DIY Kitchen Wall Art – Painted Spoons

I saw this spoon art on Pinterest and decided it would be super fun to do for my kitchen, using paint colors from my color scheme, of course. I already had acrylic paint in the right colors, left over from this wall art project, so I just needed a canvas and a million spoons.

I went to Goodwill first. I was thinking about doing just 3 large serving spoons centered on the canvas, instead of tons of small spoons. But I couldn’t find any cool old spoons at Goodwill, so I ended up getting a couple boxes of tiny appetizer spoons from the Grocery store. They’re actually plastic, but very metal looking. Plastic was a good idea in the end; I think metal spoons would have been too heavy to hang on the wall.

First I set all the spoons on the canvas to determine exactly how many I needed. 56. Ugh.

Then I poured paint on the tip of each spoon and rolled it around to look like they’d been dipped in paint (the spoons were just ever so slightly too large to fit into the bottles of acrylic paint, of course). I left them on paper to dry overnight.

Then I hot glued each individual spoon to the canvas. This took forever, but it was worth it in the end.

The final product looks really good up on my kitchen gallery wall. No pictures of that because it’s not quite finished…

Kitchen Wall Art DIY

My snow day craft project is finally done, and the snow is melting. Which is convenient, because I needed somewhere to put the canvas while I waited for the acrylic sealer to dry/air out, and I certainly couldn’t use a snow-covered patio!

 

The finished project:

 

My inspiration was this (much better) two canvas piece from Kelly Hicks Design. For some reason, my paint always bleeds underneath the painter’s tape. In this project, it’s probably because I was supposed to use spray paint, and I used regular acrylic paint.

My art supplies:

1) Paint whole canvas in a bunch of different colors (I used mainly blues and greens with a bit of raspberry and purple for accent colors.)

Here are some progress shots:

2) Cut strips of painter’s tape of the same size (This part is boring. Very boring.)
3) Tape them onto the canvas in a herringbone pattern leaving some out (I am apparently not very good with patterns, because I had to do the whole canvas herringbone and then peel a few off at the end, or I lost track of the pattern.)

4) Spray paint whole canvas in white. (You can try using acrylic paint like I did, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it.)
5) Finish painting edges of canvas

I hung it up in the kitchen, but I’m not sure I love it. I like the idea of it, but the messiness of where the paint bled under the tape, and some cracks that happened when I peeled the tape off are bugging me. I like having something above the sink, though, so I may make something else. Stay tuned!

 

End Table Revealed

Everyone remember this?

It finally became this:

Boom chicka wow wow, right? Okay, maybe that’s too much excitement for an end table. But I love it. The SassCat loves it, too.

I think she likes the sassy pop of green inside the drawer that matches the legs.

I’m on the fence about painting the knob green. I tried to remove the knob, but it’s an old table and I couldn’t get the knob unscrewed. So, leave it au natural or paint it green? Vote in the comments!

PS – My walls look sort of olive in some of those photos. They’re not. The middle pic (with SassCat) is more true to life.

Unexpected Wall Colors – Turquoise

You guys, I am totally digging this turquoise wall.

(image source: apartment therapy)

Turquoise is one of my favorite colors and I think it makes the office space pictured just feel happier.

I would love to paint an accent wall in my apartment, but don’t really think it’s worth the expense and effort when I’d have to repaint tan (“latte”) over it in a year.

But wouldn’t it be so relaxing to have a wall like this in your bedroom?

(image source: house of turquoise)

Taking a second look at these photos, it occurs to me that I’ve probably gotten as close to this look as I will in my current apartment with my curtain project. When the sun shines through them during the day, they have this fabulous glowing turquoise sheerness that I LOVE.

You know, I might love curtains as much as I love throw pillows and decorative vases…

Anyway. Stripes. I flip flop when it comes to stripes. Sometimes I love them, sometimes I hate them. Probably not a good idea to ever use stripes in my house, but I like this room. I think stripes can look really polished if you use them the right way (and in small doses).

(image source: organized-design)

Pretty Kitchen Counter Organization

I submit to you, the most annoying project ever. Okay, maybe not quite as annoying as my earring hanger/organizer project. But a close second. Annoying enough to drive me to eat chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream out of the carton. Hey, it’s a small carton!

Remember when my dip-dye fetish resulted in this cute little glass container? Well, it’s been sitting on my kitchen counter, looking all gorgeously domestic and cute. But the utensil holders next to it…

Kinda “meh.”

I was rinsing out a salsa jar when I had the brilliant (at the time) idea to dip-dye paint a few jars and make matching utensil holders. This was supposed to be a quick little project that I’d work on in between coats of paint on the end table. But nooooo.

Humidity. Is. The. Devil.

I’m blaming all my problems on the humidity. Every time I peeled the painters tape off, the paint came with. Or it just left weird, bubbly warped edges. So my quick little project turned into constant attempts to repaint/fill in bare spots. I have no idea if the humidity really is to blame, but I do know that paint takes longer to cure in humid environments (hence why the end table is getting two nights in between coats of white now).

Eventually I just decided it was “good enough.”

Honestly, I’m not loving them as much as I love the square guy. I have a few more pasta sauce and salsa jars, so there may be an update in the future. I also kind of feel compelled to throw my “van gogh-esque” container in the middle to mix it up visually a bit. That container was a pre-blog project, painted with acrylic paint and actually sprayed with acrylic sealer.

Has anyone else had problems with humidity and painters tape? Maybe painters tape is not meant for acrylic paint?