DIY Art for Our Home

I'm happy to say that our apartment no longer has bare walls. After a few months of living in our new place and stalling on decorating it, I caught the creative bug and started churning out project after project in just two weeks' time. I just couldn't stop.

First, I wanted to create a photo collage wall in our foyer to showcase photos from our travels and of our families. That IKEA saleslady might have looked at me crazy as I laid out all those frames across their displays to envision what the wall could look like, but it was worth it to have a good sense of what I was working with. I took photos before throwing the frames in my cart and then recreated the layout on top of a large roll of paper. I traced around the frames and marked the exact spot where the hook was before cutting out each shape. Then I taped the paper to the wall, took a step back to see how it looked overall and made necessary tweaks to the layout. Once I was satisfied with how it all looked, I nailed hooks right through the paper, tore the sheet off, and replaced it with the frame.

Next, I approached A. with the idea of painting a wall in our kitchen with chalkboard paint, which he loved. We put it to good use when my sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner a couple weeks ago.

Benjamin Moore (and other brands, I'm sure) now make it easy to have chalkboard paint made in any of their colors. In fact, here's how you can DIY your own batch with some non-sanded grout if you have any leftover paint at home. Prepping the paint after it was applied was a pain in the ass though as we had to cover the entire wall with chalk and then erase it all. An easy feat, you'd think, but there we were busting out rags, mixing vinegar and water concoctions, even scrubbing the wall with a toothbrush to get the wall as clean as when it was freshly painted. I was hesitant to ever draw on it again, but thankfully we've since been able to wipe the chalk off with just a damp paper towel. Maybe we just went too hard with that first round.

The office, where I spend the majority of my day, still needed a couple touches of my personality - mainly on the big blank walls right in front of my desk. I started with a few picture ledges from IKEA. At $10 and $15 each they were fairly inexpensive and allows me to display the things that make me happy (like my washi tape collection, books, and prints) and change things out without leaving too many marks on the wall. For prints, I ended up purchasing The Every Girl's Success Is Not Easy print in navy and gold and Emily McDowell's colorful print on comparison. Both are great reminders for me.

What else makes me smile? Color. Lots of it. So about a million punch cuts of paper butterflies later, I created this colorful wall installation. Beside the aching palm after punching all that paper, it was incredibly easy to do. Just lightly draw a path on the wall in pencil and then affix each butterfly along that path with either glue dots or double-sided tape.

That was immediately followed by a raincloud piñata because why not? The project took about an afternoon to make and once you learn the basic steps behind a DIY cardboard piñata (mine is empty by the way), you could dream up all kinds of shapes and ideas to deck in crêpe paper fringe. See?

For the living room wall behind the couch I knew I wanted to go big and in multiples so I bought three 24" x 36" canvases from Amazon.com and after drawing out a pattern on paper, laying on the masking tape, and deciding on a colorway, I went to town with the acrylic paint.

This project couldn't have taken more than four/five hours total and the only stressful part was making sure I mixed enough paint of any custom color to cover the necessary areas without being left with too much unused. I knew if I had to mix another batch, it would be incredibly difficult to land the exact shade again. I guess I was also worried that the colors would look crazy once the canvases dried, but I was so happy to wake up the following day, pull off the tape, and see how my latest masterpiece turned out. What do you think?