Paint Chip Art-Pinterest

We've all established that I needed to paint a wall in my living room, behind the starburst mirror I made. But I could never decide on a color.

Well, I finally decided,  all of them.

My starburst wall with all the color behind it.

I found some great stuff on Pinterest as inspiration.

I had wanted to avoid painting the wall altogether when I decided I didn't like any of my ideas that I mentioned earlier in my blog. So, I dragged myself to Home Depot, took as many paint chips as I could. I felt strange as though I shouldn't, even though they are free. One of the paint guys came up to me and showed me that they had a little folder with 1/2"x1/2 swatches. And I told him I needed something bigger. I then asked if that was alright. He said that was what they were there for. So I felt better taking so many. I left many as well so it's not that they were out of paint chips after I left.

The paint swatches I took were from Behr. I loved them because they were 3" x7" and that's just perfect. The bigger the swatches the more color on my wall.

I brought them all home and tried to keep them in the same order they were in on the paint swatch wall.

Laying out the order

final panel of greys

After I figured out the size of my wall panel I cut out some contact paper and peeled it back one line of swatches at a time and stuck them on. I then followed the same procedure with the rest of the colors . I had originally thought I would use all the colors, red, oranges blue, green, the whole rainbow. But I began to have more swatches than I could carry so I kept it in the cool spectrum.

I had originally thought to put it vertically behind the starburst, but changed my mind after laying it out on the floor.

After that, I just pinned up the contact paper/paint chip panels on the wall with thumb tacks.

My only regret is that I didn't center it evenly on the wall.  It's off  by a few inches, but, I just don't feel like taking it down yet.

I'm pretty pleased with it. My husband even told me that it "looked cool". Of course, from him he could be pulling my leg.

Ruth

Artists and Illustrators of whom I am extremely jealous-Antony Hare

Wow. I just found out about this guy today from Notcot.org.

Antony Hare. His black and white, or two tone illustrations are just breathtaking. I love the inky black color, and his hand-drawn typography.

http://ahpi.ca/

Just fantastic stuff.

Property of Antony Hare

I completely understand the sentiment of the "bleeding pencils"

Property of Antony Hare

Mitch Hedberg portrait, oh how we miss you Mitch.

Property of Antony Hare

The Whopper, oh how it is aptly named.

Good job Antony.

Ruth

Lullaby Book-Finished

Hi Guys,
I've been working on this Lullaby Book for quite some time. The better part of a year honestly. It started as a little project for my son so I could sing him the correct lyrics to lullaby's. Then it became much bigger, to me at least. I had thought of getting it professionally printed and bound through several online book printers, but alas, most of them only had templates you could use and didn't allow the size or dimension of my illustrations. After months of trying to get my artwork to fit into their templates I just gave up and printed them out myself, and pasted them in to a scrapbook.  Maybe when I get a bit more patience for all the enormous changes it would require to get it printed, I will. But in the meantime, it serves its original purpose. I now know all the words to the lullaby's I like to sing.

Here are some pictures.

The Lullaby Book cover

I had ten lullaby's in all but only pictured my favorites. I'm very pleased.

Ruth

The Nook Cover

Last year I and my brothers and sisters got our Mother a Nook. She is an avid reader. Many of us are bookworms as well. I had borrowed it for a trip and before I went (because I drop things a lot) I looked for a cover to protect it. I never found one I liked (I only went to Walmart) and they were all too expensive. So I did what every weirdo person does...I made my own with things I had already.

Here it is.

I had this fabric in my stash. They were curtains that I had turned into a slipcover for a love-seat and then abandoned when I had gotten bored with it.

Aren't you glad someone invented Velcro? It's just super.

The nook cover is stabilized with thick fusible interfacing. It's normally for crafts or for sturdy purses, so it fitted my project perfectly. It's just fabric, bias tape, some rick rack, 1/4" elastic, 3/4" velcro, and some thread and interfacing. The bias tape stretched, which isn't surprising since that's it's purpose, and the zig zag stitching didn't turn out beautifully in contrast on the rick rack, but all in all, I was pleased and it functions perfectly.

Ruth

New quilt

I'm working on a new quilt. What do you all think? It's called a spiderweb quilt....

Paint my walls

I was thinking that I needed to paint a wall in my house. Just one. And had some super ideas. Or at least  I thought they were until I drew some out.

This is the wall that I'm thinking about painting.

The starburst just sits there, looking all bland. And I wanted it to pop. So I did a little drawing in Illustrator and came up with some ideas. 

The ever present arabesque pattern. 

A plain wall, no fancy painting.

Stripes

Chevrons.

I'm not really in love with any of them. Or maybe I just don't like my couch. Who can ever know. What are your thoughts?

Here were my inspirations:

Starburst Mirror-Tutorial

So, its been awhile. I have procrastinated getting back to blogging. But I hope I will be better in the future.

During the holidays I began a project. A project of decorating my house. I moved my furniture from storage, put pictures on the wall, and generally made my home my own. I had been living on borrowed furniture for almost two years because we had assumed living here would be temporary. It wasn't. So we moved our furniture in and I began a long awaited and very happy process of making my house a home.

One of my projects was hanging up decorations. Well, I had an empty wall for awhile above my couch. It was a lonely wall. I brainstormed and thought and searched and decided on a starburst mirror. But I wasn't in love with the size, styles and prices of the ones available. If they were perfect they were too expensive, if  I could afford them the size or color wasn't right.

I love Pinterest so I found many to look at. Quite a few people made their own. So, here's my inspiration and my subsequent tutorial on how to make a starburst mirror.

Lovely but not quite right.

This I found online at Target.com. I liked it but it was only a clock not a mirror.

I love this one but it's gold and I wanted silver.

So I got my materials together and began this crazy project.

12" plastic plate (hobby lobby $1.99)

100 (12") wooden dowels ($2.99 for a set of 25)

Glue gun (already had it)

silver spray paint (already had it)

Hang Tite Glue for slick surfaces ($3.00)

Picture hanging hooks

Garden Shears (already had it)

8" mirror ($3.99 on sale at Hobby Lobby)

First I divided all the dowels evenly and started cutting them into three sizes. I cut 1/3 in half (six inches), and the other 1/3 of the dowels I cut at 9". The others I left at 12".  Then I got my glue gun and started to glue.

I glued them in a pattern of 12", 9", 6", 9", 12", 9", 6" and so forth.

Yay!!! 

Then I spray painted the whole thing.

After spray-painting it I glued some hooks onto the back.

I also glued a bit of felt on to the sticks to stabilize them more and to make sure they didn't scratch my wall. I put some framing wire between the to hooks and voila!!! Ready to glue on my mirror.

Unfortunately, I didn't scrape off my spray-paint on the plate, or let the glue set for 2 minutes before putting on the mirror. Needless to say the glue never set and the mirror fell off. So I scraped off the spray paint under the mirror, and re-applied the glue, let it sit for 2 minutes and then squished them together. I set some weights on the mirror and let it cure for 24 hours and this time it held like a champ.

Here's my finished star burst mirror hanging out on my formerly naked wall.

I'm pleased as punch.

Here's my sexy instagram photo.

All in all it was a great project, not too hard, and in my opinion really worth it. And for those of you who might add that the starburst mirror is so over as a trend, you are correct. It is. But I don't care. I'll never be fashionable at the correct time. Go figure.

Ruth