{PB-Inspired Welcome Mat}

Hey, y'all!  I'm back from an unintended blogging break--life just got super busy--to share a fun post with y'all.

Last week I was on spring break.  I was so happy!  On one of my vacation days, I went to visit my sister, and we went to IKEA.  I was in sensory overload because there were so many things to look at.  I wanted to buy pretty much everything!  I ended up buying a couple of big pieces for my living room makeover, and I bought several small items to revamp.  One of the items I bought was this rug.

It's the SINDAL Door Mat.  It cost me $4.99, which is definitely in my price range!  I had recently seen Pottery Barn's Hello Doormat, and I knew it was the perfect inspiration for my rug revamp.

{Image Source} I'm sure the PB rug is of a higher quality than the IKEA rug, but it costs ten times what my IKEA rug cost!  The first step in my rug overhaul was taping off a border on the rug and spray painting it.

I put tape all around the edge of the rug.  Then the width of a ruler from the outer border of tape, I put another border of tape.  I covered the middle of the rug with newspaper.  I then spray painted the border with Valspar's gloss spray paint in Exotic Sea.  It took several coats to get good coverage because of all the nooks and crannies in the rug.  When that dried, I removed the tape and newspaper.

I used my Silhouette to cut a card stock "Hello" stencil.  I used a font called Respective and made sure to weld all the letters together before cutting the stencil.  I used tape to adhere the stencil to the rug.  I put double stick tape under the small parts of the stencil.  Then I used a stencil brush to dry brush black craft paint on the stencil.

When I removed the stencil, there were parts of the word that needed to be darkened.  (It's hard to stencil on a woven rug like this.)  I used an Elmer's Painter's pen to remedy this.

I love how the rug turned out!  It's not exactly like the PB rug, but I like my version of it.

And what I love most of all is that my rug cost ten times less than the PB rug!

So now I'm curious.  What greeting would you stencil on your doormat?  I'm thinking I'd also love one that says, "Hey, y'all!"  :)

{PB Inspired Pumpkin Art}

I have a fun project to share with y'all today!

While browsing the Pottery Barn website for fall decor ideas, I came across this pillow.

Pumpkin Applique Pillow Cover from Pottery Barn

How cute is this?  I'm not really a have-lots-of-extra-seasonal-pillows kind of gal.  So I decided to use this as inspiration for a piece of art.  First, I sketched a pumpkin like the pumpkin from my inspiration piece.

You can right-click on the image and save it to use as a pattern yourself.

Then I cut out the sketched pumpkin and used it as a pattern to cut a piece of drop cloth.  (I would have loved to use a dark brown burlap or corduroy, but I didn't have any, and I don't live near a craft store.)

I then used white thread and a needle to sew the stitches on the drop cloth cutout.

I covered a canvas with book pages using Mod Podge.

I then glued my pumpkin to the canvas with hot glue.  I also used hot glue to layer fabric and burlap pieces on my pumpkin just like they were laid out on my sketch.

I cut a stem out of felt and glued it to the pumpkin, and I glued twine to the piece to create vines and lines.  And since the pumpkin didn't quite stand out like I wanted it to against the canvas, I rubbed a brown ink pad along the edges and over the top of the pumpkin.

I love the finished piece of art!

I think the pumpkin would stand out even better if you used a dark burlap for the base fabric, and it would look even more like the inspiration piece.

With that being said, though, I really like the monochromatic look of the piece, and I love the layers and the different textures!

{PB Inspired Etched Mercury Glass Lamp}

Thanks to everyone who voted for me in round two of Creative Bloggers Got Talent.  I made it to round three!  You can check out the top fifteen here.  This is the project I created for round two, and since the winners have been posted, I can share the tutorial with you now.  :) Do you ever check out Pottery Barn online just to dream a little?  I do.  Recently, I came across this AWESOME etched mercury glass lamp.  I love it, but, unfortunately, I don't have $259 to spend on one lamp.  So I started thinking about how I could make my own.  I remembered seeing these lamps that the awesome Shannon of Anythingology made, and as soon as I thought of them, I knew how I could create my own etched mercury glass lamp!   To make the lamp, I started with a glass cylinder vase, Krylon Looking Glass spray paint, and faux etching paint.  I used other supplies that I'll tell you about when I get to them.

I covered the outside of the cylinder vase with newspaper and tape and followed some DIY mercury glass directions I had pinned from A Stylish Interior.  (Here's another set of directions too from Take the Side Street.)  I did one thing a little different than the directions, though.  (I think I saw this somewhere on the web as well.)  After I did the whole spray paint and vinegar thing over and over, the glass just didn't have the exact mercury look I was going for.  So I sprayed the inside with Krylon Metallic Gold spray paint.

Pottery Barn Kids Swallow Art Knock Off

  Hi, everyone!  This week's challenge at The CSI Project is to create a knock off.  I looked at several different online stores to find something to create for the challenge.  I stumbled upon the Sentiment Canvas Collection from Pottery Barn Kids.

{Image Source}

 I love all the canvases, but I chose to "knock off" the swallow canvas.  So here's what I did to create my knock off.  It was super easy and super inexpensive-- a great combination!

First, I pulled a canvas out of my canvas stash.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a square canvas, and the closest craft store to my house is a 45 minute drive, so I just worked with what I had.  I used my Silhouette to cut a swallow from white card stock.

I painted my canvas with the tan paint.  I only used one coat because, to me, the PB canvas almost looks like burlap.  The texture of my canvas shows through the thin coat of paint, creating a burlap texture.  I then taped off my canvas with painters tape to create the lines around the edge of the canvas.

I used my stencil brush to paint between the tape.  The photo of the stencil in progress shows me using white paint.  This was before I realized the PB art has pink lines....so I repainted the lines pink.

Ballard Designs Inspired Art

  Hi!  I'm here again with an inexpensive and fairly easy project.  (Don't you just love inexpensive and easy?!)  One of the websites I like to visit for inspiration is Knock Off Decor.  I love how people take items that come from somewhat expensive stores and make their own versions for cheap.  I have wanted to do a knock off myself ever since I discovered the site.  I looked at the different "high-end" store websites for inspiration and stumbled upon this little beauty.

Ballard Designs Quarter to Pink Outdoor Print

   This is a beautiful piece of art, but I can't afford the $159 price tag!  It seemed like a simple enough design that I could put a twist on and make my own.
   First of all, I selected a canvas that I got on sale at Michaels.  (Gotta love those sales!!!)  In pencil, I sketched a rough drawing of my inspiration piece.

 

   After I had my design sketched out, I decided what colors I wanted to use.  I called this Ballard Designs inspired art because I didn't want to copy the art exactly.  I used it as a sort of "jumping-off point" for my own design.  So I chose colors that I liked a little better than those in the inspiration piece.

If you like "paint by numbers," you're in luck! :)

   After I decided on my colors, I painted in the spaces designated in the photo above with the appropriate color.  For some reason, I didn't take a picture of this step for this particular painting, but here's a photo from another painting that shows this step.

   The above photo comes from my second piece of art I created using the same pattern.  I decided to paint the entire flower with the lighter color from my color scheme and then come back in with the darker color.  It worked fine.
   After you have all your colors "blocked" in, it's time for the only somewhat tricky part.  It's time for blending and shading.  Blending and shading takes a bit of practice, but they're much easier to do when you have an inspiration piece to guide you along.  If you look at my inspiration piece again, you can see that there are darker spots where the flower petals would have shadows and lighter spots.  You just need to try to mimic this with your paint.  Get a bit of the color you would like to use for a shadow or light spot on a small brush and dip your paint brush in water.  Then paint a line where you would like the shadow or light spot to be.  (Don't get too much water on your brush or you will have a mess!)  Then you can take another damp brush and blend the color so that it fades from darker to see through.  You can also do this without the water if your base color is still wet, but unless you use glaze, paint dries pretty quickly. It's hard to get the colors blended well when they're dry.
   When you have the petals shaded, you can work on the center of the flower.  I used the same wet brush technique to blend circular patterns on the outer ring of the flower.  I did this with a few different colors.  For the center of the flower, I stippled a lot of different shades of colors.  Since this is your piece of art, you can add as little or as much detail as you want.  When I finished my shading, I thought my petals needed a little something else, so I added some different colored streaks to them.  Then I had my finished piece of art!!!

   I forgot to mention that I added another petal to the left of my canvas before I was happy with the completed project.  It had a gap there that needed to be filled, so I filled it.  (This is definitely not an exact science!)
   As you can see, it's not that difficult to create a pretty piece of art when you have an inspiration piece to guide you.  Just keep in mind that you should choose a simple inspiration piece at first until you get more comfortable with painting.  And your first project may not turn out perfect, but that's okay.  If you would have wanted perfect, you could have bought a print. ;)
DISCLAIMER:  The purpose of this tutorial is purely for inspiration.  Please don't think you can copy Ballard or anyone's design (including mine) and sell it.  Thanks!