DIY: Instagram Collage Prints

Hey guys! Wow it has been a crazy month in the Kane household! We crammed all our travel for the year into the past four weeks before Zach starts residency TOMORROW!! We had such a great time on our travels - camping on Lake Cushman, medical school graduation in Arizona, family reunion in Bend - but let me just say that this Mama is exhausted. With a capital E.

I just wanted to share a little project that is one of my favorites and is so easy to make (and cheap too!) 

Last fall I was itching to get all my Instagram photos on display. But there are so many! What to do? What to do? I saw this post and this post on Pinterest and was relieved there was an easy (and cheap!) way to make a collage in Picasa that you could order straight from Costco. 

First, I figured out how many pictures I wanted on each collage. I liked the look of the inspiration that was six photos across and nine photos down. With the photos about 2x2 inches, that meant that my collage needed to be 20x30. 

In Picasa, I selected the photos I wanted to include in the collage and then hit the button on the top left "Create Photo Collage" (it looks like a little mountain scape photo with a plus sign in the top left corner). From there I adjusted the grid spacing between photos and the overall size of the collage. When I had it just right, I hit "Create Collage".

To order the prints, I used Costco Photo Center online. You can order 16x20 prints for $5.99 each(!). I uploaded the collage and ordered just like a regular photo. So easy and a good price for so many photos!

I got three of these IKEA frames in white for only $3.99 each. Total cost for all three frames and prints was about $27 ($9 each). Not bad! 

I love these so much. They are so fun to look at - every time I take a look I see a new photo I haven't noticed in a while and it brings back a great memory. Emerson loves them too. She loves seeing all the different pictures - always something to look at!

PS. If you want to see more of my photos, find me on Instagram (@mykane). I'm kind of obsessed. :)

Abstract Art

I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend! We hosted over 15 family members at our house for a big Easter Brunch/Zach's Birthday/My Birthday Extravaganza! We had a blast with our family, as always, with tons of food, games and laughs. Emerson did so well with so many people, too. Let's just say she doesn't mind being the center of attention. :)

So I've been in "nesting" mode again... No, Mom, I'm not prego. Since we are staying in Seattle for the next three years and staying in our current rental for at least another year or so, I want to get more settled and put my own stamp on this place. I've been updating the bathroom some and now I'm trying to get more art up on the walls. 

The art in our home is mostly all DIY, family photos or prints from Etsy. We don't have any official "real" artwork on the walls. Our budget just hasn't allowed it, but that's OK. Actually, I take that back. We do have a few smaller pieces that I accumulated from my travels - a watercolor of the Duomo in Firenze, a watercolor of Vernazza, Italy (Cinque Terra), an oil painting of Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, spray paint art from our honeymoon in Cabo. I love these so much and they remind me of our travels every time I look at them. 

That being said, we still don't have any other "real" art that isn't of a place where we've traveled. I've been seeing a ton of inspirational abstract art on Etsy and some other blogs I read and I'm in love with it! I think it's time that I diversified a little bit. Added some abstract art to mix things up and add some color. There are some beautiful colorful pieces of art out there and the nice thing is that there is some really affordable art. It may not be the original art, but a print of the original art is just as good in my book (and much easier on my pocketbook). I rounded up some of my favorites after scoping out some other round ups like this, this, and this.

1. Britt Bass 2. Michelle Armas 3. Belinda Marshall 4. Cortney North 5. Parima Studio

I ended up buying the Michelle Armas print and I can't wait until it gets here! I'm excited to add some much needed color and texture to the walls!

What art are you digging lately? Abstract? Landscapes? Typography? If you have any other suggestions for great art, please share!

DIY Nursery Art - Hot Air Balloons

I whipped up this super easy hot air balloon art for the nursery. I already had the frame on hand courtesy of the clearance section of Target and used my favorite nursery as inspiration (from Craftiness is Not Optional). 

Supplies:

- Scrapbook paper in coordinating patterns

- Frame

- Double sided tape

- Craft glue (I used gorilla glue)

- Pen

Step 1: Cut out your balloons and baskets. I thought I had a circle punch, but couldn't find it so just traced a spool of thread and cut each little circle out by hand. I cut two circles of each pattern I wanted. I just free handed the basket and then used one as a template to cut out the rest in the brown paper.

Step 2: Figure out where you want the ballons to be (spacing, etc.) on your background paper (I just used a white piece of cardstock for the background). Then use the double sided tape to stick one of the balloons of each pattern on the background paper. Stick the baskets a little below the balloons.

Step 3: Grab your pen and draw on your balloon strings. I freehanded, but you could use a ruler too, to be extra straight.

Step 4: Glue on the top balloon piece. I first took the top circle for each balloon and bent it a little bit so it curved up. Just enough to give it a little dimension. Then I applied a thin strip of gorilla glue to the middle of the bottom circle and applied the slightly bent circle to give it the 3D effect. 

Step 5: Frame it up! After letting it dry for a good 24 hours, I put it back in the frame and hung that baby up.

Total time: about 15 min (plus drying time)

Total cost: scrapbook paper was probably a couple bucks

This was such an easy and fun project! I love how it turned out and think it will look great in the nursery, especially with the complementary hot air balloon mobile.  

I'm thinking of spray painting the frame white before I hang it in the nursery, but for now I'll leave as is. One more nursery project down!

DIY Nursery Art - Little But Fierce

I've been searching for some fun art for the nursery and found a few quotes I like (see some more from my nursery inspiration). This one is from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and I love it. I know already that it will be just like our little BK. She's already a spicy little one, kicking me all the time!

My inspiration was this print from Sugar House Ink on Etsy. Since I already had a blank canvas, I thought I could recreate a similar look using this technique. So I thought...

Step One: Put on the stickers where you want them. I drew a line with a pencil to make sure the letters were straight.

Step Two: If I could have done it differently, I would have painted the first coat with white to match the color that would show through (for less bleeding and hopefully a smoother edge when the stickers came off), but I didn't. So next I put on the first coat of aqua paint. All in all I think I painted three coats of paint.

Step Three: After I let it dry for a day or two, I peeled off the stickers. Very carefully! I used an exacto knife to get under the paint and pick off the letters since they didn't come off nicely in one piece. The bad part was that it didn't leave the perfect straight lines I thought it would. See the ridges? Maybe my letter stickers were a little too thick?

 

Step Four: Think of another solution to salvage the project. AKA... Glitter! I bought some gold glitter, dug out my mod podge and got to work. I went letter by letter with my tiniest brush, first with the mod podge, then layering on the glitter. I probably should have used smaller grain glitter, but I think it still looks good. It did take some time and it was hard staying in the lines (my Kindergarden skills did come in handy though!).

Step Five: Clean up glitter... ugh! My least favorite part. Glitter literally gets everywhere, which I'm sure you all remember from Kindergarten. Everywhere! 

The end result is a little tough to read, but I still like it. The glitter is fun and I still love the saying. Plus, put it in a frame and anything looks better!

Total project cost: 

Glitter - $3

Paint - $3

Total - $6!

I probably could have saved myself some time and just ordered that Etsy print for $8, but oh well. Haha. I love being crafty and now Little BK will have some sparkle in her room. :)

I can't wait to meet our fierce little girl! Have you made any nursery art recently (or not so recently)? 

DIY Puppy Silhouette Portrait

Hey guys! I'm back! Do you ever have one of those weeks months where you wish there were more hours in the day? That is my life right now. I'm not complaining, I love being busy but I could definitely use a break. 

On that note, I've been on a major hang-up-art-on-the-wall kick. Creating new pieces to hang as well as acquiring a few more. It's not like we've had bare walls for the past year, but I guess my Goodwill frame addiction started growing a little too big to not hang anything else on the walls. 

Today I want to share with you how to make your very own silhouette portrait! I made it of my sweet puppy Buster (uh, crazy dog lady alert!), but you could make it of your kids, cat, rabbit, anything. It's super easy!

What You'll Need:

1. Photo - Choose your favorite photo and print it out to the size you want (ignore my crappy printer ink... luckily the print out doesn't have to be perfect). I have always loved this photo of Buster I took with my iPhone. It seemed like the perfect fit for a little profile picture.

2. Canvas - I found this five pack of canvases at Michael's that are flat so you can put them in a frame. I didn't even know these existed until I found them! I love it because you can actually put your art in a frame to class it up a bit. Sometimes I like regular canvases, but sometimes I like it a little classier!

3. Paintbrushes.

4. Paint color - I chose Navy (my favorite color as of late).

5. Frame.

What to do:

1. Cut out your picture and trace around the cutout onto the canvas.

2. Get your paint ready and start coloring painting between the lines. Who said those kindergarten skills wouldn't pay off someday? I did about three coats of navy to get a nice even finish. Coat one...

3. Frame it up! You could even paint the background a bright contrasting color (like aqua or yellow) or do stripes too. 

My Buster silhouette ended up in an IKEA frame I've had for a while and now sits next to our mantel.

What do you think? What would you paint as a silhouette if you could? Come on, admit it... are you a crazy dog lady like me? :)

$1 Art

Keeping with the theme of the dollar section at Michael's this week, I wanted to share a quick art project I did a while back. I found this brass gem after a little digging in the dollar section. It was mixed in with a jumble of different letters and I prayed that they had one of our letters - K (Kane), M (Megan), Z (Zachary), B (Buster). Jackpot! We got ourselves a K (Go Team Kane!). 

I'm not sure what the purpose of the little guy actually is (maybe a metal luggage tag? or to spell out your name on the outside of your house?), but I wanted to frame it and put it up somewhere. All it needed was a little color. Cue my trusty collection of scrapbook paper. I loved the pattern of the dark blue and jade paper (can you tell those are my favorite colors right now?:), but it was a little too busy behind the brass letter. So, I settled on just the solid jade to go with my IKEA frame. I love the way it turned out. 

Simple and interesting. I love it when you can find inexpensive and unique ways to create beautiful things!