When Bad Hotel Art Goes Good

This story begins a couple of years ago, while shopping in Kansas City. I stopped by the Curious Sofa, and found a great unframed botanical poster and brought it home with me. I recently read on Debbie's blog, that she has closed the doors of the Curious Sofa after 10 years, I'm sure it will be missed, I never got there enough.

I had the poster rolled up in my closet, all but forgotten, until last week when I was strolling through my favorite thrift store, and spotted some bad hotel art, the poster instantly sprang to mind. With all the snow and ice Missouri has been experiencing the last two weeks, I haven't been out much....but of course the first break in the weather, I make a beeline for the thrift store. Forget food and supplies.

Bad hotel art yes, but it was a fantastic size, great frame, matting and glass, a perfect candidate for a make-over. The tell-tell signs of being screwed to the wall of some hotel, yet left me questioning why anyone would want to steal this....and yes that is a mauve frame. Bleck.

...and the low, low price of $3.98, nice.

I felt super lucky that the matting was a perfect compliment to the poster, and while the poster didn't fit perfectly, it looked even better imperfect.
A great collected look( and it really is). I cleaned the glass and painted the frame black, I filled the screw holes in with wood fill, good as new. I had to paint the frame by hand because it is just too cold to spray paint, I used some black craft paint and a sponge brush.

After the frame dried, I reassembled everything. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out and my poster finally found a home, and on a budget.

I needed a big piece to serve as an anchor on the wall above my bookcases, and I think the bad hotel art did it! :)
I love mixing vintage and mod together...a printer's tray and an old wheel cog paired with modernized (with spray paint) ginger jars. All thrift store/antique store finds. The black urn is something I recently found at Hobby Lobby and added a little faux maiden hair fern. So for the duration of winter, or until I get bored, which ever comes first, I love how it looks up there.




Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you are inspired to reinvent bad hotel art!

Rustic Hand-Painted Sign

How would you like to be able to hand paint you very own rustic sign? You and I have both seen the mass produced signs in every retail store imaginable, but most of them are too country or too primitive or just a little too printed-by-a-machine-look for my taste. So I decided to make my own, and I'm sharing the step by step, so you can do it too.

If you are a project hound like me, I know you've got a scrap wood pile, with tons of too small to use for anything boards and that is what you need to begin. This particular sign is from a 2 X 6, but I've been painting on all kinds of boards, including my favorite fence boards.

Here is a list of supplies:

Scrap Wood

Acrylic Craft Paints:

Burnt Umber, Territorial Beige and Canyon Orange

Small Artist Brush

Sander

Towels

Spray Sealer

First, if your board is super dirty, give it a quick sanding with the palm sander and clean up with a towel.

Using Burnt Umber, base coat the entire piece of wood. Let dry.

Using Canyon Orange, top coat the entire board and let dry. I used the burnt umber as a base coat because we will be sanding later and that is the color that will be revealed, plus it acts as a primer.

Now it's time to start lettering. You can pick any word you would like, I chose Autumn for this sign. Find the center of your board, it is important to start in the middle of the board so you don't letter to big or too small. I just wrote the word out first. You can do cursive or a more whimsical lettering, it's all up to you! Once you get the spacing right, add in details to your lettering. Basically beef-up the word. I used a ruler to really straighten out the lines.

Erase all of the stray pencil marks, and you are ready to paint

Using Burnt Umber again and the Artist brush, start painting in the lettering. I almost always do a second coat for ample coverage.

After you have painted all the letters and let dry, erase the remaining pencil lines that you might have.

Now is the time to add in detailing with shading. Here is a question that I always ask myself: If the sun is shining high in the sky, where would the shadows fall? Just remember this as you add shading to each letter. For the color I used Territorial Beige.

Keep in mind too that this does not have to be perfect. We are aiming for a rustic sign that will be sanded later, don't waste time getting each and every brush stroke perfect. It just doesn't need to be.
See?

Here is the sign completely painted and dry.

Then attack it with the palm sander. I spend about 3-5 minutes sanding using medium grit paper. You can do this as much or as little as you would like, and each piece of wood will sand differently, which I really like.

As the final step, seal the sign with spray sealer and add a hanger to the back. Then you are ready to decorate! I like leaning the sign too, across a mantle would be great

In a milk glass bowl, with bittersweet and gourds
Here is a long one, this would be great over a doorway

I think you could customize anyway you wish, what about your last name? That would be fun! For the Halloween ones, I used Jack-O-Lantern Orange and Ebony Black, and the green is Avocado Dip.

Thanks for stopping by!

I hope you are inspired to paint a rustic sign, I really love the charm it adds for this time of year.

Dry Erase Frame

This is one of those projects that is just too easy not to do. It's fun and functional, I bet you've got everything on hand right now. Here is what you'll need if you decide to do one too:

Spray adhesive

Medium to Large frame with glass

Fabric of your choice

Dry Erase Markers

I found this frame while thrifting and knew it would be a great size for this project (it's a 16X20 size). What I really liked about it was the non-glare glass, that stuff is pricey at a frame shop. First, I took the frame apart and sprayed the frame black. Then I sprayed the cardboard backing with the spray adhesive and smoothed the fabric on. This is the fabric I had left from the iron-on art project, but you can use anything. Just make sure it's pretty low pattern so you can read what you write on the glass. I put in the glass and the fabric backing and it is ready to use! Easy Peasy! Use dry erase markers and it works just like a regular dry erase board, but a lot prettier!

I just wrote a bunch of seasonal inspired words, subway style. I like the handwriting with the look of the script of the Trick or Treat sign. The sign is available in my Etsy Shop, by the way.

Some other great Dry Erase projects:

Brittni at Paper n Stitch and Stephanie Lynn at Under the Table and Dreaming (love that Dave Matthews reference!)

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you're inspired!

Fall Festival @ DIY Showoff

Using Iron-On Transfers to Create Art

I have always liked the idea of rotating accessories and really quite enjoy it, but I really enjoy to do it seasonally. I like keeping a collage of art and photos over the sofa and I decided to do a little DIY art for Autumn.

For Summer:

For Fall:

I took down the flower and beach pictures, but I left the coral fern and winter tree (the two largest pieces) because I think they still work. The coral fern could be a "spooky branch" for Halloween right? :)
Really though, I have always really liked how the coral fern mimics the winter tree in shape, and I'll just add in some color for fall.

Here is what you'll need for the pumpkin canvas:

Pumpkin image from your computer

14" stretcher bars

Orange fabric

Iron-on transfer paper

staple gun

First, assemble the stretcher bars. Stretcher bars are found in the art department of any craft store. They come in various sizes, from 8" up to 40" so you can make any size frame you want. They are a really soft pine and easy to staple into, plus, they are really inexpensive.

Assembled frame:

Next, print out the pumpkin image onto iron-on transfer paper, and set aside. Cut your fabric 2" bigger than the frame. Cut out the pumpkin image and iron onto the center of the fabric, I just eye balled it.

After the image cools and the paper backing is pulled off,
center over the top of the frame, flip over and staple all the way around, pulling the fabric gently


After everything is secure, you have an art piece ready to hang!
I made a companion piece as well, printed and ironed on another style of pumpkin onto a linen color fabric
Stretched it also, this is an 8x8 size (isn't it cute?)

I hope you're inspired to try some iron-on tranfer art! It's not just for t-shirts anymore! Thanks for stopping by!







Fall Festival @ DIY Showoff