One Room Challenge, Week 4 Art and DIY's

Thanks for stopping by today to see the progress of our master bedroom. You guys, this past week flew! There is still lots to accomplish in the room and I'm glad we have a deadline of six weeks since it pushes me to get it done. Cue the panic attack (Just kidding)! This weekend we'll have some time between kid's sport activities to finish most of the DIY projects. Fingers crossed.
You would be so proud of me, I finally ordered some photos of our family and places we love. Why does it take me so long? I like the idea of black and white photos to keep it simple for our room. Here are some art inspirations for our room.

Mostly there are cute family faces in black and white, but I also printed off some pictures I took of Martha's Vineyard where we like to go every summer. This is one of them:

I'm also working on some shell art in the shadow boxes that my hubby made. My collection of shells is not this extensive but here is an inspiration image:

I'm also looking at a floor length mirror for one of the walls. I looked at HomeGoods the other day and they have quite a few that might look good. I better make a decision soon. I like this one from Kirkland's too.

The headboard is almost done. We installed DIY French cleats for the backing and I used a white heavyweight curtain as the fabric. We still need to put on the upholstery tacks.

Lots of our DIYs are started or almost done, so I hope to have more completed pictures for you next week. You can see what I've done in week 1,2, and 3. Stop by and check out my friend's progress in the ORC and the 20 designers who are all working hard.

Girl's Room: Art On The Walls And a Give Away!

First of all, thank you for all of your kind comments on the upholstered sofa. I feel like a proud mama of a blue
velvet couch! Ha! Today, I wanted to talk about art in children's rooms, namely my twin's room. Our girls
didn't have much on their walls and they were excited when we put up a gallery wall of pretty
art work for them. Squeals of delight!
Most pictures in their room are DIY,  thrift store art and a gorgeous print from Heatherlee Chan. You
don't need to spend a lot of money to get the look you want, but you do have to be willing to make
something. I hope you'll be inspired to make some art for your home. First, let me give you a tour of the
galleries:

On the dresser, my husband and I made this frame last year and I love the picture of our girls in there.
Above the large frame is this darling print, Sisters Art, I bought from Heatherlee Chan. Her art is
charming, whimsical and feminine- perfect for our little girls. They actually picked the print out, but I had a
hard time choosing just one. All her art is darling! I framed it in an Ikea frame and used a gold sharpie
to make some polka dots around the mat.

The flowers painting in the corner is one of my first attempts at oils in a long time. I had a great time
painting again and thought it would look good with the paint in their room (which is Benjamin Moore's
Love and Happiness). The ampersand and the silhouettes are also painted/cut by me. For the
ampersand, I sketched out the shape on fabric and cut it out. The key for this was to have thin material.
The 'Be Brave' banner was also cut pieces of fabric and adhered using Fabri-tac. The Degas' Dancers
print is from a thrift store and the calendar is from Rifle.

For my $5 thrift store chair I spray painted it white and used a gold sharpie to make the crest and vines. I
loved the chair when I saw it because I could see some kind of art or monogram going in the middle of it.

On the other side of the room, I had my two girls paint some watercolor art and I put them behind a
white mat. I can easily change out their art here if I want. They had a fun time making art for their room.
The map is from artist Judy Kaufmann. Love her work too!

After Christmas I spent a long time weeding through clothes and toys that were not used anymore. It felt
good to organize and simplify their toys. Putting their toys in plastic, labeled bins has been a HUGE
improvement from the catch-all baskets I had in here before. The girls now put their toys away and in
the right spot! Hallelujah!

These lamp bases are from Ikea and I used some Rub N'buff on them to give them a gold/brassy look.

I'll show you the rest of the room soon. We recently put their beds into bunk beds which makes
this room feel larger. The girls have a great area to play in now.

Heatherlee is kind enough to give one of you lucky ducks an art print. You get to pick which one 

you like/love. Her art will get you excited for Spring with so many floral prints and if you have a

 little child in your life it makes charming art for kid's rooms. 

To enter the Giveaway: First go to Heatherlee's Etsy store, Laddy Poppins to find your favorite print. Then, comment below and tell me what would be your favorite Lady Poppins print. One comment per entry. One winner will be chosen at random and will receive an art print. Make sure your comment is not a "non-reply" or else I won't be able to get in touch with you. 

For additional entries:
2. Follow me on Google Connect or Bloglovin
3. Follow me on Instagram
4. Like me and follow me on Facebook.
5. Subscribe to Heatherlee's mailing list
6. Like Heatherlee on Facebook.

The Give Away will close Friday, March 13th.

********** The Give Away is now closed. *****************

Linking this to: The Best of the Nest Link Party

Art for Children's Rooms

1. Map        2. Clouds art, Emily Jeffords        3. Similar one Here
4. Whales chart       5. Stand Tall      6. Ampersand screen print 

Lately, I've been organizing our twin's room and realized I don't have much art work in there. It's a room I've put on the back burner for awhile. Do you have rooms like that in your house too? I found some darling art work on Etsy, where I love to shop. Also, I thought I would show some other great ideas for the DIYer who doesn't mind making some art, or displaying their children's art. 

Oh Joy

Simply frame your children's paintings. Give them a brush and some paper and you'll have your very own abstract originals. 

Land of Nod

You could easily create your own pen-net like this IMAGINE one. 

Pintrest

Frame some lovely fabric. 

Silhouette Art

Last year, I made this silhouette print for one of our daughter's rooms. They're actually very easy to make. 

Bright Bold & Beautiful
I love collage art, especially displaying family faces.


Pintrest
Why have I not cut out my own ampersand with some colorful fabric?

There are so many great ideas for printing out free art, making your own art or displaying your children's art. What have you done in your children's rooms for art on the walls? I hope to show you some progress soon of the twins room, at present, it's a bit on the scary side. 

Turning A New Leaf

I've been blogging for a little over a year now and  love it! Your comments and encouragement have been so kind and helpful. I think what I like most about blogging is it reinforces me to stay creative. It might be a little late in the month, but I thought I would share some of the things I am going to work on this year.  

1. Love my Nixon D3200! Now, it's time to take a photography class.
2. Hang more artwork in our home! Art can really make a house a home. I have several rooms begging for something pretty/meaningful to be on them.
3. Organize the clutter in those closets. Don't call the Hoarders show on me yet! I have some major work to do. I don't know about you, but after cleaning up Christmas decorations I like things to look simpler and clean! Can't wait to show you some good before and afters and closet makeovers!
4. Make some time to read and keep learning. I think it's important to take a few minutes a day to do something enriching for your mind and spirit.

2015 is already shaping up to be a good year. What about you? Do you have some new goals on the horizon?

Summer Art Camp

As summer comes to a close (so sad) I thought I would share with you a fun summer tradition. For the past few summers one of my good friends and I put on a Art Camp for our kids, their friends and neighbors. We have loads of messy fun making different crafts, painting and baking. This year we had an older girls group (9-12) and a younger children's age group (5-7). Here's some of the creative things these kids did this summer:

 Painting on canvas is such a treat for these kids. We talked to them about sketching first and then they pick a still life they want to do (or not). These make for great works of art on their walls.

The girls also decorated their own tote bags using fabric or painting on them. My daughter Alison uses hers for her music bag now.

                   We made banners for their bedrooms or for their birthday parties using paper and fabric.

                                          It can get a bit messy when creativity is in the works.

          The older girls did some beautiful watercolors and we taught them about sketching and landscapes.

We had a day for the younger children to learn about Pop Art and showed them some of Andy Warhol's works. The children traced some shapes we had for them like a ducky, ice cream cone, crown, sailboat. etc and we used a grid method to break up their paper. Then they used poster paints to fill up the space. 

 Another activity was watercolor where they learned how to do Pointillism. Pointillism is like Impressionism but with tiny dots to create an image (think- George Seurat). The children used q-tips to create a pointillism effect.

Kids love to decorate cupcakes. They got to decorate a cookie monster and Elmo cupcakes. I didn't get many pictures of these because everything was gobbled up to fast.

 Lastly, we did a spaghetti art throwing day to learn about Expressionism. Think Jackson Pollock and splattering paint. Instead of throwing paint, we had the kids throw painted spaghetti at large pieces of paper to create an expressionist look.

 As you can imagine- it was a lot of spaghetti to clean up. However, they had fun running through the sprinkler at the end to get all cleaned up and I hosed my house down.

We also had lots of little side projects like these where we taught them to blend colors and using the color wheel. Summer is such a fun time to do art projects with kids. We had a great time and I'm sure we'll do more next year. What about you? Any fun art projects you made?

*All images are my own. 

Art By Way Of Glue Gun and Creating With The Stars: Round 1

Sometimes all you need to make unique art is use a glue gun and found objects. This little agate art is a favorite of mine. My girls and I bought these at the National Natural History Museum in D.C. They had so much fun picking out different little colored stones and agates. Now it can be displayed in our home. (The table is a great thrift store find with a marble top!)

Every summer we collect shells and sea glass at the beach. Again, it was easy to use a glue gun to stick all the shells onto a linen backing and frame it. 

                                             
                                                                       via
You don't even need a fancy big glue gun. I get the cheap ones and they do the trick.

 Part of making a gallery wall for our home is putting up art that has meaning. I made this simple L shape out of buttons and hot glued them down to the linen backing. Voila! Instant art gratification!

One more thing.................

                     

I've been pretty busy this past week working on my secret knock-off project for Creating With The Stars Contest. I can't tell you which one is mine, right now, since the contest needs to remain anonymous. You can go to East Coast Creative blog to vote for your favorite knock off project. The voting is open Monday and Tuesday and they will announce the winners on Wednesday. I can't wait to show you mine! This contest is super huge and I'm crazy excited to be a contestant.