I will call this “art.”

A couple of weeks ago My Bff Mo and my sister, Courtney, gave me another baby shower. It was fun, with all of my close friends, and had a little bit of a bird theme going on. (Important to note for the record: none of us are really theme-y people, but this was pulled off really nicely without being too over-the-top, grody theme-y. Thank you and good bye.) One of the cute things they did was cut silhouettes of birds out of really cool, patterned paper then hung them all around. Once the shower was over they decided to keep the paper birds for me in case I had a light bulb moment and thought of something interesting to do with them.

Unfortunately, I don’t have many of those so-called light bulb moments and am not typically very creative. However, Courtney sort of led me to think about mounting the birds on white paper then framing them and hanging them in the nursery. While doing some shopping on Sunday I found some picture frames that were 40% off, and not being able to deny myself of a good deal I bought four of them thinking I would try the bird-framing idea.

Again, not necessarily a fan of birds, per se, and without doing a major bird theme in the nursery, I think I really like how the whole thing turned out.

Not only do I really dig the patterns and colors that are going on, but what’s better than an art project that takes less than fifteen minutes?

Nothing, that’s what.

My latest time waster

 

Every once in awhile I’ll get the itch to create something. To let my creative juices flow; to turn something ho-hum into something funky; to really let my hair down and go wild and crazy and make up for being such a goody-goody in high school. 

I totally know how to let loose. 

My most recent project was this beverage bucket. I got it as a wedding gift, and loved the raw look of the galvanized metal. However, I finally decided that it needed some color and a little livening up.

Remember the last time I did this? When I painted the trash can? I used the same kind of paint and basic technique as I did for that project, however, I think I enjoyed painting this beverage bucket a lot more than the trash can, simply because of the time factor.

See, my patience tank is typically on “E”, and when it comes to a project such as this I want to start it and be done in approximately three minutes or less. As a result, it took me a total of four weeks to finish this project because I could only concentrate for a few minutes at a time before I got bored and wanted to give up and check my Google Reader for the eight-hundredth time that day. But the good news is that if you are a normal person and don’t possess All The Crazy like I do, it should only take you a couple of hours to complete. Which, really, is much more manageable than four weeks. I really need to learn.

DIY trash can

It seems rather odd, considering that my mom is an artist and my dad is an architect, that the creative gene skipped over me and forgot to settle in my DNA. For some bizarre reason I came out of the womb very right-brained; I like facts rather than ideas. I am extremely organized and have a hard time just going with the flow. I’M ANAL. AND COMPULSIVE. Sometimes even… OBSESSIVE.

If you know me you are not shocked. 

However, I do have my days when something comes over me and I just need to get artsy. But instead of taking my time and just letting it flow, I want to do it. And get it done. And clean up! And move on.

Remember? Anal? 

Last week I decided I felt artsy, and wanted to spruce up my back patio, so I decided it would only be right to go pick up a metal trash can and paint it really flashy and colorful. And although I am definitely not the artist in the family, it does look pretty cool, if I may say so myself.

Want to see? Here’s how it all went down: 

First, when painting on metal, it is important to prime the area that you will be painting, so head over to Menards and get some white metal primer. 

Then go to Wal Mart and pick out some acrylic paints, in all of your favorite colors:

Then prime the area you are going to paint. My plan for the design was big, old, funky polka dots. And since I didn’t want to prime the entire can (I wanted some of the metal to show through) I only primed the polka dots that I would be painting over:

After I had put two coats of primer on, and after it was dry, I began to use the paint to color over the primer: 

And voila! There she is! DONE AND DONE. 

Now, I thought it needed some kind of coating, like a polyurethane or something, but apparently the dude at the hardware store disagreed, and said that it would actually pull the paint off of the metal. (Something about how polyurethane is actually meant for wood, and not metal…yada, yada.) So anyway, I didn’t use anything. Don’t know how it will hold up… but it’s only for me, so whatever. If it starts to rot away tomorrow, I’ll let you know. 

I’m pretty pleased with the end result. Mom loved it, too, and said that I could sell them in her store if I wanted to. And I would! Except that, would you believe it took me about five hours to complete this? That’s a little too much time, that I just don’t really have. 

But in case you are ever feeling a little do-it-yourself-y, here is a project you should try. And if you are hesitant at all, please rest assured that if I can handle it, you can definitely handle it.