Nine Red: Decor

Showing posts with label Decor. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

DIY Canvas Nursery Animals

Hi everyone! I'm back as promised with a tutorial on how to make the adorable nursery art we did for Sarah & Shaun's nursery. This is a really easy project, with a great impact, we were pretty proud of ourselves. (Oh ya - by the way - they had their baby! Georgia Rae was born on September 25th, 2017.. Congrats guys, she's adorable!)

So when Danielle and I were planning different projects for the room, these cute animal wall decals kept coming back into our heads, but there were a few problems. The colors and simplicity were great, they weren't overly cartoonish, and they had great reviews so the quality checked out. But we both agreed we didn't want the animals just "floating"anywhere in the room (that would have worked with say, birds in flight... but standing animals?), and would rather make a focal point out of them, but how? Also - they are renting this house & not sure how long they plan to stay, so we wanted as little future tear-down duties as possible. Then one night, while organizing my mountains of craft supplies, I saw a pile of canvases, and it hit me - why didn't I think of that before, it's so simple! Adhering these cuties to canvas not only makes them movable, but creates a larger overall piece of wall art instead of just the stickers themselves.

So we gathered up our supplies, cleared the table & popped a beer - it was craft time!

You'll need:

6 - 11 x 14 Stretched Canvases
3 - smaller stretched canvas, we used 1 - 9 x 12, and 2 - 8 x 10's.
Acrylic Paints in coordinating colors (I personally love Ceramcoat)
Foam Brushes - or any paint brushes..
Forest Animals Fabric Wall Decal - Set of 9

First I chose & laid out 9 different sized canvases from my stash, even pulling a few fabric wrapped canvas leftovers from previous projects (for more about canvas wrapping click here, it's another super simple way to add wall art to a room).

Here they are all cleaned up, I had to remove roughly 1-2 million staples from the backs of the 3 fabric wrapped canvases.... clearly my past self did not want that fabric going ANYWHERE.....

I always keep a huge roll of brown builders paper around the house. Not only for impromptu projects like this one, but for when friends with little ones come over, brown paper becomes our color-able table cloth. Add a few jars full of washable markers & let them at it! All the adults end up drawing too, so it's fun all around. You can find it near the paint at any hardware store, or online of course.

Then we just went for it! Both of us started most canvases with a solid base coat, and then built up from there. The paints dry fairly quickly so you don't have to wait long. Although, catching the paint before it dries makes for some fun blending!

We had no plan, just some good tunes & a Hawaiian beer..this was Lemongrass, which.. on first sip.. is pretty gross. Then a few sips later, is good! Island magic I guess...

Playing with the yellows.... I used a dry foam brush to fade between the yellow & orange. Just go for it, you can always paint over it if you don't like the results. (which I know I did at least once....)

We tried to mix up the patterns & colors to get a good variety, but all of them go along well with other colors in the room. Orange & yellow weren't in our original plan, but the rug, a pillow & some sunshine plush toys were orange so we knew it would work just fine.

Don't forget to paint the edges if you don't want to frame your work.

That's where we quit for the night, and left them to completely dry. Fast forward to the big day, and all we had to do was peel our stickers from the roll, and place them on the painted canvas. Unfortunately, we were moving along so quickly, I completely missed taking pictures of that step! But, really, all it would have been was a photo of one of our hands putting it in place... you know the drill. The comforting thing about this step is these are completely removable & re-positionable, so that takes some pressure off.

Whoah, hello glare! For the record, the stickers ARE matte finish, I'm just not the most observant photographer - clearly! You know, side note - back when I started this blog, I was using a separate digital camera, then importing the photos, etc. And now, I'm just using my phone you guys - truth be told. But how can I not?! The resolution has gotten so great on phones that it long surpassed my old camera so.. what are ya gonna do?

I really love the way they pop on that Healing Aloe wall!

So that's it! It's not a hard tutorial, doesn't really need step by steps... but it was fun to take pictures of our little painting party. I love that it's so simple - There are thousands of these wall decals out there, so this same process can be used for any room, not just nurseries. Would make a great gift, too!

If you missed the tour of the baby room, you can see that here - be sure to check out the video about halfway in the post, it puts the room into much better perspective.

Well thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed this project - and if you make any canvas nursery animals, be sure to send them my way! I love seeing what you all are up to. Hit the links below, or you can tag me on Facebook & Instagram as @NineRed.

Have a good one!

-Jesse

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Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Baby Nursery Reveal! After & Before...

Hey everyone! Well, I'm dusting off my keyboard and putting my blogging sweatpants back on, finally! I'm back & I'm really excited to show you one of the latest projects we've been working on, I've had to keep ALL clues of it totally quiet since it was to be a SURPRISE nursery makeover for our good friends, Sarah & Shaun. This is their first baby, and my friend Danielle and I decided our gift would be a nursery make-over! Don't worry, we did tons of detective work beforehand to be absolutely SURE they didn't already have something planned, and with the help of Shaun being our inside guy, we were able to successfully pull it off. We did this room, top to bottom, in ONE DAY you guys... That was the craziest day I've had in a long time, and let me just say, I slept VERY well that night. So originally we were going to do kind of a bohemian safari feel for the nursery... but luckily before we bought too much, Shaun told us that they were starting to pick out sheets & accessories that were more woodland, so we swapped gears...If you want to see what other ideas we had in mind, check out the Pinterest page devoted to this room.

OK enough intro, let me show you the room! This will be a picture heavy post, you've been warned. I know this is out of order, but I'll show the finished project first:

Do you love those animals?! I do! Danielle and I made those, well sort of - we used these wall decals from Amazon, but didn't want them just floating on the wall... So we painted up some canvases I had lyin' around, I'll have a whole post about it later. Having these done before hand was a huge help!

Curtains are IKEA (sadly I can't find a link, they might be gone!), as is the plant hanger - and the amazing blanket was made by Ralph's Grandma Lorraine, so sweet! And what a great match....

Sarah's mom refinished that rocker in all new fabric - what a pro! It came out amazing and matched the room perfectly. We made the chandelier above it from ripped strips of fabric. I like that it gives a nice soft light, and is literally soft... It was so easy, I'll post a full how-to on that as well.

This bookshelf was Ikea also, it's the Kallax Unit with some simple accessories. The doors are part of the available accessories, that magically they don't have AGAIN! Well, they do, just not in green. Come to think of it, we did this nursery in July or so.... which is right when Ikea goes through it's big annual change... it's making sense now... I SHOULD have built this beforehand, it definitely ate a good hour of the day.

This rug was from there too, it's NEW and called Lattjo..Ikea really pulled through for us:

Now that I've learned I can't get those curtains anymore, I'm kicking for myself for not buying myself a pair! Haha.... Ikea loves to do that to us, don't they? I love the green leaves! Here's a close up:

This cabinet was built in already. Really useful for all the baby supplies they are going to be stashing. All we really did to incorporate it into the room was paint the wall around it, and add a curtain in matching colors. It sits on an inexpensive tension rod, so we were able to have that completely made before the big day & just popped it in. I had wanted to install all new cabinet hardware, but there are 19 handles on that beast, and this is a rental so....we chose to spread the budget around other ways.

Clearly, photographing small spaces is rough (for me at least!), so for a better idea, take a look at this video - side note, I had JUST gotten out of that chair that is rocking itself....no ghosts up in here:

And the before shots, just did a little four corner action....

Danielle caught me bloggin'.....

Sarah & Shaun had collected a lot of baby furniture already, and with that ceiling being wood as well, it came together really nicely! Especially for their woodland theme... plus, not having to paint a ceiling & trim was a MAJOR time saver. There were grand dreams of painting furniture at one time, but when you learn you have ONE day to do it, projects hit the chopping block REAL fast. Before I forget, the paint names we used are:

Behr: Healing Aloe (S400-3) - paint & primer in one, eggshell.

Behr: Moth Grey (N200-1U) - paint & primer in one, eggshell.

I started writing down codes for our paint that we buy. You know why? The labels ALWAYS fade off that can, and news flash - Behr likes to change color names. For the same color! But the code is supposed to be the same so, learn from me.

The paint is still a little wet in these photos, but it gives you an idea of the color:

Yea.... the shiny & the streaky... it was half wet here, it definitely looked better shortly after!

Quick side note - so if you've noticed there's only tape around the light fixture, you're right - we didn't use ANY tape! Just had the help of this Shurline edger tool that you can get online or in most hardware stores. Just be sure not to overload it with paint, you can get drips that way. If it's your first time, play around on some test areas to get the hang of it.

Accessory wise we were pretty proud of ourselves. We scoured thrift shops, discount stores, and clearance racks for things that would work well in the room, or that we could easily make-over. Danielle was super excited to get them stocked up on baby books, she found tons at the thrift shop & scoured through them to find the like-new ones:

Bambi of course was in there... I wasn't sure if we were going to dissect the Bambi book to use as some sort of wall artwork - but once we were in the room we realized we had less space than we thought, and of course wanted to give THEM room to customize the place & grow into it. With a project this fun it was REALLY hard not to go overboard.

With the thrift shopping we really were just looking for foundation items, things to give us the headstart so we could tailor/redo/repair to go with our look. But as luck would have it, a gold lamp & a ceramic animal were found on our FIRST visit.... score!

The shade was destroyed, but I recognized the lamps label to be that of Target, so I knew any standard drum from them would fit, and it did:

This cute little baby bird light caught my eye right away, and it luckily worked! It was lime green with a gold trim, and it took me a good 2 or 3 days to realize it MIGHT actually be an Easter Peep? (Worst candy ever)..... Whatever, cute night light if you ask me.

Baskets are always useful, token white vase, naturally...

So I know I've mentioned IKEA a lot and I SWEAR I'm not sponsored by them or anything (I mean, I wouldn't say no.... call me Ikea! hehe....) but they had SO many cute stuffed animals for kids! Some of these are even puppets... so if you find yourself needing a haul of plus woodland baby animals, plan that visit.

Ok one last, funny thing, from our shopping trip.. so I'm going around the thrift shop, and I don't know if I was hungry or what, but we went to the frames area... You know, to see if A) we score on some perfect wall art or B) we at least get some cheap frames to do our own thing with... and this raccoon just stared into my soul...

Danielle humored me for a minute, then distracted me, but I kept going back... "Are you sure?" I'd ask, and she finally had to break it down for me, telling me it's very different than the rest of the room's style - which it was. So I agreed, then naturally rushed back to get it while I was being rung up. Well I did everything in my power to make it cuter, painted the frame black, tried to get the picture OUT of it that was glued in, just to clean it up a bit.... but that raccoon didn't want to budge. I stuck to my guns, brought it with us as a "just in-case" there's a lonely corner...

Meanwhile, Danielle was planning to re-purpose a picture frame they already had, that had 5 or 6 photo spots in it. When we got there and she wanted to put it together, the frame was GONE. Turns out, they got rid of it LITERALLY the day before we did this - so guess who came to the rescue? You know it - raccoon frame! Ah..... I just love when that happens....

The rest of it all came together naturally, luckily they already had a few light cord sets with paper ball lanterns on them, which are simple & give a really warm light to the room. We had taken inventory and measured the room MONTHS beforehand, and I'm so happy that it wall worked out in the end, and that we were actually ABLE to pull it off in. one. day. Great work Danielle!

As for their reactions? Speechless! Shaun already knew we were doing it but hadn't seen a THING...Sarah knew nothing, though later said she suspected SOMETHING but nothing like this... they walked in the door, there were tears... hugs... and then soaking it all in. Lots of oo's & aa's... We should have gotten a video but we were too in the moment! They loved it, which was a huge relief for Danielle & I!

Congratulations Sarah & Shaun on your first baby, Miss Georgia Rae, who's due to arrive literally any day now. Thanks for letting us invade your space & let loose with our creative sides, it was fun!

And thank YOU dear reader for reading to the bottom of this post! You my friend, are something special.

Back with a few tutorial posts soon for some of the projects you see around this nursery.

Cheers!

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Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Backyard Patio: Tree stump to Day Bed

You know what I realized as I set out to write this post? I completely skipped out on showing you how we turned the stump into a bench in the first place! So this post got twice as long, oops...If you aren't caught up on all the backyard going-ons, I've been trying to tidy up this project for a bit - you can read up in these posts.

So you've seen this picture in some of my updates:

Well as much as I wish that bench would have magically appeared on it's own, it didn't. We had to get real crafty on it, and it was no easy task. Here's what we had interrupting our deck:

Big ol' stump. Whoever cut it down decided keeping the stump & building a deck around it was a better idea than removing it. So we inherited it, and after brainstorming for weeks we got hooked on the idea of a large, outdoor daybed/couch type dealy. The first hurtle was figuring out a seat.

(Now, if you like this idea but don't have your own stump, you can build this over any frame. Even two wine barrels would work. Or just four sturdy legs.Or two piles of pallets secured together to be the right height. Anything.)

After Ralph leveled out the bumps as best he could, (Sander with 80 grit paper!) it was time to devise a sturdy seat. We played around with some spare wood, seeing what arrangement they needed to be to maximize space. Plus we were trying to see if we needed to build some sort of frame, etc. Some boards didn't make the cut:

Well it turned out the simplest idea was the best, and building right on top of the stump seemed strongest. After cutting our boards to size and placing them on the stump, we flipped the whole thing over face down (keep the same order in mind!) & braced them with more spare wood. I made sure to pre-drill some pilot holes so the deck screws wouldn't split the 2 x 2 braces in half.

These wood screws are the best, they come with that little star bit. I was skeptical, but they work amazingly better than a standard philips:

I used the same wood screws to screw down into the stump. HERE IS ONE OF MY MISTAKES. When the platform we had just build was one piece, we set it on the stump. Amazingly, all was level! So I started drilling down into the stump, and as wood does, things twisted and turned creating a few uneven moments in our lives. I suggest, if YOU are working on a stump, to look underneath and add some wood shims where needed. This would have solved everything. EVERYTHING!

But in the name of progress, I carried on, adding some custom legs until most things were level:

There was still the tiniest bit of unevenness in some areas, which is unnoticeable when you sit on it. This, helped me decide to make the chunkiest seat cushion on the planet.

Then I sealed the whole thing is the Spar Urethane from our bar project.

Now you are all caught up! It's time to get some arms on this puppy! I've said it before and said it again, sometimes you have to be flexible and let your project be your guide. The original plan for arms & a backrest was the oh-so-popular Pipe & Flange construction. (Like these). BUT!!! Do you know how expensive pipes can get? It's the flanges that are the worst! So the total, without lumber, for the pipes on this couch was $180. I bought it, sat in the car in shock for a second, and then returned it. Yes, I was that horrible person in the return line with like 800 tiny pieces. If this was going to be some gorgeous shelf inside our home, OK - I'll spring for it. But this was to be armrests. Hidden by pillows. OUTSIDE. Not worth $180 in my book.

Our new plan, was to not be lazy and figure something out with the 2x4's we had on hand. This brings out cost down by like $170. Seriously down to like $10.

I imagined & then designed this shape:

This, would be, an armrest, that also acts as a back brace. Now, it will make sense in a few photos, but it's on it's side here. The bottom longest side matches the depth of our bench, and the height of the armrest is about 14" (front). The top of the armrest is the same length as the bottom, minus the thickness of the backrest. The backrest is the piece that sticks up past the rest.

All pieces were cut with 45 degree angles. I added wood glue, the corner clamp, and shot some nails in using my nail gun that I bought for our downstairs bathroom ceiling project. Because I'm paranoid, I still shot some wood screws down into the 2x4's after. If you think yours will get heavy use, throw some "L" brackets on the interior of this puppy.

So you need two of these. Identically the same. Then you just place them on your surface, and measure the length you want the back pieces. Start chopping your spare wood:

Once my pieces were cut, I laid the armrest / backrest on their backsides, and starting playing around with board spacing:

I used a spare 2 x 2 to evenly space the boards before I glued & nailed them in as well:

Once everything feels secure, stand it up. If things feel wobbly, lay it back down and reinforce with either more nails or some wood screws. Everything can be painted afterwards.

Now it looks like a bench! With this technique you can easily, and cheaply, add a back to many different surfaces. Upon closer inspection:

Since we had a mix of wood, old & new, redwood & pine, we decided paint was best. We used an exterior paint here, since this would be outdoors. We used or paint sprayer that connects to the air compressor, but if you don't have that, consider painting your pieces before assembly, and touching up afterward.

You can see the left side is sticking up a bit, this is because one of my boards was acting squirrely and twisty, but I knew it would settle down in a bit. And it did! After lining the backrest into it's permanent spot, more deck screws went down the bottom sides of the armrests into the platform. Then we staged for fun:

See that lovely giant cushion? Haha... well it got SUPER fluffy when I had it on it's side for the day, so we were forced to nap on it to get it back down to normal. What a pain....

No pillows:

Pillows:

I joke about this area looking like a Southern Mexican restaurant, because it got super colorful on us. I guess neither Ralph nor myself can say no to color. With each project we had that moment of "what do we paint this?" and the answers were almost always something bright. I'm amazed we got as much white in there as we did, but I think it really ties things together nicely & adds a sweet trim.

Ok so NOW it's our cantina patio I think....: