World Map Splatter Painting

I minored in Art History in college, which is ironic considering I don't have an artistic bone in my body. One thing I liked about the works of "action painters" like Jackson Pollock and James Brooks was they looked an awful lot like children's paintings. I always thought, "hey I could throw some paint on to a canvas too!" So that's exactly what I did...well, kinda.

I didn't want mine to look just like a splatter painting, so I thought I'd add a design to it to add some dimension. My husband is a bit of a map fanatic, so I chose to do a world map design.

First step - what you'll need is a couple of canvases (I got mine with a 50% off coupon at Michael's, so it was about $10 for two), a design template, paint brushes or sponge brushes, and paint. All in all, the supplies cost me $20.

Now this next step you can certainly skip if you want more contrast, but I chose to first splatter on a layer of light cream paint.  

After the paint dries, tape your design onto the canvas. I went waaay too detailed with the map and cut out little islands and stuff like that. You couldn't even really see the small island countries in the finished product, so if you do a world map, skip the detail (sorry, Iceland!). This part definitely took the longest and was the least fun. 

Next, splatter on that paint, baby! You can choose whatever colors you'd like. It was really messy and fun, and I released a lot of pent up frustration. Your kids can even help you with this part. Different brushes leave different marks. Don't be afraid to experiment because there's no way you can mess this up. I got mine on nice and thick in some areas and then added a little water to the paint to get more of a spatter effect and less of a globby effect.

Let the paint dry a little, but not all the way, or else your paper will stick to the canvas when you peel it off. The thicker the layers of paint, the crisper your edges.

So there you have it! So easy a kid could do it (or me, same thing, really), and your friends will be impressed with your custom "Jackson Pollock art".

Always a Bow

When I found out I was pregnant with a girl, I told my husband she would always wear a bow in her hair...even in her ultrasound picture!

I printed out her ultrasound picture (just on regular paper on my printer...nothing fancy), taped a little felt bow on her head and put it in an old Ikea frame I found in my garage. This cost me about 25 cents for the felt (well, it came in a 15 pack or something) and I think the frame was $4 or $5. Nice, eh? This was by far the easiest and cheapest thing I did in my little girl's nursery. 

Alphabet Wall Art

My son was learning the alphabet while I was putting together my baby girl's room, so I decided to make alphabet wall art for her nursery. I got my inspiration from here, but since I wasn't cool enough to discover Etsy until very recently, I decided to make the letters myself. 

Basically, I bought a bunch of scrapbook paper for around $5 for the background. Then I cut out the letters and glued them to the paper. Then I went to the Dollar Store and found a bunch of frames (easier said than done to find 26 of the same frame). They were black, so I spray painted them white. Then my son thought it'd be awesome to touch all the letters and one of the frames fell and broke. I went back to the Dollar Store and they had no more of the frames I had used, so I bought some similar ones. Now I was about 8 months pregnant at this time and it was July and hot and humid, so I decided against more spray painting and decided, why try to hide the different frames? So I put all the vowels in the different black frames. 

To hang these frames, I got some wall putty and stuck them all up in a line slightly lower than where I wanted them to actually hang. Then I measured the middle of each frame and drew a little line where I needed to place the nail. Then I nailed them and hung them up. Tedious? Yes. Crooked? Maybe. But it was easier than  trying to eyeball it because I just know I'd end up with a gazillion holes in the wall.