Seeing Green – More Repurposed Wall Art May 13, 2012

And now a little break from the nature hikes!

My very good friend Nicole found this gem while she was out “junkin”!

Beautiful gold and chippy frame.

And this beautiful gem I picked up at Shabby Chic Picker Chick but sadly she has closed her storefront but still sells online.

Another beautiful gold beauty!

(oops, I forgot to round the corners on this photo! Oh well.) I chose the Martha Stewart paint samples I got from Home Depot in Okra.

And I had a spill. . .. oops!!

It took about 4 coats to cover that nasty goldness!  You can see it shining through here.

I’ve had that green paintbrush since college. . . 14 years. . . yikes!!

I roughed up the frame after I painted it to look worn. But you can see here, the gold really showed through.

I like the white showing through, but not the gold.

So I tried to paint it with watered down white acrylic.

It looks pretty good. . . from a distance

Isn’t she lovely? I picked up  a few botanical prints at The Humble Home for only $2 each! I love botanicals but only when they are in a bright funky frame!

You may remember this beautiful shelf I made from this post. I propped my new artwork up on it, looks lovely.

But a little sparse.

So I added a couple other pieces of repurposed art! Now it makes me smile every time I walk by.

Doesn’t the shelf look so sweet?

I’m in love with this repurposed project too!  Green and pretty.  The white vase is also from The Humble Home. The doily is from a junk store in Eureka Springs, AK. And the yellow iris’, well, their from my garden!

What have you repurposed lately?

Smiles!

Megan

Hydrangea Love! October 23, 2011

These three little hydrangea bushes started out tiny and green this year.

And they blossomed into these blue beauties, just gorgeous all summer long!  But now fall has come and it was time to clip the blooms and get them ready for winter.

I hated to throw the gorgeous blooms out so I found a few containers around the house like this one above and tried a couple different things.  This is the before with old cracked pears. . .

And here’s the after, a white boat perfect for floating hydrangeas! Isn’t the color of violet they turned just gorgeous?

I like it with the green and yellow in my kitchen.

I had a couple square, glass vases and made a little centerpiece.  I’m in love with the color!  Hopefully they will last awhile, it will make me smile!

Smiles!

Megan

 

 

 

 

 

From Door Frame to Wall Art July 17, 2011

I found this gorgeous hunk of crusty old door frame at Jim’s Seek & Save here in Omaha. If you haven’t been there yet, it’s a must see, great finds, huge variety and really great prices.  This was only $15!
Isn’t the crusty and crackly-ness just amazing?
I need some major help with my photo taking skills, I apologize!  I cleaned up the piece and sanded the bumpy parts being very careful not to lose too much of the crackles and paint. Got out my Purdy paintbrush and Martha Stewart paint sample called Cornbread.

This is supposed to be what it looks like but really, it’s yellow, a lovely soft shade of yellow. I think I’m obsessed with painting things yellow lately – like the muffin tin project and the mail holder project. And you can see in a few photos I have a yellow kitchen and got a yellow tea pot for my birthday! I guess I love yellow!
So I painted this baby up and went to town “weathering” it.  There was probably 3 or 4 layers of paint and a couple layers down was this really great 1950′s turquoise green color.  I was super happy that after the paint dried, the crackling showed really nice.
Whenever I need some creative inspiration, Anthropologie is my first stop, not only do they have awesome clothes but they have the best window displays and in-store displays too.  Gorgeous, colorful, playful, vintage, I just love that place.  And, they always have these darling knobs on sale.  So I stocked up on a few and may have splurged on a couple that weren’t on sale, but it was worth it.
At first I tried to use measuring and math to space them out easily but there’s a reason why I’m a creative, not a numbers person. In the end I just eyeballed it which I’m sure ended up more precise than if I measured!
I drilled holes and screwed them in. Some of them were longer than the thickness of the board so I finally got to use my Dremel to cut some metal! Just trimmed the ends of those little suckers off like cutting butter!
And there you have it!  I hung it up by itself and it was really boring so I found some knick knacks around the house and arranged them on top. See that big brown plate? I found the gem at Goodwill for $1.99.  I’m going to paint it a funky color. . . I’m sure you’ll see that project soon!
Isn’t it so cute? I keep staring at it I love it so much! Did I mention it’s 44″ wide?  HUGE I tell ya!
Look at that old nail sticking out. I thought it was a cool detail so I left it in there.

This was originally designed to be a holder for all of our hats but I think it’s too cute to cover up those darling knobs, right?

Smiles,

Megan

Polka Dot Flowers & Purple Butterflies November 20, 2010

How could anyone resist doing a special project for this cute little blond hair-pig-tailed girl?

In addition to that precious little smile, she also has a precious pink and yellow bedroom, a little girl’s dream, right?

So her mom didn’t have to twist my arm to create some cute artwork for these gynormously tall walls!  I sketched out a design using her bedspread and pillows as inspiration.  We are starting on one wall for now but will add another soon, I just couldn’t wait to share the progress!

First step was sketching the art on the walls with white chalk (thanks Rosie for the recommendation!)

If you look very very very close you can see the faint white lines.

 

 

And I mixed up a beautiful light fluffy purply violet color.

 

 

And started with that cute little butterfly in the corner.

 

 

Then the periwinkle colored flower with polka dots in the middle.

 

 

Then the bright pink flower!

 

 

To finish it off I added some white polka dots and green stems and leaves.  SO CUTE!! And I heard the little one loved it too!

 

Hope your day is filled with polka dot flowers and purple butterflies!

Smiles,

Megan

Frosting Flowers October 4, 2010

I visited Justin Gaffrey‘s incredible gallery in Seaside, FL this summer.

It was the amazing painting sitting in the sun outside of his gallery of colorful flowers and the words  to the song You Are My Sunshine that peaked my interest. That was the song my Mom sang to us when we were little tykes, I love it.

But the most intriguing thing I learned about this artist is that he used to be a chef, so the fact that he paints with a palette knife and his flower paintings look like thick, bright, delicious frosting covering an enormous and beautiful canvas full of color was not surprising.  Some of his flowers can be 2 inches thick and his paintings can take up to one week to completely dry. Incredible!

Justin’s work is inspiring me to be more abstract and free in my acrylic paintings, it’s difficult,  but a little painting I’m working on is coming together nicely, I’ll be sure to share it when it’s complete.  For now, I will browse Justin’s site daily for inspiration.

What is your creative inspiration?

Smiles!

Megan

What a Summer September 19, 2010

This summer took me many places: awesome guitar festival in Chicago, family trip to Florida, friends trip to Colorado, lots of golf, trips to the zoo and the Joslyn and much more.  The one place this summer didn’t take me was to my art room so, I took this cool, drizzly fall weekend to finally spend some time in my cozy little studio.  Between football games this weekend I was able to make a tiny little dent in my very long project list.

Here’s a sneak peak at a couple projects I’m working on:

This might be one of the cutest and brightest little girls bedrooms that I know of. What little one wouldn’t love pink and yellow and purple everywhere?  My friend Amy painted this cute room all herself, yellow on the top of the walls and pink on the bottom. These are sketches of the room, trying to figure out the composition for replicating the flowers on the bedding as flowers on the walls, big, HUGE flowers!

One of these tiny little sketches will hang ever so creatively in the Husker themed nursery of my friend Sarah’s little one, Dylan.  Belly casts seem to be all the rage these days for those expecting little ones and are definitely a very unique way to commemorate such an incredibly special day!

This is only scratching the surface, many more projects coming up. In the meantime I’ll keep visiting my favorite blog Design Sponge for creative inspiration as well as those listed on the right of this page.

Smiles!

Megan

Keeping Memories for Baby Girl April 6, 2010

In a previous post I shared the start of a project – a memory box for a baby girl.  This was so fun because my friend Jami is giving this as a gift to a good friend of hers who recently welcomed baby Emri into the world.  Because Emri has such an adorable nursery, Jami thought it would be fun to match the memory box design to the nursery so Mom can display it. Of course I was all for this as well, what artist doesn’t want their creation to be center of attention!

On the left is a photo of the wall mural in baby Emri’s nursery, a whimsical tree with sage green leaves and highlights of pink flowers. On the right is all the components I planned to use in the box, pink buttons, ribbon with a pattern similar to that of the wall mural and various colors and textures of paper.

I’m really pleased with how the different textures, tones, colors and styles came together in this whimsical yet trendy memory box for baby Emri.  The papers, ribbon and letters were found at some of my favorite art supply stores including Hollanders, Hobby Lobby and Dick Blick.  Of course the buttons come from all of my various junk store or antique store adventures in either Omaha, Overton or Weston, MO.

I really like using these letters because they add a child like playfulness  to the memory box.  The photo corners are another new item I’ve been using recently as opposed to building an actual frame out of chipboard and slipping a photo in it.  This is a much more user friendly solution and leaves more room for for fun details like layering different papers and more buttons!

I have a really great HP Desk Jet printer that came with my Mac that I purchased back in 2002!  I can run so many different thickness and textures of paper through this printer, it is an awesome resource and I hope it never ever dies on me!

This is kind of an awkward angle but you can see how I incorporated all of the elements from the front of the memory box on the inside of the box.

As all artists experience, sometimes mistakes can be happy ones!  This strip of green paper with the letters spelling out Emri was a last minute addition because the paper crinkled really awkward when the glue dried and I didn’t like how it looked.  This was a creative solution to fixing that issue as it really enhanced the design of the interior of the memory box, making it more personal and interesting to look at.

I’m so happy that baby Emri will have something so fun and whimsical as a keepsake full of many memories to visit over and over again the rest of her life!  I’m curious, how do you keep the many memories made by your babies?

Smiles,

Megan

Just gorgeous January 26, 2010

This might be my new favorite blog: EmersonMade.

Very simple, clean and gorgeous photography.

Maybe someday I will be able to pull off wearing one of  her flowers!

Smiles!

Megan