Crafty Wallpaper Contest: The Results!

The wallpaper craft is finished! Yipee! And I have the pictures to walk you through the steps.

(*NOTE: I am not a photographer. I apologize for this in advance.)

Cool Picture Framed Art

1. Buy nine – 1 foot square frames and spray paint them black.
I modified this step. I bought 32′ of 1×2 and mitered the ends to create 8 1′ frames, and spray painted the sides black. The reasons were cost and functionality. Frames can be expensive, and finding eight with flat faces was going to be costly and difficult. When you can’t find what you want, make it yourself, I say!

2. Carefully cut out a bunch of 1-foot x 1-foot squares of wallpaper – it’s ideal because you don’t need to trim or break the pattern.
I modified this step as well. It made more sense to me to paint the design on the front of the paper and then cut the squares. Thank you, thank you to Design Hole and Alluminare for the wallpaper! The paper is really strong and durable – believe me, I’m clumsy and I didn’t even nick it! – and the surface texture is great for painting.

3. Tack the squares to the front of the frames (and only the fronts, no wrap-around).
I used Tacky Glue. I love it! It is super strong and dries clear. I just like the stuff – no kickback for me if you buy it because of this site. :)

4. Arrange the frames into a 3-foot × 3-foot grid and secure them together (temporarily, carefully). Find a simple, graphic design and paint it in white across all the pieces.
Modified: see above.
5. Separate the pieces, affix to the wall in the same grid order, but about 1 to 2 inches apart on all sides.
(This is where my sucky photog skills really show off.)

 

And wah-lah! Wallart.

What’s that you say? Where’s the rest of the wallpaper? I’m glad you asked!

You Don’t Write… You Don’t Call…

Ha. Actually had a college boy-interest say that to me once. There was a reason. :D

Dear blog-readers, I’ve not kept up with you – I’m sorry! I’ve been traveling, first to my family for Thanksgiving, then to Oregon to see friends and family. My Google Reader has over 300 unread items! I can’t wait to see what everyone has been up to. And I am on the hunt for Christmas table setting ideas, presently.

This is also partly why I’ve been absent. We moved into our house October 26th and the chipper bird in me offered to have the Big Family Christmas Dinner at our new house. I’ve been a tornado of painting and decorating since. It’s our first house (every wall was hospital white – ack!) and I want the Grand Unveiling-Slash-Christmas to be just perfect. Today, I will be putting the finishing touches on all the painting projects, applying the final coat on the refinished china cabinet, and rearranging the living room. Hobby Lobby & Home Depot, here I come!

On top of trying to channel Martha the last few weeks, I’ve been working. Two (TWO!) lines of Christmas cards, a few patterns, a tutorial, tons and tons of sketching and I have a major-huge project next week. No, I do not take any drugs. But I drink an inordinate amount of coffee. And I don’t sleep…much.

So my fine feathered friends, as I have nothing of my own to show you, I’d like to point out some really juicy bits I’ve seen on other blogs (no particular order, no particular category).

  1. Do You Look Cheesy, Dull, And Out Of Touch? and My Designer Sucks! Posts by the infamous Sparky Firepants. The first is an excellent 1-2-3 for why people need designers; the second is a cringe-worthy 1-2-3 why people might hate designers. Excellent information in both.
  2. These Cheat Sheets by Made In England made me laugh out loud (yes, LOL) yesterday. Fantastic concept, and I like the design. Oh, and they’re FREE.girls_cheat_sheet
  3. Cry Translator for iPhone on Ohdeedoh. I don’t have a baby, I don’t have an iPhone, but I know plenty of people who do and THIS IS BRILLIANT. But…does it work?120109iphoneapp
  4. 4 Beautiful Holiday Place Setting Ideas from Design Hole Online. I like the 4th one best!
  5. My photo shoot with Aaron Courter Photography. He’s so incredibly talented. Well done, Aaron. Very, very well done.

OK kids, I’m off to Home Depot & Hobby Lobby. (Let’s hope DH isn’t reading this.) Enjoy your day!

Wallpaper! It’s Here!

I just received my wallpaper from Alluminare (thanks to Design Hole). Thank goodness the FedEx guy didn’t leave it in our soggy, snowy bushes (like the mailman did with my new coat – grr!). It came all nicely packaged in a HUGE cardboard tube.

IMG_7440

I opened the tube, and inside was a plastic sleeve, housing the wallpaper roll.

IMG_7442

I like the colors I chose against my dark purple walls. I think the project will turn out really well!

IMG_7445

(No, the pillows are not staying. Yes, there will be a piano along that wall. Stay tuned!)

Color: Ways, Theories, Combos, Palettes

I was asked last week where I get my colorways. In the world of color, how do you select a few that work together for your project?

Story time: years ago, a friend’s kid asked her mom, “Mom, what was it like before everything was colored?” She thought black and white TV meant the world was black and white!

Here are places I go to find great color ideas:

Home Depot/Lowes/Ace/Benjamin Moore There are FREE books, booklets, pamphlets, swatches, and strips of color, just waiting for you to take them home and spread them out all over your desk. It’s like a pet store for artists.

Alluminare.com If you’ve read this blog for more than about 2 minutes, you know I’m a huge fan of Alluminare. The website is completely addicting! You can pick a pattern and then move colors around and see how they work together. Better yet, order a color blanket and walk it all around your house to see how the light and your furniture react to certain shades.

ApartmentTherapy.com See what other people are doing in their houses right NOW.

Pottery Barn/PB Kids/West Elm/Crate & Barrel These companies (and others) have FREE catalogs and e-newsletters where you can stare at and look at and peruse and play with their color palettes. What’s trendy in teen decor? Pop open http://www.pbteen.com and find out. What patterns/designs are working their way into homes? Subscribe to Crate & Barrel’s e-newsletter and find out! Even better: GO to the stores. However, having lived in a city that didn’t have any of these stores, I learned the value of online/mail catalogs for finding color ideas a long time ago. After I moved to NYC, I remember the day I stepped off the train at 59th and Lexington and there was the biggest Pottery Barn I had ever seen. Really, it was one of those moments. Ahh…

Magazines, magazines, magazines I don’t subscribe to any except HOW, but I regularly pick them up individually. Good Housekeeping sometimes has “specialty” issues (not sure the real name) that focus on one thing or another, and I recently found one on decor and color. Inside there were multiple colorways, sample rooms, and -hot dog!- they listed the paint brands and names, should I want that color. Glorious! And who has the best decor magazines? Home Depot. No kidding.

Jim Kraus I rarely buy books about color or decor or trends because it changes so fast, and because the books I’ve seen seem to focus on one area, one culture, one climate. The world of art and decor is so vast, it would be impossible to write a book that includes everything. And at $30+ a pop, a book honestly isn’t a good investment for me. (Magazines are much better, in my opinion.) That said, I was given a set of three books years ago, as a college graduation gift, that I still use. Jim Kraus has a bunch of books geared toward graphic artists that are universally good for ideas on color, layout, etc. I have the Idea Index, Color Index, and Layout Index trio. I highly recommend the Color Index for finding groups of colors that work well together (and he gives the CMYK & RGB of each). I do end up tweaking the colorways most of the time, but it’s a great starting place.

These are my little hot spots for color. I know there are a bazillion other ways to find color inspiration out there. I would love to hear where you find yours!

Wallpaper Ordered: Check!

I just ordered this wallpaper from Alluminare for the projects I’m going to start soon. I’m really looking forward to them! I’ll post the DIY steps when I’m finished, but for now, here’s a taste of what’s to come:

Love This.

I was just playing around with Alluminare’s custom fabric tool (because lately, it’s like crack), and came up with this.

Do I get to love my own work this much? Because really, I love that colorway.

New Pattern Collection: Linoak

Hello! I’ve been busy tonight (yeah, yeah, I should sleep…I don’t even know what that means anymore!). This pattern collection has been bouncing around in my head for so long, I couldn’t let it go. Introducing: Linoak.

Linoak 7

Click here to see the whole collection. Enjoy!

New T-Shirt From Design Hole

Remember the Crafty Wallpaper Contest? (I won!) Part of my winnings was a Design Hole T-Shirt, and I received it today!

designholeT

Thank you, Jennifer!

We move into our new house in 9 days, and I have plans for the wallpaper I’m going to order from Alluminare (including, but not limited to, the idea that won me both the wallpaper and the shirt). I’m so excited!

This is the ONLY reason I miss the corporate world.

Access to a laser printer and oodles of downtime. I would do THIS. ALL DAY. I’d probably even go to the dollar store for lots of glasses just so I could make a set. And then I’d do a Thanksgiving set. And then a Christmas set.

Spooky Packing Tape Transfers

Thanks for this, How About Orange!