DIY WordArt

As you can see to the right <----- Over there. I love to read many other decorating blogs. One of my favorite is Katie from Bower Power. She has given me lots of inspiration to make my own versions of her DIY art. One of my art and crafts projects was a version of WordArt that describes a special place for me. Katie made two different word arts that pull from the two states that she and her hubby are originally from, New Jersey and Tennessee.



Aren't they cool looking! I thought that they were so neat, and I figured they were pretty easy to make. I decided to try my nack at making one, but I wanted it to represent a special place to both Ben & I. I picked Manhattan,KS , where Ben and I met while attending K-State. I broke out the Microsoft Word and used my skills that I learned from writing a million lab reports back in the day. Here is how it came out...




It as definitely harder then I thought it would be to come up with that many places/things to fill up that small of a space.

While I wasn't doing homework we were able to enjoy some of these hot spots in the area. It also includes streets that we lived on, the highways that let you get into the valley, and even state facts. I decided to put this modern piece in our basement on our sofa table. What do you think?

I wanted to give everybody a little preview of a BIG future project that we just picked up.

This is our new poker/game/bumper pool table! We picked this baby up off of craigslist. We've had this empty space for quite some time waiting for an affordable option to come along. This might be a little bit before you see the finished product. I'm still debating on how I should fix it. I'll definitely be recovering the seats as they are pretty wore out, so that should be pretty interesting. It has some very cool woodwork on the top that I would like to still see, but I wanted to make it a darker cherry or espresso brown to match our tastes. I'm thinking about putting a gel stain on it to be able to still see the grain, but may have to resort to paint if I can't fix the scratches to be able to look natural. Any suggestions? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Crate & Barrel Art On A Budget

I have seen this grouping of geometric designs on Crate & Barrel's site for quite some time now, and have wanted something very modern like that for our basement. But $70.00 a piece was a little out of my budget. So I took a deeper look at them, and figured I could probably DIY these designs. The geometric shapes were very easy to make using word's auto-shapes.

They only took me about 10-15 minutes a piece. I took one of the designs to Hobby Lobby to try and find a square frame for them. I would have had to have it custom made, which came out to around $62 a piece! I couldn't believe it and figured their must be a better way. So I did what I do best, and started wandering around the internet. I was lucky enough to find these frames on Target's website for only $12 a piece.

A far better deal then Hobby Lobby, even on their 50% off days. I immediately ordered 6 of them to finish off this DIY art project. Here's how they came out...

I was even able to make the colors match the color scheme of the room. What do you think?