DIY Watercolor Art Print

Remember that gallery wall we created in our hallway?

 

We filled up all of the frames with happy memories in our life. Mostly pictures of adventures, family, and our relationship. And while these snapshots of moments are precious and lovely, we felt that the wall needed to be broken up with a few art pieces. Y'know...to keep things interesting.

I wanted something personal and meaningful to us, so I aimed to create this art piece myself. Though I am certainly no artist (my 'art' portfolio circa 2001 would prove that to be accurate), I needed it to be simple and quick. Because I have a very long to-do list.

Out to prove to my parents that my first year of college wasn't a TOTAL waste, I used a method I learned in Painting 101 to create a quick print. See, mom, I did learn something!

Justin and I have a quote that is very dear to our hearts; one read during our wedding ceremony before we exchanged our vows.

"I have for the

first time found

what I can truly love -

I have found you."

The quote is from a Charlotte Bronte novel (Jane Eyre) and is true down to the deepness of our soul. After Justin and I met each other in 2011, I learned a lot about love. Our relationship taught me that love in not many things. It's not jealous, it's not hateful or sporadic; true love is honest and warm, it's always there and it wraps you in the warmest blanket even in rough times. I was so blessed to find that guy I married, he really is the greatest human being I know. He's the best, guys. And if you're honored to know him, you would probably agree that I'm the luckiest little lady to have him by my side.

Anyway, enough of that lovey-dovey stuff. Let's make some art!

This art print is as easy as it gets, folks. It took me about 20 minutes from start to finish, including dry time.

First, I gathered up the items I needed.

• Matte Board (from gallery wall frame)
• Poster Board (not glossy poster board)
• Printout of Quote
• Artist Masking Fluid
• Fine Paintbrush
• Wide Paintbrush
• Watercolor
• Cup for Watercolor

1) I created a Microsoft Word doc of the quote I wanted to copy. I used Arsenale White for the font. Then I printed the quote out to the size needed for my frame. (Quality of the print doesn't matter since I'm just using this as a guide).

2) I cut the poster board to size and laid the matte over the poster board and centered it in the matte board frame. Then I taped the quote to the board so it didn't move around.

3) I used a pen to trace the letters onto the posterboard. Applying slight pressure to make sure an indent was left on the board.

4) After I confirmed a clear enough image on my board from tracing, I removed the printout and recycled it.

5) Using my fine tipped paintbrush, I painted the letters with artist's masking fluid. This will ultimately prevent the paint from absorbing into the paper wherever there is fluid. If you make a mistake, no worries, just wait until the fluid dries then rub it off and start again. *Artist masking fluid comes in tinted and untinted formulas. I used the tinted formula - this makes it easier to see where you've applied the fluid.

7) While the masking fluid was drying, I mixed up black watercolor in a cup and grabbed my wide paintbrush.

 

8) I painted watercolor over the letters.

9) After everything dried, I rubbed the masking fluid off. This was very easy - it came off in little balls just like rubber cement! Then I placed the image back in the frame. 20 minutes! That's my kind of project ;)

I love that softness and variation of watercolor. And I think it's the perfect fit on our gallery wall. Don't you think this would make a great and easy gift? It makes a beautiful statement hanging on the wall! 



I can think of a dozen other things I want to do with this watercolor stuff. Have you painted with watercolor lately? Do you have a favorite quote? 







Hallway Gallery Wall

Hi guys! We're baaaack! We took a bit of a blogger hiatus during the month of April to prepare our home for our annual get-together with friends. Then we took a little time out and refreshed our minds with a quick weekend vacation out of town. Have you all been busy too? It's so hard to stay focused on weekend house work when the weather is just beckoning to be enjoyed! I'm loving this sun and warm rainy days! 

 

We're still hard at work in our hallway trying to make it more inviting. So far, we've refinished those hardwood floors, added new baseboards and chunky casing, updated the lighting, painted the walls in Ben Moore's Edgecomb Gray, and updated the interior doors.

 

The long, boring walls were having a Taylor Swift problem (ahem...blank space), so we corrected that by adding a gallery wall. This took us a month to put together. But, it's finally done!

Most of the artwork (or frames) in our house is of the botanical or animal nature. In fact, I only have two personal pictures prior to creating this massive picture wall.

This was a great excuse to actually dig through all of those travel and wedding photos in Shutterfly and finally print a few!

A gallery wall can be complicated and frustrating. There's a variety of methods of methods out there to that gallery wall madness... taping silhouettes of the frames to the wall, laying out the frames on the floor first, framing them out in painters tape,etc. I like my method the best. It requires only a little bit of Photoshop skills, and some experience in shopping. I've got both of those down.

First, I drew my fake wall. Complete with baseboards, door casing, and the doorbell. I wanted all my frames to create one large shape, so I drew a rectangle to work within.

Then I filled in my 'frames.' I started with the big rectangular shape in the center and worked my way outward until I liked the layout. I did not measure, I just used my good 'ol common sense to create common sized frames.

I only had one frame that I already owned (the rectangular one in the upper left hand corner), but everything else had to be purchased. I printed out my layout and headed to Michael's and Ikea. Then I grabbed about 2 dozen frames between the two stores and started putting them together. I wanted the frames to be complimentary and uniform - black frame, white matte - with a variety of frame styles. I came across the gold frames at Ikea and grabbed three to liven up the space a bit.



The blue outlined frames are from Michael's and the yellow ones are from Ikea. Ikea had the best price on frames overall, but they only had 2 different styles so we had to mix it up a bit. We used 3M Command picture hanging strips to hang up the smaller frames. The biggest frames were hung on a screw with picture wire. Which will definitely save time with spackling holes in the future!

Three holes in the wall, two trips to Michael's and one visit to Ikea (not counting the extra-frame returns) and the gallery wall had come together.

I love the black frames with the touches of gold, yet it is a large gallery wall in a tight space. So we decided to keep the pictures black and white to not overwhelm the walkway. We waited until the gallery wall was finalized before we ordered up the images. The pictures that we chose to use ended up being a variety of our favorite memories... scenery from our travels, engagement, wedding, friends, and family photos.

Our door bell lays in an unfortunate spot right in the middle of our gallery wall. I painted the cover using leftover Edgecomb Gray paint to make it a little less offensive. It doesn't even bother me anymore!

One very special quote is at the center of it all. This lovely reading was specially chosen to be shared during our wedding ceremony before we exchanged our vows. It is a beautiful quote from Charlotte Bronte's timeless novel, Jane Eyre.

That quote is my favorite part of our new wall.  And the best part? It took me minutes to paint.



I love that this frame wall holds so many special memories for us. I can see it from the kitchen and from our bedroom and will often stop to glance and smile at these beautiful memories of ours. I'm sure these pictures will change a hundred times over the years - but isn't that the fun part to watch lives grow and make new happy memories?

 

 

Do you have any folders in Shutterfly waiting to be dusted off and hung on the wall?

Living Room Redo

I never know when and where inspiration is going to strike.  Like one Saturday morning, when my plan was to finally put my office together - build the bookcases and finalize paint decisions.  That didn't happen.

I shared this last update of our living room in March a few weeks after we bought our house. I knew when I shared an update back then that I would restyle it soon - a room is never done. Change is constant in life.  And in this house.

I just needed to find the right mix of décor to make this room stand out a bit more to reflect our personal style. So when inspiration finally hit I had to take full advantage of it.

The living room looked more like this by the end of the day. 

We originally painted the mantle in the living room white 11 months ago when we first moved in. But a Saturday morning at 8am found me craving change. So I tossed aside the plan for the office, and brought out my new favorite can of paint.

Oh yeah, this won't be the only update about my new favorite paint color.

The new black-painted surround on the fireplace looked too heavy in the light-colored room.  So I brought in some warmer colors to complement the new look.

Don't be fooled by the quick transition.  It took a full day of playing around with different items from around the house until I finally found a good mix.

The best part of this update is that I didn't spend a dime.  I shopped the house for all decor.  And all of the furniture is from our last house - I just purchased a rug and sofa table to accommodate for the larger space.



The mantle is adorned with meaningful items - a wine stave that we picked up while in Traverse City for our wedding, a window from an old home in Romeo (picked from the trash), a mercury candle stick I bought from an antique store, a wreath I bought from our last girls' trip to the Country Living Fair, and two gifts from my mom - a mercury candlestick (to match my antique one) and a vase I had been lusting over from Pottery Barn.

The frames surrounding the fireplace previously resided on the wall in the dining room.  I change out the images frequently throughout the year.  Botanical pine prints adorn the frames in the winter.

I haven't replaced the blank space in the dining room quite yet - I'm still waiting for that strike of inspiration...

The green trunk was one I picked up 6 years ago at a garage sale for $15.  The owner had this stored in a garage for years, and it was COVERED in spider sacs.  I wanted this trunk so bad that 8 generations of spider families wouldn't keep me from it.  It was locked shut and the owners didn't have a key, so they sold the trunk to me for a small fee.  I picked the lock and discovered a beautifully untouched steamer trunk on the interior.  It's like it hadn't been opened for 90 years (I suspect it was used around 1910). 

I was so excited to bring it home and clean it up, but then, I never found a good spot for it.  So I dragged it around for the last 6 years from house and house and stored it in garages and basements. Until it was dragged from the garage for the last time...

Nothing like 18" of snow to get the creative juices flowing.

It's such a simple change and it really warmed up the place. Here's a look back at where we started about 12 months ago...

And today.

Here is where we currently are with the living room.  Not quite done... but nothing ever is.

- Remove window seat
- Refinish hardwood flooring
- Replace base molding and window casing with chunky white trim
- Update mantle by painting it white
- Paint brick surround black
- Hang drapes in the bay window
- Tile hearth with slate to match the floor in the family room
- Install 'floating' crown molding beneath the coved ceiling
- Wire room for overhead lights
- Tile brick surround on fireplace
- Build bookcases for the opposite side of this room (to flank the opening to the entryway)
- Convert the room to a large dining space (maybe)