DIY Photo Canvas Montage

I can hardly believe that today is Friday already! This week slipped through my fingers...

It s so easy for time to fly by when you have always so much to do. Time is never enough!

I have to work out my life/work balance, because at the moment I feel that I am failing both. This week is not a good example though, as I am a bit under the weather...

That said, it did not prevented me for letting out a bit of creativity though... Although I told that I was thinking about doing some painting, today I will be sharing a completely different project: DIY photo collage on canvas... Don't ask... I know, I was planning to do some acrylic painting, and ended up doing something entirely different. Im my defence, I already had all the materials at home, so it actually saved me so money, instead of heading to an art store and bankrupting myself on doing so...

This project is quite easy to do, especially if you have all materials in hand. Its just a matter of arranging the photos on a way that you like! 

There are many youtube videos explaining the process now (like this one), so just I will be briefly describing the process.  

So here's what I used:

Black acrylic paint, pencil, rule, sponge, paint brush, large canvas, Modge Podge, and of course, photos! 

I measured the photos and draft roughly the places where they would be places. Painted black all around the canvas and gaps between those places:

As you can see, the black painting doesn't need to the perfect, however I was making sure that the gaps between the photos were completely filled with black paint.

Now, using modge podge I glued the photos onto the canvas, and then using modge podge again, I covered both photos and canvas:

I was not that careful while adding the modge podge onto the canvas, but I wasn't worried, as this spots would clear after completely dry. You can see on the photos that I have large spots of Modge Podge ( the quite large white spots)....

Afterwards, you can see the final product, a glossy canvas, and Modge  Podge will also add a little gloss on the black paint, quite cool...

I am linking up:

Upcycling wall art: Urban wall clock

One of my first experiences DIYing was this kitchen wall clock... In the end it was  a bit of a failure, as I was not very happy with the end colours, but as it was harbour of my creativity and experimentation.... So I tried to overlook that. Until now. With a new slick very white kitchen, that clock was definitely hot the appropriate selection.

So I re-did it.... I applied a cover of black acrylic paint, and drew a few sketches of some monuments of my all time favourite city, Lisbon. Although I am not very happy with the final design, as my drawing skills definitely need some more practicing.....

Here is the summary of the process:

First, I sketched it with a white crayon, and only after I painted with white acrylic paint. The monuments are looking very naiff..... Since the clock is white on black, I might just add another coat of paint and re-draw the monuments.  For now it is fine....:

It's still a nice addition to the kitchen wall!

I am linking up:

My Monday Making

I have a lot in my hands at the moment.... Besides the fact that I'm on my last stretch to complete my thesis, I keep adding up projects to make.... My DIY projects are actually a stress relief therapy, they are helping me keeping my sanity... And so nothing better than since I am swamped at work than to get creative... and work on some new projects.

As I mentioned a few posts back, I am taking part of Very Berry Handmade's ATC swap.  I already started to design my little card, which will be featuring part of a painting made by my favourite painter, Miro. Today I was sketching some possibilities, trying to figure out which part should be better featured... 

I have three sketches done at the moment, and I am not sure yet which one will be selected in the end.

But, and since today is Monday, most of the day was occupied by my little man, he was very much into puzzles today!

Which means that the sketching bit just happened late this evening...  Actually at the same time that I am writing this post...:

Which justifies the fact that the sketches are really poorly done. I also had some fun going through my embroidery thread stash and selecting some colour combos.

Again I will be embroidering bits of the little ATC, I think most of it will be embroidered actually, apart  some felt bits...  

But my ATC is not the only project that keeps my mind occupied. I am also thinking about recycling my Kitchen clock, the one featured in this blog post a while back. My current kitchen has a very slick look, very modern, and very very white. And so my colourful wall clock is definitely not the most wisest choice. So I am thinking about repainting the whole clock again! I will let you know how this goes.

And if this is not enough, I am also thinking about making some new wall art to my new living room. I am using this painting as inspiration. I absolutely love this colour scheme, and its exactly this colours that I want to have on my living room, very very much colourful and lively....

I must be going through a teal, hot pink, orange phase. I am always thinking about those colours!

I am linking up:

DIY tutorial: Kitchen clock wall-art "it´s always time for coffee"

Today I am sharing a pet project of mine that I have been working on for some time now. I was able to finish it today... 

It is a kitchen clock wall-art! 

The colours in this picture are not quite the real ones....

It is not the easiest wall-art to make, but hopefully in the end it will be really pretty!

And what I used for this project:

And here´s how I made it:

Firstly I draw the coffee cups that I was going to paint, I draft it several times until I got a drawing that I was happy with, and only then I draw it onto the canvas. I painted first the canvas background. Afterwards I painted the cups. I Wrote the text “It´s always time for coffee”onto the canvas and then I painted it (can you tell that I absolutely love coffee?). I let the paint dry for a couple of hours. Finally it is time to attach the clock mechanism. I bought mine on amazon.

 And then its done! Be happy that now it’s done and enjoy a cup of coffee!

 

Nursery wall art!

 

Today I will be posting about some projects I have done awhile back.   When I was thinking about the nursery for my little one, one of my favourite projects was his nursery wall art. If you are following my blog, you might have guessed that I absolutely love painting and drawing...

For inspiration I use many different sources!

One of my favourite animations movie is “My neighbour Totoro”. I have to say that I absolutely love Hayao Miyazaki (宮﨑 駿,Miyazaki Hayao) animation movies, but “My neighbour Totoro” is a special one, it might have to do with the story which is so heart warming.... So this would be a normal source of inspiration for my nursery wall art. 

 

These are characters from the movie, Totoro, the forest spirit and dust bunnies. These drawings were quite simple to do, I just used Canson paper and coloured pencils! The frames I bought on Ikea.

In the background you can see another project of mine, my sihlouette birds. I posted awhile how I made my silhouette birds....

And now just a little note...since my glider is showing in this picture.... I have to say when I first saw some gliders, I didn’t like at all its style, or how they looked like. But, now, I absolutely love my glider! It’s so comfortable!! And the little bench that comes with the glider just adds more to it, when nursing my little one the glider was one of my favourite spots in the house. A few months ago my little one got some fever, and I practically spend a whole day in my glider, gently rocking him....It was the place where he would feel more comfortable.

So, thank you so much mum and dad! My glider is simply a marvel!

Now a close-up of the elephant and little bunny drawings...

I am going through an elephant phase, so elephant wall art was mandatory. These elephants are based in watercolour paintings made by Carolyne Tillery, she owns a shop on Etsy, you might want to check OhHellodear shop! I absolutely love all of her watercolours! To make my elephants I also used canson paper and coloured pencils as well. I also delimited the drawing with a black pen.

When I was thinking about decor projects for the nursery, I thought about keeping it neutral.., But after a while, when I knew I was having a little boy, the colours that I was choosing just naturally started to be dominated by blue tones... After a while I just gave up about neutral tones...

Do you have some favourite  wall art projects?

 

DIY tutorial: Birds silhouette Wall art

 

For a while now I wanted to paint this wall-art, but never had the time to do it. This weekend, fortunately enough I had a little time to get it done.

It is quite easy, and it’s really cute for a little boys room.

For this project I used basic painting materials: stretched canvas, blue and white acrylic paint (but you can selectd two other contrasting colours) and medium and small size brushes.

The steps:

1: select and draw a simple birds silhouette drawing to paint

2: paint the whole canvas with blue (or other colour of your choice) using the medium size brush

3: draw the birds silhouette on top of the background colour

4: paint the birds silhouette in white (or other colour of your choice) using the small size brush

....and it´s done!

The silhouette birds are inspired from this painting from handpainting Etsy shop (visit the sop here).

Here are some pictures of  parts of the procedure:

Can´t wait to hang this one!