GALLERY WALL

We had a blank wall that needed some love and art. I had gathered a few ideas online but was immediately stumped. I really needed an ocean painting. I don't have that kind of talent but my grandpa did. So I asked mom and *poof* out of a closet came the cutest little ocean painting by Grandpa Garden, all tucked away in the dark. With the best handmade mid-century frame, to boot! I remember his frame studio in his garage. It's a dream long gone, but I am happy to see one of his pieces in our home now!

With that painting, I was inspired and ready to get going creating the other things I've been admiring lately on Serena & Lily and Etsy: feathers, mixed frames, doodles, a geometric painting, arrows.

I started in with the feathers.

SUPPLIES
A variety of Feathers
A Shadow Box Frame - Mine came from Crate & Barrel
Neutral fabric - Ironed
Spray Mount
Hot Glue Gun and Glue
Scissors

PROCESS
1. Cover the back panel of the frame with a neutral cloth by spray mounting it down.
2. Cut the fabric about 1" all the way around the back panel and fold the edges over tightly.
3. Hot glued the edges down so that it's tight and smooth on the front of the panel.
4. Use washi tape to give it a finished edge.
5. Lay out the feathers on the fabric board as you want them.
6. Hot glue the feathers with small dots at the points where the feathers touch the fabric.
7. Insert the back panel into the frame, leave out the glass.

Next, I wanted a geometric painting, something with a bit of neon, and after doing it I realized I needed some gold foil in there too ;)

SUPPLIES
Wood Board Canvas
Vintage paper
Spray Mount
Mod Podge
Paints and Brush
Elmer's Glue
Pencil
Ruler
Tracing paper
Painting Tape
Gold Foil and Sizing

PROCESS
1. First lay out all of the pieces of art so far and determine the color palette. I buy my paints at Miachael's and Joann's with coupons to make them nice and cheap.
2. Draw on the wood board canvas, your desired geometric shape.
3. Lay tracing paper over the top and trace the same geometric shape.
4. Spray mount a piece of old newsprint or book paper to the wood canvas.
5. Cut about 1/2"-1" around to fold down. Use Elmer's to tack this down.
6. Mod Podge the entire face and sides of the wood canvas. 1-2 coats and let dry completely.
7. With a ruler and pencil, go over the shape on the tracing paper with nice thick pencil lines. Flip that over onto the dried board and rub down the pencil to transfer the shape.
8. Lightly redraw onto the wood with a ruler to make the lines clear.
9. Tape around the outer edges, this will stay until completely done painting.
10. One shape at a time, tape off and paint each shape. Some shapes you can do more coats and make it more opaque and others, you can do one coat so you can see the newsprint through the paint. Careful not to get the paper too wet, it may bubble.

This part takes a couple of days because I let each shape dry. I try to do a few shapes at a time. You can go over the top if you don't like something. I found that I needed to add some gold foil and redid a few shapes.

11. When all is done, take off the tape and Mod Podge the entire face and sides again. One coat, let dry.

Next, I laid out all of the pieces of art, and added a couple of photos to the mix. I had a cute tile from Spain to add, and an vintage photo of my grandparents. Then I cut out pieces of newsprint each size of the frames and then taped those to the wall in the pattern that felt good to me. Then my husband and I hung up all of the pieces over the top of the newsprint and then tore out the newsprint from behind... It was missing something.

So I made one last frame of stamps. I have a stamp collection so I just gathered a few favorites and laid them out, hot glued them down, framed and put that up to balance out the group.

Done! In only what... 1 month later ;)