This post was sponsored by FLYJOY, but all opinions are my own.
It’s been almost exactly 2 full years since we moved into our current home, and we still have yet to do a ton of decorating and hanging of things on our walls. The main reason for this is that I am notorious for hanging stuff on walls before I ever unpack anything else, and then promptly changing my mind once we finalize furniture placement. In fact, before we ever signed the paperwork on this house Nate made me promise that I wouldn’t hang a single thing on our new walls before everything was unpacked, and even then he wanted to make sure that he was there to help. (I should probably also mention that sometimes I’m in such a hurry to hang things that I don’t even bother with levels or measurements…)
So there’s that. But it’s also been two years and we still have quite a bit of wall space that is in need of some color.
The problem for us is that decorating on a budget right now is kind of a must-do, and while I would love more than anything to support local artists by paying them for their beautiful work – it’s just not in the cards. I’ll tell you what IS in the cards though, and that’s creating art ourselves!
I am trying more and more to let go of my neat freak tendencies and just let W create with different mediums. It’s so easy to give him crayons and a piece of paper to just go at it, but the way he lights up when he gets to paint or use chalk is just so fun. Totally worth a little extra clean up time! When I finally decided to just go for it and make a big piece of wall art for our home, I knew I wanted to include him in the adventure.
Let’s be honest here: two kids in Home Depot truly IS an adventure! I strapped them in their car seats and ran back inside to grab a quick snack – a FLYJOY cashew cookie dough bar – to enjoy on the way to the store. Fueling up for shopping with kids is a must-do 😉
The first part of the adventure was just getting the supplies. We got a piece of white melamine board (1/4″ x 2′ x 4′), and then stopped by Target for some wall paint. I got three different coordinating colors, and then a couple tubes of white acrylic paint. I know you could definitely do this same thing with all acrylic paints, but you need a LOT of paint so price it out and see what you would works best for your budget.
Step two in the adventure? Was get home and unload, then forget about it for a week while Christmas happened and mom lost her mind over trying to keep the baby and the Christmas tree in separate corners.
Basically what I did was semi-follow the instructions in this tutorial on Pinterest, only I used a huge piece of cardboard and a small paint brush to fill in the rest.
You basically drizzle a TON of paint along the edge of the board and then let it taper off toward the opposite end (look at the picture above). Then just drag a piece of cardboard (make sure it’s as wide as the board) along the paint, making sure to keep even pressure the whole time. If you mess up a little, no worries – that’s what the paint brush is for! Just casually use the extra paint to fill in the holes with the paint brush until you reach a look that you like.
One thing that I did was have W help paint a little big of yellow in the background to help fill in the color before I did the cardboard-dragging thing. It was fun for him to just paint away, and it really ended up helping with the overall saturation and color of the final product.
Now you could hang the painting, which would be easy with some drywall anchors and screws, but I chose to forgo the holes in my wall for now and just set this on my mantle. After all the Christmas decor was gone I needed something fresh and pretty to brighten up our main living area, and this was just the thing!
And you know what I did after it dried and I got the mantle all beautified? I warmed up another FLYJOY bar for 10 seconds in the microwave, sprinkled a teaspoon of mini chocolate chips on top, and basked in the glow of my beautiful new art. Yes, I’m totally serious. And yes, it was amazing!
What’s your favorite way to make art for your home? Any don’t-miss tutorials for me? I’m all ears!
taylor @ greens & chocolate says
Love, love, love this Heather!! I’ve been looking for some pieces to hang on our completely empty walls but just haven’t found anything that catches my eye. Your piece, on the other hand, completely caught my eye…now I just have to see if my husband trusts me enough to home-make our wall decor! 😉
Courtney @ Sweet Tooth, Sweet Life says
Love the idea of heating the bars up – I haven’t tried that yet! (And the cashew cookie dough flavor is my favorite!) 🙂
Debby says
Love it! Good job!