Merit's Art Wall

Another project once again and I really love how this art display area turned out. Sweet pics of my boy doing art projects with Mommy, a place for his 3D type crafts and plenty of room to display his work. Perfection!

 

My New Home Entrance!

My Spring Break project took some serious elbow grease but I certainly love the way it turned out!

 

Prints on Canvas...easy and inexpensive!

I have a ton of framed pictures in my home. Maybe some would say too many pictures! So, I decided to try something new. I found a blog that had information on how to adhere pictures to canvas. I ended up printing these black and white pictures on my computer at home and I used just bright white paper. First, I used black paint and painted the sides of the canvas black. I then painted a good thick coat of Mod Podge on the canvas and then adhered the picture to the front. You have to be really careful in order to get it smooth without bubbles but it is possible. :) After I smoothed out the bubbles I let it dry. I painted three coats of Mod Podge on top of my picture and made sure I used plenty on the sides too. You can see a picture of the finished product below. They turned out wonderfully! Then I used my two new pictures to make a beautiful collage for my new family room. Lovely!

 

A couple of blogs I used:

http://www.mommymodelsblog.com/?p=2051

 

http://howtonestforless.com/2012/09/24/mod-podge-photo-canvas-prints/

 

 

 

January Wreath

I absolutely love the look of yarn wreaths. To me, they look warm and fuzzy. I made the white yarn wreath last year and used it for the months of January and February. For January, I made pretty gray and white felt flowers adorned with clear rhinestones in the center of each flower. This year, I added some pretty turquoise blue felt flowers because I've recently incorporated this color into my living room. I think the wreath looks perfect now!

 

 

Pretty January Votives

I took some of my clear glass votive candle holders and made them look a little more wintry. I painted them with a good coat of Mod Podge and then sprinkled rock salt to cover. The rock salt is harder to work with then Epsom salt but I think it looks much prettier. :) After they were dry I put a couple of them inside my large hurricanes which I filled with Epsom salt. I really like how this project turned out!

 

 

 

December Art!

We made some really pretty art work during the month of December. Here are a couple of my favorites. The Santa sleigh and reindeer turned out so cute! Merit loves to have his hands and feet painted so this was perfect for him. He also had a great time decorating and building the snowman.

 

DIY Coasters

For Christmas this year I made coasters for some of my family members. I had so much fun with this project! I decided I'd try one set of coasters in color and they turned out really good too! What a wonderful gift to give someone you love!

Here is the link I used to learn how to do this. http://leelala.net/2011/02/diy-tile-coasters/

 

New Room!

I decided I wanted to get rid of the large desk that was taking up most of the room in our study and get a smaller desk. My mom and I did a little brainstorming while driving home from Houston and by the time we got home I had a plan! I used a beautiful black desk from my bedroom and made that the new computer desk. It looks great! I then moved Merit's black table and chairs from his bedroom into the study. We are going to use the table for crafts and games. I really like the extra room in Merit's bedroom now that the table and chairs is gone. I have a large shaggy rug picked out to put in the center of this room which I think will make the space a little more warm and cozy feeling. Merit is already enjoying playing in this new space!

 

Spooky...ha!

Merit and I had so much fun putting our outdoor decorations outside today. We found some cute new Mickey and Minnie pumpkins to add to our collection. I think my new wreath looks great with the other decorations! Merit really loves our friendly ghosts and I like their cute polka dot ribbons. I added the same ribbon to my pumpkins and the spider too. Cute!

 

October Wreath

I love my new October wreath! I used things I had at the house to put it together. I started with a plain wreath form. I used leftover materials cut into strips and then tied the strips on the wreath one by one. I used a different material to hang the wreath, added a letter "M" for McLain, and a cute fuzzy spider.

 

Pumpkins, Spiders, Bats, Oh My!

Merit all but begged me to get our decorations out of the shed. He was pretty enthused about decorating and seeing our pumpkins. When we were in the shed he saw the Polar Express train and of course he begged to get that out too. I told him we'd have to wait a few more weeks because we set up the train when the Christmas season begins. I'm just glad that someone in my house appreciates all of my hard work decorating! Ha! :)

 

Construction Party Decor

 

I always design an emblem for Merit's birthday partys. For this birthday it was M McLain's Construction Co. #3 Est 9-15-09. The scanned image doesn't look very good but the printed one looked great! I made stickers and cupcake picks with these.

I bought this adorable construction site play set off Craigslist this summer because I knew it would make a perfect place to display the cupcakes. The cupcakes were "dirt cakes"; yellow cake with chocolate nutella icing and oreo cookie crumbs.

I made "mud balls" Oreo truffles and put those in the back of a yellow dump truck. They really did look like large clumps of mud.

I also made chocolate hammers which were large pretzel rods with chocolate covered marshmallows as the hammer heads. They looked so cute!

Merit's cake was made from using one 8 inch round cake pan and one small 4 inch round pan. I stacked them and covered the cake with chocolate nutella icing. The finishing touch was lots of Oreo cookie crumbs and then I dug out part of the cake so it would look like the construction equipment was really going to work!

Caution tape was hung throughout the kitchen, entry way and dining room. I printed large construction signs to hang also.

The main food was in the dining room and the desserts were in the kitchen.

 

I made the food tags to look like construction signs. This sign read, "forklift fruit". I tried to come up with construction names for all of the food items.

 

Builders BBQ Brisket and Pipelayer Potato Salad

 

 Merit and I made lots of dump truck art work leading up to his party. This is his feet made into dump trucks and the other is a dump truck made from tearing up tiny pieces of construction paper and gluing it on the truck. His work looked really great on display!

I made his birthday sign using large sheets of orange card stock. I cut 7 sheets to look like construction cones and then cut out letters for his name, a cute polka dot dump truck and a polka dot number 3. I can't believe he's 3! Orange and yellow ribbon was used to tie the sign together.

Cute signs for the door in the kitchen. These signs were larger versions of the picks I made for the cupcakes.

Merit's invite, birthday photography, birthday boy ribbon and his construction emblem that I designed.

I used our orange electrical cords to wrap one of my wreaths and then adorned it with caution tape and his construction emblem.

The front yard decor.

In the backyard, we had a construction themed obstacle course for the kids to run. JP and Papa 'D' designed it and the kids absolutely loved it!

 

 

Construction Obstacle Course

After we got home from breakfast J.P. and David started designing an obstacle course in our backyard. J.P. picked up cones, construction signs and caution tape for the course. Merit wanted to help but mostly he just played. He also tested the course for them, which he loved doing!

 

New Art for Merit's Big Boy Room!

Sharon found these adorable construction art displays at Homegoods. The frames were blue so I decided to paint them black and then I trimmed the inside of each frame with thin red ribbon. I love the way they turned out and Merit really likes them too! No more baby things in his room now. I hung the baby art in his closet so I can still see it. He is growing up way too fast! :(

 

 

Easter Decor

I love fresh flowers in the Spring and since my birthday falls in March I typically have some fresh flowers around the house.

Easter subway art I printed from Pinterest.

I used this beautiful iron cross I had and adorned it with flowers for Easter.

I used some leftover green ribbon to tie in the theme and color green. I love this soothing shade of green for Spring.

Remember my kissing balls? I made these as part of my Valentine decor. Don't they look pretty for Easter too? :)

Old Shoes Spruced Up!

I love these silver shoes but they had rhinestones adorning the toe and the rhinestones kept falling off. It was really annoying! So, I made two small black felt flowers and embellished the flowers with a small rhinestone. I attached clips to the back of each flower so they are actually removable. So cute! I love the way they turned out!

February Decor

My winter white wreath turned Valentine wreath! I just added some pretty felt flowers!

Beautiful coffee filter kissing balls. I love the way these turned out but they took way too long to make!

Framed "love" art and I added the felt flower to the frame.

I bought some pretty ribbon at Hobby Lobby and spruced up the dining room a bit with the ribbon and red candles.

Crepe paper heart...pretty but again this took a long time to make!

I used the new ribbon other places too. This vase is one that I sprayed black and used in my dining room for October decor.

Just for fun I hung this "I love you" heart in Merit's room.