Toddler Art Gallery

I have more toddler art than I know what to do with.  To be honest, some of it winds up in the trash.  But there are those few pieces that one particular pint-sized artist is very proud of and I was not sure exactly how I should display them.  I did incorporate one in our built-in shelf wall by Mod Podging it to a canvas...

I love it but I don't need one on every shelf.

After moving his crib out of the room and moving in a low chair (that folds out into a small bed) I had some wall space just begging for some fun...

Pay no attention to the unmade bed and pile of blankets next to the chair.  Its real life, people.

I saw an idea on another blog.  So off to St Vinny's and Goodwill I went, looking for some frames cool enough to house some masterpieces.

Here were 3 of them that I found...

I took them apart, wiped them down, washed the glass and went out to find the right masterpieces for each of them.  You could certainly paint them but I decided to leave them as is because there was another frame in the room in a similar hue.

But wouldn't you know it, I didn't have one big enough for my favorite frame, the oval one.  So I put a certain someone to work...

 By the way, one of your old t-shirts works great for a painting shirt.

 I painted that lame picture that was in the frame white and let it dry first.

 He was a little too obsessed with the brown which he referred to as "chocolate."  It was pretty hard to steer him away from so much "chocolate."

 And because I pick my battles, this is what the paint now looks like.

And with one final dramatic stroke of the brush, he declared, "Its done!"

And after letting it dry for a few hours, I assembled the pieces and up they went...

The other wall, just for funsies.

I can't help myself, I am a pattern and cover-every-square-inch-of-open-wall-space freak (thanks Mom!).

Happy Sunday Funday!

Craftastic

Guess I better start sharing some of these crafty art projects I have been doing.  They are piling up around here.

First up, embroidery hoop art.

Step 1- get embroidery hoops.  I got mine from JoAnn fabrics for about $1.50 each.

Step 2- decide on what fabric or paper you want to use.  I am in a burlap phase right now so burlap it is.

To be honest, I got a bit stuck after this part as the possibilities were endless!

Step 3- decide on your art.

I decided to do something different on each of them since they all had a burlap background that would tie them all together.

 Black felt with pink stitching.

 Black tulle in a spiral pattern.

 White buttons and a brooch.

 Letters and paint.

Step 4- hang them!

Viola!  Easy, fast, cheap and took up some negative wall space in my craft room.

Next up, I needed a piece of art to go on the shelf above the TV.  After I took down the Christmas decor, it was seriously lacking in style and visual clutter (which for me is a bad thing).

Pinterest is full of ideas for "state art".  I decided to make my own with some stuff I already had.

A frame and some left over laminate flooring from the craft room redo.  I measured out how big I needed the flooring and had the hubs jigsaw it to the right size (we almost both got frost bite during this process since we did it at like 9 pm on the coldest day of the year in the garage).  I would just like to add that I am more than capable of jigsawing it myself but the hubs gets all freaked out about me cutting my fingers off so he made me wait for him to do it.

 (Like how I got a pic of the laminate for the art with the actual laminate on the floor- super artistic)

Then I printed out a state of WI from the interwebs, cut it out and taped it to the laminate.

Then I dry brushed some white paint on the laminate.  I included the pic below so in the event that you try this on your own, you don't freak out when it looks awful and you still try to salvage it.  I had to add some water to my brush and really smooth it all out since the paint dried too quickly to do it without adding water.

 Crappy.

 Better.

Take your state off and this is what you will have.

I then painted a little red heart in the area we now call home and then glued the frame on.

Then hung it up and re-accessorized.

 

I think it would be cool to make one for all the states you have ever lived in and hang them all together.  Too bad I have only lived in one.

Happy crafting!