My Version of the Gallery Wall

You may remember a few weeks ago part of my plan for the week included turning a stack of my children's art work into a great floating art wall.  Partway into the project I realized my plan was not going to work so it was abondoned.  This week I started on Plan B and was successful.

I gathered a bunch of frames from my decorating stash and made newspaper templates of them all.  Then I sprayed all the frames black.  I rearranged my templates until I came up with a pattern that I was happy with.

 Then I hung up all the frames.

 And filled the frames with the art work.

 Here are a few of my favorites:

 I feely goofy.  - B at 5 yrs old

 My Family - B at 7 yrs old

The tall skinny drawing with the wild hair and the caterpillar dog with 8 legs is me and Duke

- I at 4 yrs old

Guest Post

You will find me over at Cleverly Inspired sharing this sweet pillow tutorial:

I showed you how to make your very own designer fabric for the contrast band here and now you can hop over to Cleverly Inspired for the tutorial for the rest of this ruffled pillow.

Canvas Art Tutorial

Canvas Art Tutorial:

I created this artwork this week and I am loving the dimension it has so I thought I would share this super simple tutorial with you so you can create your own.  There are so many ways that it can be customized to your own tastes using different shapes and color combinations.

The first step was to take an old canvas I had on hand and prime it so the color variations of the original artwork wouldn't show through.  I used Beauti-Tone Drywall Primer because that is what I had on hand but any primer would work.

 Using Liquitex Ceramic Stucco (available at Michaels or any art supply store) I pressed a bottle lid onto the ceramic stucco and then onto my canvas leaving behind textured circles.

In a plastic yogurt tub I squeezed 3 of the colors I wanted as my base and dipping my brush into the colors I painted my textured canvas.  You can see some of the color variations depending on what area my brush was dipped into. 

Then I mixed Behr Faux Glaze with some white paint I had on hand for my top coat.  I used the ratio of 3 parts glaze to one part paint.  Then I roughly brushed my glaze mixture over the whole canvas.  Using paper towel and a dry paint brush I removed the excess glaze mixture to let the undercoat of color to show through.

 Here is a close up of how it looks.

The great part about canvases is that because of their depth they can hide thermostats.  Here is my wall with the thermostat for our infloor heat in the basement.

 Here is the same wall with the thermostat neatly hidden behind the canvas. 

Guest Bedroom

Here are some photos of our guest bedroom decorated on a tight budget.

 The headboard, footboard and night stand were a set we purchased from an estate sale for $10 when we were first married ten years ago.  The tall picture frame has received a new life.  It used to be from a three sided room divider photo frame that we received as a wedding present also ten years ago.  I simply removed the hinges and painted it black.

 The duvet cover I made using a shower curtain (the patterned fabric) from a former house, and a black flat sheet.

 All three pieces of furniture I sanded lightly (they are cheap veneer) and primed with Benjamin Moore Fresh Start Primer.  Then I painted 2 coats of dark grey I mixed up myself using leftover paints.  Then I simply sanded away the edges using a sanding block and added new hardware.  I also added a basket to the night stand to give it a bit more modern look.

The canvas is just inexpensive Ikea fabric stretched over a mdf frame I nailed together.

Stylish Blogger Award

A huge thank you to Amber from Simple Dwellings for passing on the Stylish Blogger Award on to me, and all her help in entering the blogging world.  She has great style and is so kind so be sure to give her a visit.

Here are the 7 totally random things I am sharing about myself that you might not already know.

1.First and foremost I love my family and I love my position as Stay at Home Mom in this household. (Although I am occasionally envious of the corporate mother.)

2.My husband (of ten years) and I are currently living in the 4th house that we have built. (No it is not our career.)

3. I have played the violin since I was 3 yrs old and I am so thankful for the times my parents made me continue even though I didn't want to because it is one of the things I enjoy most today.  And I am so happy to share that love with my son!

4. I turn 30 this week and I am going to embrace it!

5. I love to bake.

6. Although I would love to be a professional student I only actually went to college for 1 year.

7. I cannot wait to get out into my disastrous yard and dig my hands in the dirt and do some good old fashioned hard physical labour!

Now here are the 5 fabulously stylish blogs I want to pass the award onto:

1. Crisp Interiors
2. Involving Color
3. Dream Book Design
4. Aja Lee's Sweet Life
5. Fabulous Design File

Rules for these 5 Stylish Bloggers:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.

2. Tell us 7 things about yourself.

3. Pass this award on to 5 other stylish blogs!

DIY Rustic Modern Bench

I am so thrilled with how this project turned out and I just couldn't wait to share the details with you.

Yesterday I started on the decorating of my kids bathroom.  The first task was to add a natural element to this space.

 I started out with this timber left over from the exterior of our house.

 First I brought it into the bathroom with the legs I purchased at Home Depot to make sure it would work as I had envisioned it before continuing.

 Then out to the back deck with my hunk of wood and Rigid palm sander.

 This is what it looked like after about 15 min of hard sanding and 6 squares of 60 grit sandpaper.  The all in one stain and finish used to protect this timber from the weather was doing its job very well and ran deeper than I thought.  I had to re-evaluate at this point.  My arm was already sore and I was out of this grade of sandpaper.

 Some might call it cheating.  I like to think of it as being resourceful. My dad has a woodworking business and a shop full of tools that would make this process easier.  Note:  He designs and creates gorgeous high-end furniture with a finish that is absolutely incredible but he humours me by letting me use his tools and a little of his help for my rustic DIY projects.  We ran my timber through the planer a few times and squared up the ends using the band saw.  Now back at home in my little makeshift workshop it is ready to finish.

 I used some stain I had on hand Minwax Wood Finish Jacobean. 

 Here it is stained and ready for the clear coat.

 I found this product that the finishers left behind from finishing our railing.  I am happy with the finish on the railing so I thought I would give it a try.  It went on very well with a brush and I did three coats with no bubbles or brush marks showing through.  It is very fast drying so was ready for final stages by morning.

I picked which side I wanted the legs to go on and set them up.

 I used a good old fashioned screw driver for installing.

Here it is in its intended home.  I purposely placed the large cracks to be showing because I love the natural beauty in them.  This bench is the perfect height for the kids to have a seat, and I also discovered to save my back when on hair washing duty.

This is a photo of their bathroom with their new 'natural' element.  Now I'm off to work on some art for this room.

Decorating the Kids Bathroom

This week I decided I need to tackle decorating our kids bathroom.  I am basically starting with a blank slate.  White rug, white shower curtain, white towels. 

I'd like to see the decorations in this bathroom kept very simple (the white tooth paste splashes on fancy trinkets just won't work here), with a few natural elements brought in and maybe a splash of color.  What color?  I'm not sure yet.  Any suggestions?  2 boys and 1 girl share this space so I will be keeping it fairly unisex and not disney themed.

 For some reason the colors look off in this photo but it is the same white based granite as my kitchen and the backsplash tile actually pulls out the brown tones in the granite very well.  Not exactly what you are seeing in the photo above.

 Here is that timber again that was on my to do list last week.  Some sunny weather has finally showed up so I am heading outdoors with this chunk.

 First I brought it into the kids bathroom and propped it on top of the legs I purchased at Home Depot last week to make sure it was going to fit the space the way I envision it to.  I'd hate to waste all that hard work.

 Here we are out on the back deck with my hunk of wood and trusty Rigid Palm Sander with 60 grit sandpaper.

This is what it looks like after about 15 mins of sanding and 6 squares of sandpaper later.  The oil stain that is on our exterior timbers is definitely doing its job protecting the wood.  It runs deeper than I thought.  I will either be sanding for days and going broke buying sandpaper or I will have to come up with another solution.