Just a Little DIY Wall Art...

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

When my sister was visiting a couple months ago, we went on a little craft spree. My sister and I are both very creative with very vivid imaginations so when we have an idea, we tend to go nuts.

I had pinned this project a while ago and wanted to do something similar.

Source: abeautifulmess.typepad.com via Jessica on Pinterest

It seemed simple enough so my sister and I headed out and picked up a frame from the local discount store. Then we headed over to Home Depot and grabbed tons of paint swatches. Seriously though, our stack was thicker than a composition notebook. Maybe its just me, but I was totally feeling like a shoplifter taking all those swatches. My sister and I even tried to play it off like, "Oh, I really like this color for the living room walls" (proceed to grab four sheets of the same color), "Yeah, but this color would look great in the girls' room" (grab five sheets of another color) We played it pretty cool, with our swatch stack partially hidden by my son riding in the seat of the cart.

But then - and there's always a "but then" in our family - Trace accidentally moved the swatch stack and all the sheets scattered all over the cart as well as the floor. Total fail.

Anyway, once we got home I tried to start on recreating the Pinterest image but didn't know what colors I wanted to use and how I wanted to place everything. I was getting frustrated and then I remembered this image:

Source: etsy.com via Jessica on Pinterest

I had pinned this because I love the yellows and greys on white and want my living room to have the same color scheme. Plus giraffes are one of my favorite animals. Win/win. Then I had the most brilliant idea: Use the paint swatches to recreate the giraffes!

I traced and cut the outline of the giraffes from the paint swatches, glued them onto the paper, and BOOM!

Instant wall art. Okay, now obviously it's not as fancy as the Pinterest print, but do you seriously think I'm going to cut all those patterns out? I think not. It would be cooler if I had scrapbook paper with different patterns...but since I don't, swatches are the next best thing. Correction - the best free thing.

My sister also did a more tedious project.

She's a big flower freak. Well, flowers and other nature stuff. She's a freak of nature. And like me, she collects shells so she created this little piece too.

Basically all she did was copy a tribal tattoo turtle image from the computer and use shells for the shell. Shells for the shell? You know what I mean.

So whaddaya think of our creations? I hope it inspires you to create something! And when I finally figure out a color scheme and pattern for that Pinterest project, I will definitely post it up!