Monday, December 2, 2013

DIY Cheap, Cute Wall Art

I am finally working on my blog book form 2010!  I have 3 years to get done! Hoping to catch up!  I had lost a lot pictures and the work I did start on the 2010 blog book do to computer viruses, twice!  Then I had a baby girl and finally bought an iMac and now that my girl is older I'm playing catch up.  I do so LOVE our family blog books!  It's our family journals complete with pictures!!!  We look at them a lot!

In working on them I have to pull out the DVD's and upload my pictures again because I've since deleted the pictures from the blog to create room for the new posts, because i'm too cheap to pay for storage, but I may just pay the few dollars now.  Another place to have a back up of my pictures!  So in doing so I finally pulled out the pictures for this awesome craft I did way back on August 1, 2010!  I plan to finally make some for my mom for Christmas this year.  I can't believe it was over 3 years ago!

So here it is...

I LOVE crafts!  I just don't have too much time to do them anymore.  A little less than a month ago I went to a craft blog I have book marked (and there should be a button for it on the side of my blog) and surfed around some more craft blogs for over 2 hours during nap time.  I found all these fun crafts I wanted to do!  I was so excited!  (That was before I joined Pinterest, now it's much easier to search for crafts and keep track of the ideas you find.)


I wanted to put "art" on my walls for a long time, I just couldn't justify spending $20+ on a painting or picture that I just didn't love, and for years I have not found one that I loved.  I have tons of pictures of my boys and family all over my walls, but I would like "art" too.  I have a lot of artsy pictures that I have taken but didn't know what to do with them, I didn't want to frame another picture on the walls, even if it wasn't people.  And I found an idea on one of the craft blogs, I actually saw the same idea on a few blogs so I can't give one person the credit.  And a similar idea is in the Family Circle magazine this month.

So here is what I did...
I went from this… 
(well the picture is an 8x8 and I used a 6x6, the 8x8 will be used for something else, and wait until you see that, it will be awesome!)

I bought my box at AC Moore, the 6x6 is around $3 and the 8x8 is around $5, but use the coupon and save a dollar two... a dollar saved is a dollar earned!  

I signed up for their coupons to be emailed to me.  I printed 2 coupons and did 2 separate purchases back to back, each with a box and each using a coupon, they didn't say anything.  You can also go to their website to print the coupons.  Or when you're at the store tell them you forgot your coupon and they'll scan one for you!

Here is what not to do…

This is what I did first, the picture above.

I adhered the picture with a spray adhesive, let it dry and then mod podged over it and it bubbled!  

This is what I read on a couple of blogs to do.  

YIKES!  Luckily I could peel it off and start over... phew!!!!

So this is what I used the second time around...

I spray painted the sides and top edges of the box, 3 times to get the look I wanted.  I printed the picture myself, I took this picture myself too, in the Outer Banks last summer.  I just love the picture and wanted something to do with it, so I was way excited to do this!

Then I put a thin layer of Mod Podge and put the picture lightly on top, since the squares aren't exactly the same I moved it around until it was where I wanted and used my fingers starting from the middle and pressing out to smooth the picture down.  Then I used my arms pressing firmly.  And just to make sure I wouldn't get bubbles, I put a white piece of paper over top (to protect the print) and then used the ruler to go over the picture.  And I let it dry for 20 minutes.  Or put a heavy book on top and let it sit over night!  But if it's small and you don't have time, at least 20 minutes, but maybe a little longer.

Then I put mod podge over it going one direction, you have to work quick or the mod podge will pick up the ink in the print.  I let that dry for 20 minutes and rinsed out the brush so I could use it again.

The brush wasn't totally dry after 20 minutes so I used another brush and mode podged in the other direction and ta-da…  

In this picture you can see the texture…

Today I did 2 others so I can have a set of 3.  However I discovered a spray, Clear Acrilic Sealer that you can first spray over the print so the ink won't run in the mod podge, but you should follow the directions and do about 3 coats.

Here are all 3 that hopefully will soon end up on my kitchen wall…  

I took all 3 pictures!  I just love them!

I can't wait until they are hung up!  The cool thing about the boxes is that you don't have to hang them, you can just set them on shelf if you wanted to.  What do you think?

I can't fine my original square of the red and yellow flower, I had added texture to the picture and it looked so cool!  I'd have to redo it at this point.  But I have the white flower and a 4x6 of the red flower, just no texture added to the background of the picture.  And I have some other flower pictures you may want to use.  I'll put them here in case you can right click and use them.  I'm not sure how the print quality is doing it that way, but hey, if you want to try go ahead…  They are all pictures I took...
















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