Forgotten Fridays: Copycat Bathroom Art

So this is another one of those things I meant to post but never got around to it... and yes, I know today is Thursday. I meant to post this last week but I got too excited by the hallway's paint job. And I apologize in the advance for the cell phone photos. 

I recently added a bud vase (on clearance for $4!) with a fake succulent ($2 at Hobby Lobby) to our half bath. Originally I had on old vase that I had painted white perched on the sink but I never put anything in it. I had wanted to out a fake flower of some kind in there since I forget to water real plants. After (eight!) months of halfhearted searching I found this bud vase and added the succulent. I think the color and shape look way better than the old version and I really like the pop of green.>

Anyway this reminded me that I had meant months ago to post about the DIY art piece I made for this room but never did. Better late than never, right?

When we tackled the downstairs half bath we purchased a few frames to hang. We couldn't find enough (cheap) framed art so I decided to make something instead. I found this pin and thought it looked pretty easy to recreate.

Obviously I didn't follow the instructions to the letter but overall I don't think it turned out that bad. First I painted the canvas a soft khaki. Once that was dry I used a paint pen to draw the lines. I was actually really nervous to do this part but I figured I could paint over any huge errors.

Then I made the dots. I picked a several colors (in retrospect I'd only use 5 colors or shades of colors) that I thought would look good together and dotted away. I did go back and add dots where I thought it looked empty or a color was too concentrated. I also added branches if that area appeared a little sparse.

Here's the original next to my version.

This probably won't hang in our home forever but its a not bad for a temporary fix.

P.S. You can read all about our half bath makeover here.

Wee Wee Take Three

Remember the wee wee dance canvas I made for our guest bath? I made two more for a couple of friends!

One of my friends loved it and asked me to make her one a while back. Well she recently got married and moved to DC with her new husband so I knew I had to get it to her by the wedding. While I was making it my friend who in town asked me to make her one. 

Both of the ladies requested a black and white version. So I painted the canvas white. Yes, the canvas is white but its good to paint a base color to work off because I think it makes the other paint look smoother.

I was really lucky to have a coworker and her husband make me the stencil on their Cricut machine. My back plan was to cut out a template on a piece of card stock with an exacto knife. You could also draw the figures but I'm not that talented. 

I centered the stencil and then used a paint pen to color in the people. I highly recommend the paint pen since regular craft paint will run, your lines won't look as clean and it will required many coats.

Then I took the white paint to touch up the outline.

I went back over it with the paint pen to make sure the outline was as dark as the inside since I'm not really good and painting straight lines. I was waited until it was dry before going back and filling in some of the lighter areas with the black paint pen.

And that's it. I was able to finish the one for my (recently married!) friend as I was getting ready for the wedding. I finished up the other one over the weekend. Its going out to Oregon on Friday!

Forgotten Fridays: Paint Chip Art

Sooooo I meant to share this post a while ago... like a few months ago. I am a blogging slacker. 

This is the quickest and easiest DIY art piece I've made. 

Jon and I have a ton of empty walls. We'd love to throw up some pictures frames and art but since we need so many pieces of actual furniture any decorative wall stuff is low on the To Do List. So whenever possible I've made art pieces to fill up our walls. On the cheap of course. My favorite home bloggers at Young House Love recently published a book and in it was this art project. 

All I did was take some free paint chips, cut them up and glued them onto a piece of paper during my lunch hour at work.  Like I said, quick and easy. 

When we were at Home Depot picking out paint for our bookshelf I stuffed a whole of punch of green and yellow (Packers!) paint chip into my purse. I was a little embarrassed and kept an eye out for employees but no one said anything. I didn't even get an evil eye. I had to remind myself (and jon) that those are free! Plus I think all the money we spend at Home Depot gives me a little leeway to take 10 extra paint chips!

First I laid our all the paint chips and arrange them from light to dark in each color with help from my fellow crafty coworker. Then I used my little paper cutter (its tiny but useful) to cut the chips into thin strips. 

 

I wanted it to look like a color gradient and wanted it to resemble a chevron stripe. I used a ruler to line up the cut pieces.

I arranged them on two pieces of computer paper (green on one, yellow on the other). 

I purchased the frame from Ross for about $15 and trimmed up the computer paper to fit in the frame. 

Done. 

I loved this project because it was (almost!) free and easy. Its also something that could be adapted for anyone's preferences. You could do several colors (instead of two), change the shape and vary the thickness of the paint chips. If I could do it over again I'd used the back of the filler paper from the frame to avoid the ugly looking gap and little wrinkles in the paper. I also think the middle is a little to light and doesn't really show up on the white paper. If there is a next time I'd use a darker piece of paper. 

I'm sure one day I'll want to replace it but for right now it looks ok and goes with the Packers theme in the Man Cave. 

Welcome

Consider our entryway done!

Jonathan had already painted so all we needed was some kind of art on the wall.

Remember how we originally wanted to frame out the old mirror in the half bath but totally failed? Well, I didn't want to throw it out. I hoarded kept it in a closet because I wanted to reuse it. It's been in there for about six months just hanging out. Waiting. And then inspiration struck!

I had the mirror and some leftover trim from our framed monogram project so I decided to make a welcome mirror. I've seen a lot of vinyl sticker crafty things all over Pinterest and decided that would be perfect for my project. Most of the people who do those vinyl cutouts have a cricut or special die cut machine. I don't. So I shopped around on Etsy until I found one that I liked.

Another visit to my BFF, Home Depot and I picked a can of frosted spray paint. Then I gathered up my supplies and got to crafting.

First I centered and applied the sticker. I eyeballed it and as a result its a bit crooked but that just gives it character. Right? Getting the sticker onto the mirror was a little tricky. You only get one shot so I tried to go super slowly... BUT I messed it up a bit. I accidently stretched out one of the letters but managed to drag it back into place.

Then I taped off the middle part that was going to be frosted. I initially eyeballed that too. Thankfully my sister was here to tell me that it was really off and I was about the make a huge crafting boo boo. So I redid it the right way.

After that it was time to spray paint. I totally overdid it with the spray paint. I should have done thin even coats and waited for them dry. I didn't. Blame it on the heat and my impatience. As a result there are some drips. I thought that I had completely ruined the whole thing. I told Jon that I was going to have to scrape the paint off and start over. Jon said it was fine but I was feeling pretty bummed (and dramatic) about the whole thing.

When I looked at it in the sunlight the next day I felt a million times better about it. Jon said "Babe, I told you it was fine!" and I left it on the dining table for a few days....

Then I peeled off the sticker using tweezers. I had tried to use my nails and accidentally scratched off some of the paint. It's not that noticeable but I would like it better if its wasn't there. I don't really know how to fix that. I don't want to spray paint more because I think it would ruin the whole thing. So it will remain as is.

Then I built and assembled a frame for the mirror in the same way we did the monogram one but this time I did all by myself! Naturally since Jon wasn't there to help/oversee I cut the wood a little short because I measured off the broken corners of the mirror. Oops.

Next it was Jonathan's turn. I asked him to hang to the mirror but we had no way to do it. It had previously been up in the bathroom with cheap clip things. Obviously that wasn't going to work since the mirror was so much thicker now. I found these hook things at (where else?) Home Depot and got Jon's seal of I-think-this-will-work approval. He measured and marked when the holes should go.

The way they are supposed to work is by hammering in a plastic pin that acts as a nail to hang the hook. It looked really easy to do on the instructions but, of course, it wasn't. Jon had trouble with the first one and punched a hole with the second one.

Once Jon got all the yelling out of his system and patched the wall, he finished the two on the bottom.

Then we added two on the sides instead of on top. We did it that way so we could slide it in and out. It took us a little bit of effort to jam it in there but its there and we've checked off another item on our to do list.

Stuck Sliders & Caricatures

Chances are, on any given weekend, you can find us at either Home Depot or Lowe's. Doesn't it seem like all our weekend are full of home improvement-ness? But it's not just our weekends that are consumed with DIY stuff. Every now and then a weeknight becomes a house night. Case in point this random (Wednesday?) evening.

Our sliding screen door to the backyard is an old beaten up thing that never stayed on the track. It would get stuck whenever we tried to open it and sometimes if we were carrying stuff back and forth (like laundry) we would just kick it down, do whatever we had to do, and then prop it back up.

One night Jonathan finally had enough and decided he was going to fix it. He grabbed a screwdriver and the hammer to try to fix the sliders on the bottom of the screen. Apparently the rollers on the bottom and the top of the screen were not extended enough leaving a lot of wiggle room for the screen to fall off the track. Yeah... I'm not sure what all that means but I do know Jon fixed it.

Sliding Door from Berennisse Behr on Vimeo.

Meanwhile I was going through the enormous pile of stuff we brought into house after our massive garage cleanup day. Jon would like to point out that yes, that is a copy of Doom 2 on the top of the pile in case you were wondering. (Remember that!?)

I am a firm believer that the garage is the cars'  bedroom. I will never understand how people choose to store tons of miscellaneous stuff over an investment that's thousands of dollars. Protect the car! Those boxes won't get you to work! The only things that should be in a garage are cars, sporting equipment, tools and holiday decorations.

If something (other then the afore mentioned items) means enough to you that you want to keep it should find a place in your home. That's what I was doing with the pile. Until I found this!

This is a caricature of Jonathan and I in 2008. Jonathan's Granddad has an annual Christmas party and an artist was the entertainment that year (past years have had fortune tellers, palm readers...). We had been dating for a little over a year so I guess this a funny version of our younger selves.

Our walls are pretty bare and I find myself making stuff to hang on them. So far I've made a wedding shadow box, 3D guest book, wee wee dance canvas and a framed monogram. Luckily this was a lot easier and free since I had old frame that seemed to be the right side for the caricature. I just removed the photos of my sister and I (sorry seestor) and trimmed off the top and bottom of the paper. Done!

We hung it next to a framing grid made up of frames that sat on all the tables at our wedding. I'm sure we'll change it out on day (you might make it back seestor!) but for right now it works.

And that's how you spend a midweek evening when you're us. 

Frame That S

Look what I made this weekend!

Jonathan and I need a lot of stuff. Like matching pillows for our bed. And a dishwasher. This means we don't have a lot of stuff to put on our walls. But acquiring artwork is at the bottom of our massive To Do List... actually it may not even be on it. Anyway its not a priority. We did purchase a cool wall clock and hung a wedding print on our living room wall but it was still pretty bare looking.

I was debating between putting up more pictures but I didn't want to go crazy with the wedding memorabilia. We have a canvas wedding print, a shadow box and our guest book on the walls. A little too much wedding. So when I saw a cool 3D S (for Jon's last name) graphic print at TJ Maxx I knew it would look awesome in our home. Only problem is that it was too small and cost about $20. Not worth the money in my world.

But I had a plan. I knew we had leftover MDF from our Man Cave bookshelf project that was a similar size compared to our wedding canvas print. I went to Joann's (with a coupon of course) and purchased a hollow wooden S that wouldn't look too small on the MDF.

At home I used some basic craft paint and applied two coats of metallic gold to the S. I let it dry for about a... week. Ok, I left it on the coffee table for a week.

Finally I thought I should finish it up / had guests coming over so I picked up a can of black matte spray paint and got to spraying. Once the MDF was all covered and fully dry I brought it back to my crafing area (the couch) and used tacky glue to adhere S to the board. I let that sit for three weeks. Have you noticed we are slackers around here?

This past week I visited the Home Deeps (yep, that's my nickname for Home Depot) again and picked out some wall trim and a miter box.  Jonathan and I don't have a fancy saw yet, so we needed the miter box to help us cut the necessary angles to frame this out.

Since I am a big wuss, afraid of cutting myself and destroying the trim Jonathan helped me measure and cut the wood pieces. We just marked the trim at the edges of the MDF and used those to make our angular cuts. The miter box is really easy to use and has the angles on the box so you know where to cut. Pretty easy.

The next day I gathered up my supplies and went outside (in the blazing heat).

I painted the trim pieces a glossy black.

Once it was dry I glued them to the board and waited for that to dry. I then used some caulk to fill in the open spaces between the trim since it wasn't a perfect fit. After that dried I painted over the caulk to finally have a finished project!

Actually, I was done but Jon was not. Weeks ago I had picked out a cheap framing kit from Michaels for $2.50. Jon used that to add a wire to the back of the frame and FINALLY we were done!

We hung the final product other side of our clock with our wedding. Not bad right? It looks even better in person. This is probably one of my favorite crafts to date because it was super easy, cheap (I already owned most of the materials) and I learned to use a miter box and saw. And I think my version is way better than the TJ Maxx version. Just saying....

Third Time's The Charm

First the BIG REVEAL!

Now let's back, back, back it up.

Jonathan and I started this project right after Christmas. We finished at the end of January. Yep, it took almost a month to update the smallest room in our house.

After Plan A- our pedestal sink idea- didn't work out, we opted to buy a new, smaller vanity and sink. We did some shopping comparisons and purchased one from Lowe's. We brought it home and left it in the box. In our dining room. With all of our Christmas stuff. For three weeks. You know while we did this and this.

It's kinda embarrassing to show the world wide web the hot mess that was our house but I keep it real. Our house looks like a disaster zone whenever we are in the middle of a project. This was not our best moment but at least we had an excuse to (keep on) eating on the couch.

We finally decided to get on it and do this thing in the last week of January. Jonathan got back into Handy Husband mode and installed the new vanity. Which he did pretty quickly while I said "I love it! Don't you?" several times.

He hung up the old mirror and we stood back to admire his handy work. And we were not impressed. The vanity was awesome but the mirror looked way uglier than it had before. Time for Plan B- to frame out the mirror a la a thousand Pinterest tutorials (you know, where you cut trim and glue it to the mirror).  We went to Home Depot, spent twenty minutes picking out trim and took it to get cut. Only to be denied. Apparently they (and Lowe's) can only do straight cuts and not the angled ones we needed.

We went back home to wallow in our my defeat. Until Jonathan said that we should just buy a new mirror. He had actually suggested this back when we started brainstorming for this project but I wanted to try to revamp the existing one. AKA I was being cheap.

Obviously that failed and back to Lowe's we went. After some late night wanderings, I selected a pretty new mirror.

Jon picked out a new towel holder. We also wanted a new stand alone toilet paper holder because we didn't want to make holes in our new vanity. Back home Jon installed the new mirror and towel holder. I used a floor vase ($8 from Target!) and stuck some twirly nature-y fillers (Ross is my BFF).

Next was the artwork. Jon and I each picked out a frame on our Ross trip and I made the canvas piece. The rug was a purchase off Joss and Main. Recently we added the glass shelf underneath the mirror to hold the soap and this adorable elephant ring holder my cousin gave us. You can't really see but its cute. Promise. I painted a salad dressing maker thing and stuck some flowers in it  but the door is hiding it. And we are done! It took forever but I am crazy proud of the way it turned out.

One more time- Before & After:

Unfortunately its hard to take good photos because the room is so small and there's no natural light. Obviously an orange bathroom isn't for everyone but we like it. And if we want to change it down the line, its nothing paint can't quickly change.

$350 + 3 weeks = The prettiest orange half bath you ever did see. At least in my humble opinion ;)

You Heart Us

Even though I like to get my craft on I didn't do a single crafty thing for our wedding. Jonathan and I assembed the invitiations but that was about as complicated as we got. However, I did have an idea to DIY our guest book. Thank you Pinterest!

The photo has kraft hearts and heart cut outs of a vintage dictionary assembled as 3D art. I actually wanted to order one from the seller but the only option was to go with the exsisting colors and paper. I figured I could make something similar that would match our wedding colors and would fit in to our home.

With leftover scrapbook paper from my bridal shower and some new metallic gold paper I used a heart punch out and cut out tons of little hearts. I saved all the gold ones and put all the purple ones out at our wedding. We asked all of our guests take to a heart and sign it. 

All the hearts sat in one of our closets for almost 6 months. I am a slacker bride. But doesn't every new wife need time to recover after the wedding? As our six month anniversary is approaching I FINALLY decided to put it all together. Intially I wanted to use some leftover MDF from our Man Cave bookshelf project but I couldn't fit all of the hearts on it. Jonathan said we could just leave some off. Yeeeeaaaahhhh, no. Michaels saved the day with their sale on shadow boxes! I picked one for $30 (it was 50% off!), laid out all the hearts and played around with the layout I wanted. 

Jonathan watched the Laker (ew) game while I worked. 

I slighty folded the hearts in half, glued them down...

And stuck the whole thing back in the frame. 

LOVE IT. I love that its something we can hang in our home (forever hopefully!). I didn't want a book that would  sit in a closet or under our coffee table unseen. All of our favorite people and their well wishes for our marriage are on display and its so sweet that we can literally see the love everyday.

P.S. Yes, its on the floor in the photo. We haven't decided where to hang it yet!

Our First Project

The guest bath (the one off the ManCave) was actually the first room we redid. It seems like such a strange place to start considering we don’t really use it. I’d like to say that I was trying to get everything ready for our eventual guests but in actuality we started in that room because it didn’t really need a whole lot. Thanks to our awesome friends and family we got most of the stuff for that room for our wedding. All we really had to do was paint and add some shelves.

Thanks to one of those Design Seed color boards on Pinterest I found the color palette we I wanted to use in the bathroom and the Man Cave. 

Since the entrance to the bath is inside the Man Cave it only makes sense that the colors should go together. I thought i twas going to be really hard to convince Jon to go with such a bold color but I was so wrong. In fact he picked the shade of navy we went with. 

Since this was our first paint job this is when we began to notice that the paint in all the rooms was badly done. I didn’t think it was possible to mess up paint this much but it is. The mirror, light fixture, sink, towel bar, outlet plates and bathtub all had dried paint on them. Lovely. It took awhile but we were able to scrub a lot of it off. We didn’t really want to replace anything major in here so we really tried to remove as much paint as possible.

We taped off everything and got to painting. I think this is the only room in the house that I actually helped paint. I use the word helped loosely because I’m not sure I was that helpful. If I remember correctly Jonathan had to go over my strokes… but it’s the thought that counts, right?

Fun fact- it’s really hard to paint the area behind the toilet. It’s also hard to paint up to the ceiling in the tub. Even with a ladder.

The paint in here is not even close to perfect. After we were “done” we knew that we’d have to go back and fix the lines on the ceiling. It’s been a few months and we still haven’t done that. We’ll get around to it one day. Maybe.

Once the paint dried Jonathan installed two shelves above the toilet for me. After he did his thing I was able to do mine. I hung up the shower curtain, put up the towels and made the shelves look pretty. It’s really hard to think of decorative stuff to put in a bathroom. I’ve never noticed what other people have in their bathrooms and I couldn’t really find anything so I made my own. The weirdest thing in there? The wine bottle thing. I stuck some curly willow from our wedding flowers into an empty glass wine bottle from our rehearsal dinner. We get tons of compliments on it so it must be nice. And it was free and easy. The round medallion metal thing is a recent addition.  I’m always looking for new house stuff!

I LOVE the shower curtain.

My favorite thing in the bathroom is the wee wee dance (what else would you call it?) canvas. Why? Because I made it and it's so funny.

My awesome friend Amy and her husband cut the silhouette on her cricut and I used a paint pen to color in the people. This is the view from the toilet. Totally appropiate right? 

Inspried by this version on Etsy

I wish I had a picture of the before when it was all white. Paint, shelves and one weekend made a humongous difference. Now for some guests!