Wall Art... I Actually Made Some!!

I LOOOOVE the Tip Junkie website. I am subscribed to get daily emails of all the great DIY stuff, printables, different party themes, and about a million other fantastic things like that. Last week (before I started the powder room) the Tip Junkie email had a wonderful link to a blogger that has a tutorial on how to create your very own wall art for the non-artist like me! It looked simple enough, so I went for it! You can find the original link from Tip Junkie here and you can find the original tutorial here. LOVE the colours and how it turned out, but one person who commented said it would look amazing in cherry blossom colours and that got my mind going! H's room is light pink and I thought it would look divine above her dresser or bookshelf!

Now I'm going to show you my process. It turned out WAY better then I thought! {Considering I can't draw a straight line... but then again, art doesn't have to be all straight lines... no?}

H, J & I headed to one of our fav store's again... the dollar store! We bought some canvas, acrylic paints and a few brushes to add to our ever growing collection.

They only had chisel tipped foam brushes, so I used my scrapbooking scissors to {attempt} to make a rounded edge. It really wasn't all that successful, so just ended up using a regular more fine tip brush.

I started out by drawing some brown lines for the tree trunks.

Next I added round circles of various colours and sized all over the canvas.

Then I simply added more dots until I was satisfied with the amount of circles. I also added a couple of extra branches here and there if I thought there was a spot that needed to be filled.

That's it!! That's how easy it was! H really likes her new painting, but it's actually too small for her room! Sooooo, I went out to Michael's {who was having a sale on canvas last week} and I bought a two pack! Now I can re-do this one {bigger} for H's room and then do it again {in different colours} for J's room! {Yes, I'm excited, and if you haven't already noticed... I use a LOT of exclamation marks! haha.}

Be sure to check out the original post to see all of her step by step instructions. Her's are also done in "boy" colours, so you can see a different approach. If you do this, please feel free to send me a link or a picture so I can see what you came up with!

Enjoy!

Chrissy

Powder Room!

This weekend has been busy. Super busy! H, J & I went out on Friday and purchased most of the items to get us started on the powder room! {Squeal!!} We hit up The Home Depot (for chair rail), Lowe's (for bead board) and of course Goodwill! I picked up a bunch of goodies there for cheap. Real cheap! Goodwill = amazing deals. Every time.

Here's the picture frames we picked up! Aren't they delish!?
Ok, so not really, but I'll make them look purdy... trust me!

Next we have all the glass bottles we scored! (Oh, and of course my little H being a ham... as usual.)

She's just too darn cute so I had to add the second picture. Who doesn't love that face!?

 Moving on.... Because the house is in such a funked state I wasn't sure exactly what theme or feel I wanted for the house. I knew I wanted something modern, but elegant at the same time but wasn't sure how to pull it all together. So after a couple hours of browsing on google images, I found an amazing DIY blog that had the EXACT idea I had been looking for! You can view her amazing blog and her original idea for her powder room here. She even gives you step by step instructions on how she did it, which is exactly what I used! Thank you Sarah!!

Before

After!

Now here's a few pics of the actual transformation:

After the paint went on the walls. (Well 3/4 the way down the wall actually.)

My slight mishap! Note to others: When moving the ladder, remember to take the paint tray OFF the ladder first!!! (Note the awesome painting clothes and how I'm rockin' the pretty nails!)

The secret ingredient: bead board WALLPAPER! Looks just like the real deal!

We removed the old TP holder. It was outdated and was going to be waaay too hard to wall paper around that sucker.

The Hubs cutting the chair rail.

The "almost" finished powder room!! {EEK!!} 

I love, love, love the way it's turned out so far! Unfortunately, my card reader has died and I have no way of getting my pictures off my camera tonight. {Boo.} So I'll have to upload some more tomorrow when I actually get out to the store to buy a new one. But last night we changed the light fixture, added a FAB mirror {also a Goodwill purchase!!} and a new towel bar and TP holder. I bought a few accessories and some shelves that I still have to put up. Oh, and look what I've done with those picture frames and glass bottles my pretty little H was modeling with:

Check out this DIY tutorial on making milkglass bottles!

 I can't wait until I have everything done and put in it's place!! Getting so close to being finished! Thanks everyone for reading and stay tuned for more of the powder room!

The Beginning...

This will be my very first blog entry. Ever! I'm a lot excited and a bit nervous at how it will turn out, but a girl has to start somewhere.... right? That being said, I think I should introduce myself and the reasons behind my idea to blog.

The Hubs and I just purchased our third home (with our two little girls H & J.) We got a great deal on the house buuuut it was because it's a power of sale. Needless to say the house needs a TON bit of work. We've painted the master bedroom, Master bath and H&J's bedrooms so far, but that's all we've been able to accomplish since we moved in a few months ago. (And we did the painting before we moved in.) I currently have towers of boxes in three corners of the dining room and it looks like they are going to be there forever!! Ugh.

 This is one corner of the dining room...

Annnd another....

 Annnnd finally the other corner... See. All three corners. Boxes. Blah.

However, I'm an avid reader of a few DIY sites who have seriously inspired me to start small, and to go for it! And so that's what I'm doing! Me! The girl who does pretty much nothing when it comes to getting my hands dirty...well except for when I get ink on my pretty little fingers when scrapbooking! And I'm not kidding about my fingers... They are pretty! I work in a spa. ;o)

Today while the Hubs is at work, H,J & I are about to leave on the hunt for a few things to start the redecorating of our home. (We are starting in the smallest room of our house, The Powder Room!)

Currently what the Powder Room looks like (Potty & all.)

I know it's going to take a century a couple of years to get the house where we want it, but this is going to be my journal of how it goes! I hope you can be patient with me as I journey along into the world of blogging & doing things myself, on a TIGHT budget.

Well that's it for now! I hope this first entry didn't suck too badly! Annnd, I hope you'll follow along with me and hopefully give me advice and tips on DIY(ing) and blogging in general. 

Cheers for now!

Chrissy