Company is a comin'

On lots of blogs (and Pinterest) people are doing amazing things with canvases.  Serious art work.  Just to warn you ahead - mine are not serious art work!!

We just found out that friends of ours from high school are coming to stay a week with us!  Excitement!!  But I need to get something on the guest bedroom walls and try to stay with my self enforced budget.  Sooooo... back to the closet of the girls' old canvases and into the cabinet of craft supplies.  Then voila - cheap wall art!!



For the first canvas I found a scrap of material the perfect size left over from recovering my dining room chairs and simply stretched and stapled it.  I also had an old chipboard initial from a long abandoned project.  I painted it a khaki color but it looked too flat.  So I threw on a coat pf sparkle modge podge to give it a little texture.  Not bad for all left overs!

I have been wanting to make something with old book pages, but had never found the right project.  This was really easy.  I used matte modge podge on top and bottom of pages from several different books and randomly placed them on the canvas.  I really like that they are in various "stages" of aging and some are lots more yellowed.  All the fonts are different, too.  When I was digging through the pages I found this one

It says - "Big Sister's Wedding."  Perfect!!  All the photos in the guest bedroom are from our oldest daughter's wedding. 

I also had a sweet little sticker that I had picked up a bit ago.  It was almost sepia in color and went perfect with this free project.

I hung these 2 canvases with the other 2 I have recently made in an empty corner of the room and added the rocker I just refinished.  Now I hope it feels quite welcoming to our guests

Until next time

Happy DIY'ing!!

Susan

Not so original

Hope every one's new year is off to a great start.  I still feel like I am trying to catch up from the holiday season.  I just realized today that all the upstairs rooms still have their Christmas out.  Really??  Know what I will be doing tomorrow!!

2011 took a big bite out of our checking account.  2 girls in college - the youngest of which thinks she is a world traveler, a grandson to spoil, and lots of odd expenses really take their toll.  Sooo.. we have decided to scale things back for several months, which means using what I have on hand for a while for any projects I want to do among other things.  Wonder how that will go?

I was in my usual post-Christmas I must declutter phase and came up with what I thought was a really original (and free) project.  I showed it to my daughters.  Their response:  Oh yeah, we have seen lots of those on Pinterest.  Really??  Will I ever have an original idea?

I have lots of canvases that the girls have started projects with and abandoned or just had complete project fails.

So I took one of the reject canvases and covered it with 2 layers of left over green burlap from my fall pumpkin patch.  The green goes great with the spare bedroom.  Then I took lots of old buttons - given to me by a friends' mom - and hot glued them to the canvas.  A few dozen glue burns later - and I even managed to burn my elbow on this one - and this is what emerged

I loooove old buttons!!  I just never know what to do with them.  And to be honest - I usually forget that I have these.  I would gladly give credit to the pinterest person who came up with this idea if I had seen it - and I have not had time to figure out how to find it on Pinterest.

Well - wish me luck on my budget- tightening ways!! 

And speaking of budget friendly ways - Artsy Fartsy Mama is giving away a blog design by Happy Potamus!!  Go check it out!!

Until next time

Susan

For a change

I am taking a break from my usual stairway project from beyond to share with you a quick and fun craft project.  My sister and I had a girls' crafting weekend last month.  We met halfway between Oklahoma and Mississippi in Little Rock, Arkansas.  One of the projects we were able to accomplish in a hotel room was making "backdrops" for her grandaughters' American Girls dolls.  All 3 of the girls play with their dolls for hours, so this was the perfect craft for us. 

They were really simple to make.  We used bi-fold project boards that are made of foam board.  I believe that the size was 22 x 28 inch.  You can pick these up at office supply stores for under $5.00.
For the "wallpaper" we used 12 x 12 sheets of scrapbooking paper.  It takes 8 sheets per "room."  We used a coordinating ribbon to form the "chair rail" where the 2 papers meet.



pink and orange bedroom - as requested




pink/black/zebra bedroom - request number 2

 Then we hit the scrapbooking area for accessories

We found these little cork boards at Hobby Lobby - they actually hold pushpins.  The little metal frames are scrapbooking.  We cut words out of scrapbook paper and framed them.  Then just hot glued it all to the board.

The mirror is from the candle section at Hobby Lobby.  Half price it was 75 cents.  We gorilla glued it and then embellished it.



We found metal clock faces on clearance in the scrabooking section.  The purses are stickers.  The "shelf" is a piece of packaging styrofoam with ribbon glued on it.

(please excuse the crappiness of the cell phone pictures)

We found these little wooden containers on clearance for a quarter each.  So each girl got one to match a room to hold all the little pieces that accumulate for dolls.  We just glued the paper on and my sis modge podge them when she got home.

We were able to make 6 rooms.  2 for each girl.  They were super easy, and sooo much fun to create.  The best part is - the girls love them!!!  We have plans to make each of them a kitchen one next time we get together.  Martha Stewart makes the cutest kitchen-y stickers that we have been stockpiling as we see them.

One of my friends is going to have each girl at her daughter's birthday party make one.  What a great idea!!!

The only down side - my grandson really would not appreciate it if I made one for him!!!

Happy DIY'ing

Susan