DIY Wall Art

It's finally done.

I'm still on the everlasting quest to get our home decorated. Perhaps some day we will be finished. Until then, here is the latest project I did to bring in some life to our entry way wall. Now the wall is VERY tall, umm somewhere around 30 feet...just kidding...it's more like 15 feet tall and 12 feet wide. I wanted a bold statement on the wall since it's the first thing you see when you walk in the house, plus the wall would just look so bare with nothing on it. Bri suggested a mural of himself playing baseball...umm, thanks, but no thanks. I looked in to big pieces of canvas art but they were just too darn expensive so I figured it was time to get creative.

(big wall)

I did more "research" for ways to make inexpensive wall art and finally stumbled across this project at All Things Thrifty. Aren't they so cute? Her whole site is full of great ideas...just wish I had more time to try them all. Her wall art consisted of three panels of wood that her husband cut the design out of then she backed with fabric. A bit ambitious for us rookie tool users so I went in a slightly different direction.

First I had my dad make us these frames (they measure 3x5 feet each) and I bought some heavy fabric (similar to canvas) at Joann's...40% off baby...sa-weet!

Then Bri and I stripped our fingerprints off stretched the fabric and covered the frames. Note to self: DON'T wash the fabric before hand as it might shrink and cause minor major frustration when covering a frame that is now too big. A lot of sweat and tears later, we figured it out and ended up with these:

Next step was to trace the pattern on to the frames. I used the template I found here and borrowed a projector from school to make the image large enough for the canvases. Once the print was traced, I painted the picture with black paint and let it dry. Now our bare wall has a little bit of life with these bad boys:

(paint may still be slightly wet...what can I say, I have no patience)

Pretty cool eh? Total cost for this project was about $65 which is still kinda pricey, but definitely less than what I would have paid to buy three pictures of that size. Here's another look.

Before (from the landing on the stairs):

After (from the landing on the stairs):

These pictures don't really do justice to the actual size of these suckers. To put it into perspective, each piece is almost as tall as me! Yeah, yeah, I'm not that tall but whatever. They are life-size. Love it though! :)

I know I was supposed to show you the progress on the laundry room but I may have gotten a bit distracted by this project. Oops. More on the laundry room another day...