It’s Winter Pinterest Challenge time! Thanks to some motivation from Megan (The Remodeled Life), Katie (Bower Power), Sherry (Young House Love) and Michelle (Decor and the Dog), I pulled together some new artwork (with & for Boyfriend).
Back in November, I went to visit my sister in Milwaukee. In the course of my (epically bad) train trip, I was left with nothing but a piece of paper and pen (and a phone. No keys. No wallet. No coat. Just a phone.) given to me by strangers (seriously. It was bad.). Mostly out of options, I started on my Christmas list, and a list of things to give others, especially the Boyfriend (he’s pretty tough to shop for).
His walls are either art by Ikea or pictures of his family, so something with more meaning seemed like a good idea, but what? It seemed cute to make something together, but that could be something only girls find cute–what if he thought it was dumb? Or I could combine the two!
I absolutely loved Amanda’s artwork that she made from her children’s artwork:
So much so that I made my own, but without the “aw, cute” of using my kids artwork. (You have to have actual kids for that sort of thing.) So instead I made my friends make me artwork at my birthday party.
But. Boyfriend has a nephew! I could have his four year old nephew make me some art, and turn that into something cool…
Along the lines of my pieced-together birthday art, but something different. 4 year olds probably won’t produce a ton of useable artwork, so I wanted something that could use his nephew’s picture as a component but probably not the focus. So I decided on circles…
I have a love affair with circles (I have a whole board of cards that involve circles) and on my Things for my Wall board, I pinned this:
It’s from Etsy shop box64studios, and although this one is no longer available, they have a similar listing here. I thought it was really cool, and thought something similar would look great as one of my bathroom artwork options.
Plus Boyfriend already has a circle thing going. He just moved, but here’s a picture of his old living room:
The rug is from the Home Decorators Collection and I love the circle pattern.
Boyfriend’s nephew painted me a couple of pictures a few weeks before Christmas, and I cut them into circles and put them in a box. I wanted to make sure he liked the idea, so for Christmas I just gave him the box of circles. (It was the one gift he chose to open at breakfast–he was a little bewildered.)
I grabbed a sheet of fancy gift wrap from my stash and did a practice run on the cream back.
Looking pretty good. Needs way more little circles. (Flashback to my Heart Art, where I had oodles of way-too-big hearts and needed tons more baby hearts). We also didn’t love the way it looked on white–the circles that were only partially painted were blending in a little and we didn’t love the look. [If you do this, I’d recommend using art that is thoroughly painted/colored so you can use a white background. Much simpler.) After a trip to Paper Source, we came home with a sheet of gray handmade paper with some silver texture to it and laid it out again.
Yeah. Too busy.
So we tried again, flipping over our piece of fancy paper and laying down the design again.
Much calmer. The paper still has a nice texture and doesn’t look plain but it isn’t fighting with the circles. But Boyfriend didn’t like the circles overlapping (as they are in the top left corner) and overall we thought more definition might look better. So we tightened up the arrangement.
Then it was time to glue. I started out with glue dots, which worked fine, but it would have used a lot (and after my Valentines wreath I’m running a little low!) We used a combination of tape runners and double sided tape, but I think most adhesives would work as long as your paper isn’t too delicate (some adhesives discolor paper).
When we finished, we popped it in a large Ikea frame, and hung it on my wall!
I know it doesn’t fit on the wall–it also doesn’t belong in my house, but Boyfriend is traveling (again) and its as good a place as any for it. It will live in his new living room above the couch.
Want to see my other Pinterest Challenge projects?
Do you have any homemade art in your home?
homemade•handmade 