Cheap Ideas for Covering Bare Walls...

Any time I have moved in the past, I have always wanted "new" stuff to fill my "new" space. This time wasn't any different. I didn't want to feel like I took all of the things from my apartment in Florida and dumped them into my new house in Pennsylvania. This time, as silly as it sounds, I also wanted my new place to show I was now a grown-up. So, as I went through all of the boxes, I kept in the back of my mind, did I really want to put this out? Does it resemble who we are as a couple as thirty-somethings? Needless to say, I ended up with a lot of bare walls...I didn't want to hang up the posters from Michaels (not that there was anything wrong with them, I just felt we are past posters on the wall) Did I want to hang up the picture collages from college? Not really...So...I went out in search of some "artwork" to hang up in my new grown-up house...
I went to various places, one that stands out in my mind was a venture out to Kohl's...I found a canvas painting..I can't remember exactly what it was...some sort of abstract...it was cute and then I saw the price...it was over $50! I couldn't believe it! I'm sure some sort of sale was going on at the time, but being unemployed...I couldn't justify the cute abstract painting...

So, I went to Pinterest, I started to see some various ideas that I thought I could do. One, in particular, was of two canvas paintings that the "painter" used a cookie cutter of all things! Here is a picture from their website:

(http://kimboscrafts.blogspot.com/2010/05/in-case-you-missed-it.html)

With this as my inspiration, I didn't have any cookie cutters, but I figured I could find something in my kitchen that would do the job...low and behold, I found this egg scrambler that my grandmother had given me...

An Egg Scrambler

I have never used it for eggs, because quite frankly, a fork is still easier for me...but, with some acrylic paint (spent about $7.00) and a canvas from Hobby Lobby (2 for around $6)...and maybe 20 minutes of time (give or take depending on drying time) I created this:

Art made with the egg scrambler

I also made 2 other canvas "paintings" for my bathroom...they aren't as cute...but I used the top of a Diet Pepsi bottle to make circle on a canvas...again, had the paint, got the canvases at Hobby Lobby (with a 40% coupon, so less than $7.00 for two) and had "cheap" abstract art for a fraction of what it would have cost to buy 1 canvas from Kohl's. 

My wall adventures didn't stop there, I also found another easy canvas painting idea...

(mine is adapted from: http://mariateorien.blogspot.dk/#!/2012/06/tape-painting.html)

Materials that you would need:

Blank canvas (you choose the size)

Blue Painters tape (of course, I had this laying around since I also had to paint my bedroom/bathroom)

Acrylic Paint (various colors...I had the left overs from my other projects)

Paint brushes or sponges (again, I already had these...again, cheap less that $5)

Essentially, you choose where you want your strips of blue paint to go on the canvas. I didn't plan where I wanted to place the tape, I just went tape happy.

Once I had enough lines, I began to paint in the different colors...this was harder than I thought because I had to decide what colors would look good next to one another...also I had to make sure the same color wasn't touching...at one point I did "mess up" and I didn't like the color I had painted the area, so I took a bolder color and painted right over it...if you look really closely you can tell, but hopefully no one does.

Once you are finished, you, of course, need to wait...me being the impatient person I can be...I gave it about 20 minutes...probably should have waited longer because I became a painted mess from the tape and the paint did run a little bit...but here is a picture of my finished product:

Made with the help of blue painers tape

To hang it up, I used a hook that I found at Hobby Lobby that attached directly to the wood on the back of the canvas...it was around $3.00.