Home Decor with Vinyl

Here's a quick post highlighting some fun I recently had with vinyl.

Dog Food Jars

I love these big pickle jars (picked up at Fred Meyer for less than $20) for keeping our dog food dry and accessible.  As Sawyer requires a $pecial diet, we have separate jars, but kids don't always pay attention as to which is which.  So I decorated them to avoid any further confusion.

Originally I wanted their pictures on the blank frame areas below, but as I do wash these out by hand, I hadn't thought of a good way to secure a laminated picture.  They're blank for now, but I will fill them in soon.

Carts:  Paper Pups, Art Nouveau, A Frightful Affair, Paper Lace

My baby girl, Kate.

My craft buddy, Sawyer.

 Cricut vinyl in Black and White.

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Wall Art

Next up is a Christmas gift I made for my husband this year - his passion is golf.  These photos were snapped on a golf outing with two of his boys, and on a trip to Pebble Beach with his dad.

I expected him to want to put this collection either in his office or downstairs by the golf closet, but he chose to have them more prominently displayed by our stairs - how sweet!

12x12" canvases from Craft Warehouse - $7.50 ea on sale.  Photos printed out at local FedEx (Kinko's) for just a few dollars.  They were trimmed to 11 1/2 x 11 1/2". 

Brown vinyl from Provo Craft.  Distress Inks in Antique Linen, Vintage Photo, and Walnut Stain.  Photos edited in PSE 9 and Perfect Effects 4.

As you can see I love decorating with photographs in my home!  My hubby picked the spot and arranged the golf art just so.

I've used this fun cart for several projects - but truth be told, I mostly bought it because of the golf art.

Design was created on my Gypsy.  I broke the original art into 2, 11 1/2"mats, deleted some cuts, and stretched it to fit.

This is how the original artwork shows up. (Please excuse the glare, but just at that minute the sun peeked through!)

Thanks for stopping by!

Mirror, Mirror

I sure am one lucky woman.  My husband has a great eye for interiors and design, far better than mine.  We had an empty spot on the wall that needed "something" so we went out shopping.  At a local furniture store JP found this mirror which we both liked in terms of style and size (36" or so), but was it the right color?  Perhaps too gold.  But it was on sale, almost half the price of a nearly identical one on another floor.  Sold!

Was it just the lighting in the furniture store, or was the neutral metallic too gold for our interiors?

Turns out it was too gold, and our colors are black, white, silver, with blue accents.  So JP looked at me and said - "OK Crafty, do your thing."

Mirror is spray painted matte black.  Here I go with first coat of silver... in pajamas no less!

About 1/4 of the way done with the first coat of acrylic paint.

 I had left over matte black spray paint (Krylon) from Halloween.  We masked off the mirror and sprayed it all black.  I didn't want to silver leaf the thing, but did want some shine.  I mixed two kinds of acrylic paint and watered them down to make a shimmery, silver wash.  I applied the paint to the crevices and used an almost dry natural sponge to distribute the color. 

Decor Art and MS (made by Plaid) acrylic paints.

My tools - fine round brush and barely damp sponge.

 After two coats of that, I applied some silver Rub'n'Buff with my felt ink applicator.  I've used Rub'n'Buff in the past and it was sort of a waxy paste.  This one was very liquidy, almost like paint again.  But it really did the trick, and gave the piece that extra "oomph" on the raised edges. 

Look closely, that's the Rub'n'Buff in my hand. 

Idea for felt application (v. your finger (messy)) came from YT while watching a craft video... of course!

The overall effect is not shiny, silver, but more a hand-rubbed pewter with some intense silver.  Big kudos from the family, with JP proclaiming it "perfect."

Before

After

I don't usually do too many craft projects around the house - I mean especially with furniture that's brand new and just brought home from the store! My crafts are mostly relegated to my craft room and involve paper.  Even if we did get a good deal, I would have felt awful if I'd somehow messed this accent piece up.  The moral to the tale is just go for it.  You can feel a great sense of accomplishment from just trying, and happily it may end up just perfect!

Me, the happy crafter.