Fabric Wall Art Tutorial

Lately I've been such a sucker for cute fabrics. I love them, and the best part? SO  affordable. I have to say IKEA really tugs at my heartstrings the hardest with their fun, bold and affordable prints. Finding someone to cut the fabric? Difficult. Don't say I didn't warn you! But, well worth the struggle.  Anyway, here's the project I can't seem to stop doing:

These lil beauties are above my bed.  IKEA had an adorable print with bunnies and squirrels but in a bright modern style, and I instantly fell in love. I wanted new wall art as well, and it all came together perfectly. So this is the easiest project in the WORLD, and you can use existing canvases around your house without doing any damage. I used some of my old oil paintings, and merely staped to the back. So my paintings are still under there.. I just needed a change, ya know?  First you need canvas, here's where I got mine:

Step 1: Gather your tools! You'll need:
Canvas or frames (For the smaller ones I used some old idea frames that could take the staples)
Fabrics
Staple Gun
Fabric Scissors
10 Minutes

This tutorial was made when I was making these for my living room:

Step 2: Lay out your fabric face down, and put the canvas on. Play around and decide what you want to show, it always comes out great.

Step 3: Cut out the shape of the canvas, remember to give your self extra space on the edges for the wrapping. I did like 4 inches per side.

Step 4: Think of wrapping gifts, just start wrapping and stapling. You want to staple onto the back, versus the sides, because it gives that nice gallery wrap look.  At first it helps to crossover to the opposite side, pull the fabric taught, and give a staple. Then just repeat! Tip: I left my corners for last.

Step 5: Continue all the way around the canvas.For the corners I flattened them out at a diagonal, pulled, and stapled. Trim off excess fabric.

Step 6: There is no step 6, you're done! Hang these up, instant wall art, and it's sooo affordable! I had this random heater wall that just needed a little love. My intentions are to put coat hooks under, not sure. For now there's a cute wooden catch all chair.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial, and hopefully you feel inspired to start wrappin' up your canvas! There are literally thousands of prints out there, and this would also look amazing framed as well. Imagine, an old frame spray painted in high gloss white? Delicious. Have a great day!

Okay-okay, this isn't a wrap, but check out that great print... Ikea also. (above)

In the last shot, I imagine a solid color frame... so cute!

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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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How-To: Black and White Brushstroke Art

After we had whitewashed the fireplace, and painted the living room, it was time to add some visual interest to the fireplace wall.  I thought about doing fabric wall scrolls with a nice modern print, but worried it might be too busy. Perfect timing: I had seen this awesome black & white brushstroke art over at the Hunted Interior, and knew this was the project I was searching for:

Source

Aren't those lovely.. I'm a mega fan of abstract, and the black & white contrast is really clean & modern.  

Since we wanted to incorporate more modern elements into the house, I showed these to Ralph & he was totally on board.  Luckily, we had everything on hand (I always keep canvas around!) & were able to start. This project is so easy, and so fun!

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Pinterest Picks: DIY Wall Art

It's Friday, finally! I thought another round of Pinterest picks would be fun today, so here we go. I love wall art, and I love to change it up.  I also love instant gratification, which means most of my wall art is home-made.  When I've finished re-doing a room, I want to see it finished ASAP - so if I haven't collected enough art for the walls, I break out the paints.  For today's Pinterest Picks, I've found a TON of really great ideas for fast, pretty and impressive wall art that anyone can do.  Let's get started:

First up - have I posted this before? Who cares, I still love it! This is simple shapes cut from pieces of paper or fabric, decoupaged onto a solid colored Canvas. Delightful! Don't forget, if you are ever bored or your canvas - grab some cute fabric, wrap it around, and staple to the back. You're original art will hide behind your fresh new design.

Source: itsdoable.squarespace.com via Jesse on Pinterest

Next up, more easy canvas art. This can be done with any background, and I always love silhouettes. Would you believe that is sharpie?! Check it:

Source: bluecricketdesign.net via Jesse on Pinterest

I think this next one is my favorite!  I love nature prints, and combine that with silhouettes and color? I'm sold.  Look how easy and fun this is, the pictures pretty much lay out the steps.

Source: pinme.ru via Jesse on Pinterest

Speaking of nature, how about sunprints? I love 'em!  I haven't done these in so long, it's on my to-do list. I would love to have a set of four framed sunprints from the local shrubs and trees. I love this blue:

Source: google.com via Jesse on Pinterest

On that sunprint note, this person printed out their photos onto transparency sheets and then did the print. Came out awesome:

Source: boomslice.com via Jesse on Pinterest

Amazing! Alright, last but not least, a wonderful gallery of DIY wall art the wonderful people at Design Sponge gathered up - of course! The link in the pin will take you to a full gallery of greatness.

Source: designsponge.com via Jesse on Pinterest

There you have it, some great ideas that will change up your walls this weekend. Get to pinning, you need to remember these! Have a wonderful weekend everyone, the weather is spectacular, and the bbq is a-waiting. . .

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New Love: Cut Canvas

I was in an art store the other day and saw a great deal on canvas I couldn't pass up. I didn't know what I wanted to do with them, other than possible make some great fabric covered canvases, but I knew I had to grab 'em. Glad I did, because after a few days thought and playing around with them, I decided to grab my knife, my cutting board, throw on a movie and dig in.  Here's what I came up with:

 Free hand, geometrics.  Reminds me of crystals or something.

 Freehand.... anything goes design. haha.

 Floral

 Tidal

 A little Transamerica action..... backed with a map.

and lastly, the freehand tree.  These are 11x14. So, these were fun & easy, just time consuming! I put them facedown on the cutting board, and just went to town with my knife.  Afterwards I gave everyone a coat of a few of my favorite spray paints (Jade is actually my #1) and stepped back to enjoy.  I think these would look great in a set.  I'd love to see yours if you give it a try, and if you don't want to try your hand at this but still want it for your home, these are for sale & I love custom orders.  There's a lot of wiggle room here too, fabric backed, paper backed, multi layered... endless. Have a wonderful day, it's beautiful for "winter"!

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New Kitchen Buffet with Open Shelves

Well in the midst of the usual balancing of many projects, we squeezed this one in recently.  I  had really been craving some large scale open shelving in our kitchen, because with it's height - I felt something BIG was in order.  

If you've been reading around here for a while you've seen the original Kitchen Hutch we had (If you're new, click here for the Kitchen Hutch History):

 I LOVED it, but when I stood back I just felt like it was small for the room (I might be crazy though...) and a little more country than we were goin' for.  Still, don't get me wrong, I LOVE the hutch and replacing it was a tough choice:

As luck would have it, our friend Kim was soon to be moving into a house & needed furniture, and said she loved it too. Perfect! So knowing that she loved the distressed style, we added a little more character here & there for her:

Just a little sanding sponge action & a Saturday night, you know how it be:

The next task was finding a replacement.  In my mind I saw a buffet vs. a hutch, with wide open shelves above it, sprinkled with vintage goods, my ever-growing dish collection, & plants.  On my very first attempt at finding such a thing, I found the perfect fit:

It was in GREAT shape, solid wood, dovetail joints... I think it's pretty old. It was $70, which is normally a little rich for my blood (for USED furniture), but I had to stand back and look at the bigger picture - knowing something  new would not only be thrice the price, but particle board for sure. Which we all know how long that lasts. . . . But this color wasn't me, and in an effort to tie both sides of the kitchen together, we used the same blue/grey color from our lower kitchen cabinets.  (See THAT post here)

This was such a fast job! One afternoon.  We removed the top because we intend to redo it separately once we decide the stain color.

I was using my favorite spray gun that connects to the air compressor (many have asked, you can find it here) filled with my paint. I prefer paint & primer in one, it has great coverage & less coats. Mix a little floetrol in there, and spray away.

I skipped the clear coat on this one to let it age naturally, and the paint was already semi-gloss so it looked finished.  Win-win.

Let's bring it in:

These will be night shots, sorry! When I get going I wait for no one, not even the Sun.   I picked up these brackets from IKEA. They are solid wood, inexpensive, and cute!  These are the 11" size, and using a 1"x12"x6' board for each shelf. 

One snag, I hit the beam on the left side, but the right was pure drywall. I NEEDED these brackets to be strong & lined up nicely above the buffet for aesthetics, so heavy duty drywall anchors saved the day.

I always get a little scared with wall shelves, so before loading these up I put a few books all over them for the night. The next day everything was still tight & secure, and I knew accessorizing could begin! I gave the shelves a quick whitewash & seal (minwax poly baby), and over the next few days we arrived at this:

I'd been slowly collecting things from thrift shops & beyond for this project.  I wanted the shelves to be useful & cute but not over-packed.  One of the main things I was going to miss from the hutch believe it or not, was the fabric background.  I just love that print. So I quickly covered a canvas in some remnants I had, as a tribute to the last hutch.

Coke bottle spice racks...

Progress! Those doors  had to stay open for a bit after painting the interior, but they are back to normal now.  You can see a black curtain on the left side there... yea... that's part of the "tear out the kitchen rock fireplace" project.   More on that later...

I love it! I installed a simple set of under cabinet lights, using the gap behind the shelves (caused by the brackets) to hide the wires.   Oh, those wine glass racks if you're wondering, are from Amazon.

Owl Salt & Pepper shakers. I'm just playing with my camera here.. bear with me, it's new :)

Done. I'm really happy with the outcome, I think the collection is fun & casual. The shelves are open & airy. The size of this set-up really ties the kitchen together, and gives us a lot more flexibility.  Small steps towards the bigger dream kitchen that is probably years & years away.

With the nice weather, we've been working a lot on the back patio lately... can't wait to show more of that.

Have a great week!

-Jesse

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