Pinteresting-The Craft Version and The Pinterest Challenge

Update-I originally posted this a few weeks ago but I'm re-posting it today for the Young House Love/Bower Power Pinterest Challenge. 

A few weeks ago I decided to 'pinter' some art work.  I made this picture one night while my husband was watching some sort of sport downstairs.  He never even saw me in action.

I got the idea for this from here.  Here is where I pinned it.  Essentially you just paint or draw branches with brown marker or paint and then paint circles on the branches as leaves.  I used some old acrylic paint I had lying around.

I was not 100% happy with this when I finished.  Once I put it in the frame, I liked it better (fun fact-you can make most bad art look decent by framing it).  I like how it looks from far away but not so much from up close.  Fortunately, I usually only look at it from far away.  So for now, it's a keeper.  I can always re-frame something else when I get sick of it.

The second thing I made didn't come from a specific pin.  I had seen a lot of people use paint sample chips (cards from Lowe's, Home Depot) to make art work.  So I thought I'd give it a try.  After some trial and error I went with these hearts in varying shades of blue which I taped onto a piece of white paper.  Then I framed them in this dollar store frame. 

So if I end up hating it in a few weeks there will be no big monetary loss.  (Free paint chips+ $1 frame=$1).

Here's how it looks all together.

Have you pintered any art for your house?

UPDATE 2-So I'm actually still liking my tree painting.  It's growing on me, so I think it will stay up there for awhile.  Now I need to re-pinter some art for the basement since my first attempt was a failure.  You can check that one out here.

Craft Room Renovations-Part 3-The Photo Wall

As I mentioned before, I have recently been really inspired by the blog Young House Love.  I'm kind of obsessed with it.

I knew I needed more wall art/photos for my craft room and when I saw this on YHL, I knew I wanted to do something similar.


photo from Young House Love

This is actually from the nursery at their old house but I wanted to do something like it with some photos and miscellaneous items that I had.  I bought some inexpensive (and on sale) white frames from Michael's and then set about arranging them and figuring out which of my photos and other items I wanted to put in the frames.  I actually used all stuff that I already had (well except the pic of Hobie which I had to get printed).  Mine is a mixture of wedding photos/mementos, a postcard from our honeymoon, a pic of Hobie, a couple other random postcards and a greeting card I thought was pretty.

B helped me with the hanging.  Hobie, of course, just stared out the window.

I ended up slightly moving all the frames a little after they were hung the first time.  I started to freak out about their spacing.  I could see myself lying on the bed in there staring up at the frames and thinking about how they were slightly uneven or crooked or what not and thus making myself crazy.  So I tried to make it as even as I could.

I'm sure some of them are still uneven and not perfectly spaced from each other but I am very happy with the results.

So I thought this ended up being a good project.  It was pretty inexpensive and the worst part was hanging all the photos (which I had help with).  What do you think?  Have you done anything similar?  Would you like me to send you a giant black and white photo of Hobie and his tennis ball for your wall?

Craft Room Renovations Part 2 aka Why I Baked B 2.5 Birthday Cakes...

I might have jumped the gun a bit the other day on my craft room renovations post by starting with the curtains.  I actually started with the floor.  Or should I say, Hobie and B started with the floor.

Our house has wood floors under the carpeted area.  When we moved in, we (well some people who knew what they were doing) took out the carpet and refinished the floors in our bedroom.  This time I decided we could totally do it on our own.  And by we, I meant Hobie and B.  I supervised.

I did remove all the stuff from the room (well except the bed, I'm weak).  So we had this......

Then B and Hobie got to work on pulling up the carpet.  At one point I was going to help B carry all the old carpet downstairs to throw away.  When he realized just how little arm strength I have, he decided that dropping the old carpet out the window would be easier.

So then we had a carpet less room with some beat up old hard woods underneath.  B did a bunch of stuff that involved pulling out staples, sanding, using this big machine and painting it with something.  I went and bought him lunch.  Hobie did very little to help at this point.

So that was over Thanksgiving.  The floor was looking pretty good.  One day when we are super rich we may get the whole thing redone to match the newer hardwoods in the hall and den but for now these DIY refinished hardwoods are pretty good.

By Christmas break I had moved all the furniture back in and then found my curtain fabric and decided that I hated the light green walls.  So I headed to my favorite place (psike) Lowe's and bought some paint samples.  I brought them back and painted them on the wall and hated them all.  So I went back to Lowe's and bought some more.  I finally found one I liked (it's the far right one by the way).

Then we bought the rest of the paint supplies and painted.  If I had known that I was going to paint the walls I would not have moved all the furniture back in.  Oh well.  I actually helped with the painting.  Hobie just watched (can you say lazzzzy?).  Painting the trim was not my favorite thing ever.  But I did it and there's only a few highly noticeable things for me to touch up.

So that was our Christmas break.  At one point I was all "yeah, B I'm going to paint this room by myself over Christmas break."  Then a day later I realized I didn't actually even know what supplies I needed to paint a room by myself.  So B helped me (a lot) and that's the story of why I baked him 2.5 cakes for his birthday. 

Have you ever painted a room on your own or pulled up carpet to find some decent hardwoods?

Who wants to come help me paint the basement?

Craft Room Renovations Part 1-Curtain Doors

I was wandering through the fabric store one day over Christmas break when I found this fabric on sale that I really liked.  I decided I would use it to make a curtain door for my craft room closet.  I didn't really like the folding doors that were already on it because it was hard to get in and out of.  I purchased the fabric and took it home and decided I didn't like the color of the room with this fabric, so I decided to just go ahead and paint the room.  That totally makes sense, right?  That was the beginning of my craft room renovations.

So over about 5 random days I made these curtains.  Why is there a big blue strip at the bottom?  That would be because the fabric I got was too short.  Oops.  I'm still not very good at sewing (a straight line in particular) and there was a lot of trial and error with these curtains.  In the end, I think I like them.  I'm not positive.  But I think I do.  I'm still not sure about that blue on the bottom or the actual length of the curtains.
So here are some photos.  It was hard for me to figure out the lighting and angle to take pictures so these are a little weird.  The green of the room does not really look like it does in real life. 

The room is not really this shade of green.

I'm trying to organize the inside of the closet for storing all my random stuff.

So that's part 1 of the many things I have done to this room.  I know you can't wait to hear about the rest!  PS-I blame this blog for making me think I could suddenly be a DIY home decor expert.

Have you ever sewn curtains?  Or a curtain door?