Eye Chart Fascinations

Have you guys seen all the eye charts out there? 

They seem to be a trend right now. 

Whether they are on a gallery wall or hung in a room with love, they are everywhere! 

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I was reading another blog a while back (sorry, prego brain prevents me from remembering the exact blog) and she had made her own!  I thought to myself WOWZA!!!  So I attempted as well.  I went here to the Custom Eye Chart Maker to make the eyechart and then I used picnik to edit the bottom a little bit more! 

Oh yea!  It was Gardenbergers.blogspot.com

Here's what I came up with:

Michael and Abigail Est.

And here's how it ended up after my edits at Picnik:

Michael and Abigail EST. July 17 2010 Fort Wayne, IN

I think this one will end up somewhere in the bedroom :)

Adding Art to the Bedroom on a Budget

I recently added some art to my bedroom. 

It was feeling a little drab.

I found this set of three frames at goodwill and they were a total of $15.  They used to be green with children's pictures in them... actually the pictures weren't so bad, but I wasn't looking to put hot air balloon prints anywhere in my house so I slaved over these for a week, taking the backing off and trying to save the matting so it could be used again too.  I cut myself many times, but here's how they came out. 

I thought for sure I shared this previously, but now I can't find the post!  Hunting for it after I post.  I know I did!  I will find it! 

Any who... so they were in my room like this for a while... I liked the color of the frames, but I wasn't sold on it in the room.  I thought I wanted them gray like some of the accents in the room, but I just wasn't liking the look.  It was too dark in the room.  The room needs more light accents or at least subtly moody ones.

Once I decided it had to be changed, I went to Wally World and purchased three of their mini sample bottles for like $2.99 each.  I had actually brought the colors home previously and when I got there I just couldn't decide. 

When I got home, I immediately started painting away at the dark gray. 

Here's what that looked like. 

So I took this dark gray to a lighter shade but I wasn't sold.  This one was too light.  I didn't really like it.  It looked too bright on the walls against the sage and with the creams and muted tones in the room. 

Then I remembered some old paint that I had laying around in the garage and I thought this might be one of the perfect places to use it.  It's actually used on some of the artwork I made in the room so it should blend in nicely... right?

So I taped off the edges to keep the paint from getting on the glass and started painting away! 

When I removed the tape, here's what I had!

Voila!

Much Much Better! 

I got the two prints on the outside from A Brooklyn Limestone's Freebies and the middle is a poem I found somewhere on the Internet typed up in courier new and centered.  A friend came over the other day and read it and almost started crying.  I just thought it was sweet and lovey... just what you want in a master bedroom, right? 

So, what do you think?  I think I did pretty good. 

I figure I can always change out the artwork and I might even add a $10 picture ledge for them to sit on so that they compliment the other side of the room (shown below) where we already have some ledges... would that be too much?    I'm also thinking about changing the colors of the ledges... removing the paint and just staining them might be nice... oh, I digress.

(This picture is old... they now have some "stuff" on them
although the "stuff" does need to be updated!)



Breakdown of Cost:

Paint not used - $6

Frames and matting- $15

Artwork - FREE

Paint Used - already had so FREE

Total Cost - $21

Hopefully Tuesday is better than yesterday!!! 

-- Cheap Easy Art --

I've had these frames from Target for 2 years.  They were just a set of 10 that you can get there for like $30.  I got them for Christmas back then.  They've been sitting in my loft since we moved in.  I haven't had anything to do with them! 

But then I got an idea...why not just print some stuff out that would fit in them?  There was only one that was bigger than 8x10 so I could just mat that picture, right?  RIGHT!!! 

So I printed out pictures like these....

via bicycle.art.com

 

via retrotogo.com



via anamorphosis-kate.blogspot.com

 

via fitkidzclubohio.com



via japaneseart.blogspot.com

 You can print whatever you like... I googled things like vintage art, vintage prints, vintage ice skating art, and then the keep calm and carry on logos.  You could google whatever! 

I then printed them out and cut them to size and look what I ended up with!

Mike's side of the bed

My side of the bed

What do you think? 

I am really pleased with how it turned out.

-- Willow Art --

For the wedding, my mom grabbed some willow branches from her friend Anne's willow tree that she was cutting down.  Since the wedding, the extras have been sitting in my garage... I couldn't part with them.  And then finally this weekend, I moved them into the house.  I thought they'd be neat in some of the larger vases that I have around my house, but they didn't fit. 

So then they stayed in the bathroom leaning against the wall for a day.  That entire day, every time that Mike walked in there, he reminded me that we had a tree growing in there.  Which gave me the urge to get them out of there more quickly than anticipated. 

So.... I made this! 

Voila! 

All I did was arrange 4 willow branches how I liked them.  I basically just put one branch facing out and the next facing in and repeated with the last two branches. 

Once they were arranged and laying how I wanted them, I wrapped twine around the areas that overlapped a bit.  You can't really see that well with this picture.  But there are five areas where the twine is wrapped. 

But I think it turned out great.  Now, I have to move the artwork that was above my bed to it's new home, find a dresser, and some curtains and I think I'll be all done!