Art Work/ Home Decor

Today I finally cleaned up my living room floor by finishing two pinterest inspired ideas.

Project 1

 The first is based on a subway sign. I really like the subway sign look with inspirational sayings. I thought it would be neat to do this on a piece of wood. However, I didn't have one and didn't want to spend much money. So I took a trip to Hobby Lobby to weigh my options. I settled on using a piece of foam board because they were on sale and because the sign is for above the fireplace and I figure the base won't be that noticeable. I chose a black foam board so I wouldn't have to spend extra money painting a base color.

There are several ways to accomplish this project. Vinyl can be used and painted over or stencils can be used if you don't want to paint the whole board.

If you have the patience you could make your own stencils using a font picked from your computer; print the words onto card stock, and cut out the letters with an xacto knife.

 I chose the lazier option and bought stencils with my 40% off coupon. Overall this project probably cost me about $18. Though keep in mind the stencils can be used again.

I first stenciled my letters onto the black board using a pencil. I wanted to make sure the letters would all fit before painting. The first attempt at this didn't go well so I flipped the board over and used the other side.

Then I took white acrylic paint (.60 cents a bottle), lined my stencils up with the pencil marks and painted the stencils with a foam/sponge brush. TIP: You will probably want to skip around and paint letters all over the board because you don't want your stencils rubbing against the wet paint of other letters.

The good news is the paint dries really fast on the foam board.

My biggest problem with this project is that I cannot write straight and evidently I also cannot stencil straight. I really didn't realize how crooked my lettering was until I was finished. Oh well, I suppose it has my own imperfect touch to it. I hate doing projects that require precision. If you have more patience you could use a ruler and draw faint lines across the entire board before stenciling.

Project 2

The second project I worked on has a sort of Japanese cherry blossom tree look.

                           

For the project you will need:

Different colors of acrylic paint (.60 cents + each) Though this could be awesome in black and white.

a paint pen ($4)

round sponge brushes (.99 cents)

Canvas, size of your choice (mine cost about $5 and is 16 x 20)

I started by painting my entire canvas with two coats of a vanilla color. It gave the canvas a softer look.  After this dried, I drew branches on the canvas using the paint pen. You can make as many or as few as you like; depends how much white space you want to leave. Next put your paint on a palate or plastic plate, like I used. Use your round sponges to create the blooms all over your branches.

It's really that simple to have your own custom art work.