 a pad.  I bought 2.
 
 

 

This is what it looks like.  The theme was "atlas". lots of the pages were either a plain colour, or had a minimal pattern to them.  Some were maps, others had airplanes on them.  I liked it.

 

I knew I couldn't just go randomly gluing the pages to the wall.  I knew there would have to be a certain amount of space between the papers so it would look like a nice even grid.  I knew this, but didn't know how to figure it out.  Math and I have never been good buddies.  This is when I contacted my friend who excels in math, gave her the dimensions of the wall, and the approximate amount of space I wanted between the pages, and asked her to figure out how many pages I would need, and the amount of space to leave between the pages. 

 

The wall was 145.5" long by 92.5" tall. My grid was 11x7, with about an inch in between the squares. I started by making a level line at the top of the wall an inch down from the ceiling, and measured an inch in from each side of the wall to give myself a rough guideline as to where to place the papers.  I would put one paper on, and measure an inch out from the top corner and bottom and put a pencil mark, and then place the next and do the same thing.  Once I had  few rows done, I could eyeball it pretty good, and didn't have to measure anymore.

 

 

I took this picture yesterday. It was a very dreary day so there wasn't much light in the room so the colours aren't true to life.  Anyway, you get the idea here.  Oh, I used Modge Podge to adhere the papers to the wall.  I don't know if I would use this again.  I tried not to use a ton of it per page, but they started to lift up so I found I really had to use a lot on the back, and once it was on the wall, even go over the top of it at the corners with more (it dries clear).  If I do this again I think I would use a different adhesive.  Also I tried not to really make any pattern to the papers on the wall.  Each pad had about 12+ different pages, with 4 or so of each. I wasn't totally random about it, basically I tried not to repeat a pattern in the same row or column or have them right next to each other anywhere on the wall.

 

This is a fairly fast process. I think I completed it in about 2 or 3 hours, over the course of two mornings. Today is a much nicer day so I was able to get better quality pictures of the finished wall.

 

 

 

Here's a picture of a portion of the wall, so you can see the patterns on the paper a bit better.

 

 

This was really quite a simple project to do, and inexpensive' total cost was under $30. 

 

 

Mirror Sliding Door Redo

SUPPLY LIST

• Self adhesive wallpaper (3-4 rolls)
• Exacto knife
• Wallpaper smoother
• Paint and paintbrush if painting the doors' trim/track.  I used FUSION paint (colour: casement aka WHITE)
• a helper

I'm not a fan of mirrored sliding doors, especially when they are surrounded in ugly gold. This particular one in our new place is located around the corner from the front entryway.  It houses extra coats, shoes, etc. The positioning of this closet is such that if you are in the main bathroom (located down the hall) with the door open, someone sitting in the living room can look in the mirrored door into the mirror in the bathroom and creep on you.  Ya ya, random weird thought, but I won't lie, we've done it. That aside, I just found the big mirrored doors to be an eye sore and unnecessary as I hung a large mirror by the front door so we can check ourselves out on the way out of the house.

Anyway, this project was not on my list of things to do.  It was a random, spur of the moment project I started on the weekend.  Earlier in the week I had been at Dollarama and I saw that they had rolls of self adhesive wallpaper.  They didn't have a wide array of patterns/colours but for $2/roll I figured I would use this for something in the future, so I picked up a couple rolls of 2 different patterns. When I got home I threw them in the bottom of my closet where most of my "crafty" supplies are housed (classy, I know). Fast forward a few days, I was on Pinterest and saw DIY closet door makeovers.  I saw some people had painted their doors, hung fabric, etc.  I remembered the wallpaper in my closet and decided to give it a try. I will say, I totally jumped into this project way too fast, didn't logistically think things through, and it kind of bit me in the ass.  I immediately ripped open the wallpaper and started to stick it on. It wasn't hanging straight, and I had tons of air bubbles. Nonetheless I hung it, and realized I didn't have enough.  The wide of the mirror was slightly larger than the width of the paper.  Not to worry, I figured I could just overlap another strip of it.  The only problem being, I didn't have any more paper.  I ran out to Dollarama, and they didn't have any of it left. Crap.  Luckily at another location they had some, so I scooped up the remainder of what they had left.

Prior to hanging your wallpaper, I highly recommend you paint the surround of the door and track first.  I didn't, and it was a pain.  If you're handy, it would probably be easier to remove the doors completely so you can get in every nook and cranny.  I have a very very limited tool box (i.e. a hammer and 2 screwdrivers) and really had no clue how to go about taking the doors off so I painted them while they were still hung.  It worked out ok. I just focused on the parts that would be visible when the doors were fully closed, and kind of half assed the rest (just being honest LOL). I used a new paint I just discovered called Fusion paint.  It is similar to chalk paint in that you don't have to do any prep work, and it has a nice soft finish.  This is even better because you don't need to put a top coat/sealer/wax on it.  I used it because I had it on hand, and I didn't want to have to run out to the store to get new paint.  It worked quite well.  It had good coverage.  I think in most spots I used two coats. 


Here's what the door looked like before:

 

Ok I'm typing this part right after I put the wallpaper on the doors. K first off, that shit is tacky. SO TACKY. I'm not gonna lie, I struggled putting this stuff on the doors. It would have been very helpful to have a second set of hands to help put this on. FRIENDLY TIP: have someone else at home to help you put the paper on the door!!!! For real though, god, this was kind of a hack job. There's tons of air bubbles and creases in it.  It looks ok from a distance but up close.... not so much LOL. This does come off though, so if I can't stand the look of it after a few days/weeks, I can take it down and reapply when I have someone here to help me get it on smooth. Oh, another TIP: since you're going to have to overlap the paper on the mirror, or cut a strip from another roll since it's not wide enough, be sure you pick a fairly plain/basic pattern so it's easy to line up, or; in my case, isn't blaringly obvious when you don't even attempt to line it up and just smack it up there to get 'er done.  Without further adieu, here is the end result:

 

 

 

 Is it perfect? Far from it.  Did it get rid of tacky gold mirrored door? YES.

A win in my book.