Project: Artwork for the Living Room/Curtain for the Entry

Artwork is expensive.  I think we all know that, can agree upon that, and move on.  My job right now is to not only take care of our son, but to find ways to save money for us.  I have been wanting to get some artwork for the two sides of the fireplace since we have moved in almost 3 years ago, but have never come across anything that would look quite right or didn't cost a million bucks.  Since being on Pinterest, I have made a small collection of some DIY art ideas and whatnot for the home, I just had to have the means and supplies to do it.  Enter shoe box lids, fabric, and Mod Podge.  What a modge podge of things, huh? Bahaha! I'm hilarious.

Anywho- since the creative bones in my body are brittle and it is difficult to come up with things on my own, I saw a picture of fabric covered shoe boxes as artwork. Brilliant!  Why didn't I think of this myself?!  Oh yeah, the whole bones being brittle situation...  On my afternoon out for my birthday, I made an awkward stop at Walmart for some fabric. Awkward meaning that they don't have anyone that stands there and cuts fabric so I had to wait about 20 min for an old man to do the job.  Oh well, its done and it is awesome.  All of the fabric I chose was $1.50/yard which is supposedly unheard of so the wait was worth it.

The fabric I found for the artwork couldn't have been more perfect.  It had many different large designs on it so it doesn't even really look like each of the pieces came from the same fabric. I decided to dive right in and start covering these babies but the fabric was see through so I had to double it up.  I didn't follow any instructions whatsoever so I cut sizes that seemed right and just started slathering the Mod Podge to seal them down.  I then proceeded to gut our house of chip clips to hold down the sides for about 20 min til I moved on to the next one.  It took about the whole day only because I worked during his naps and had to wait for everything to be solid and dry.  I waited for Scott to get home to hang them cause I wanted to make sure that they were decently even with one another.  Needless to say, they look pretty good in my opinion and like actual artwork!  They couldn't have been easier to hang and if I had more shoebox lids, I would probably be working on more of them!  Hopefully, they will continue to hold up well!

 

 

With the leftover fabric from the artwork, I decided to sew a curtain for the window by the door which has sadly been covered up the past 6 months or so with PIECES OF PAPER. Classy, I know. But I was sick of thinking people could look in at us and have never seen curtains of that size in the stores.  I sewed one side with the fabric from the artwork and the other side with some brown fabric, which conveniently allows us to see out sorta, but people can't see in.  I checked. Twice.  So, for both projects, (the artwork and the new curtain) it cost a total of about $5 for the fabric and the bit of Mod Podge I used. I used Command strips and about 4 reed diffusers tied together that we already had to hang the curtain. So in all, not bad, I would say!