Monday, February 13, 2012

DIY Project: Wall Art

I have been staring at a large empty wall space in our living room for over 6 months.  Everything I found in the store that I thought might work for the space was always waaaay too expensive ($75-$200).  I finally decided to search the web for DIY Wall Art and became inspired.  What was created is what you see below.  Tada! 



All it took was a trip to Michaels where I picked up 4 blank canvases, a cheap bottle of black acrylic paint, and paint brushes.  This was followed by a trip to Lowes for some painters tape.  I chose to use 4 canvases because they were on sale for buy one two pack, get another free.  How could I pass up free stuff?  Any color paint would've worked for this project or I could've used more than one color.  Black and white just happened to fit in with the color scheme of my living room.  The canvas could even be painted prior to putting the tape on it to make the lines a different color.  Just make sure the under layer is completely dry before placing the tape.  Here are the steps it took to complete this mini DIY project

Materials: Canvases, Paint, Paint Brush, Painters Tape
Time: 2-3 hours (45 minutes active time, 2 hours drying)
  1. Lay the canvases touching side by side on a flat surface in the desired formation.  Any number of canvases will work...1, 3, 4, etc.  
  2. Place the painters tape in long strips across the canvas until a pattern that you like is created.
  3. If using more than one canvas, cut the tape along the gap between the canvases.
  4. Optional step: take extra tape and wrap it around the edges if you want the line/pattern to continue on the sides of the canvas.  Skip this step if it doesn't matter and just paint the side.
  5. Take a credit card or something similar and run it along the edges of all the tape.  This is an important step because it will help keep the paint from bleeding under the tape edge.
  6. Once all tape edges are secure, paint away! 
  7. Allow the paint to completely dry.  Once paint is dry, peel off all the painters tape and your done!  All that's left is to hang everything up.
All in all, it does pay to do something yourself.  Cost of purchasing wall art: $75-$200.  Cost of DIY: $20.  No comparison!