Thursday, October 8, 2009

Guest Blog Series: Elizabeth of Thoughts from an Evil Overlord

This is the first post in a series that will feature other bloggers. First is Elizabeth writer of Thoughts from an Evil Overlord. Please check out her blog if you enjoy this post! 




Last winter, I finished and hung some artwork in my bedroom, which I had been talking about for only a year! I bought this condo 18 months ago, and had big plans which were cut short by the insecurity of being on a medical leave and possibly needing my savings for living instead of all the fun home upgrades I had planned. So nothing big has been done. I don't consider my bedroom a decorating priority in the way many people do. I live alone, so my entire house is a sanctuary. I don't need a special one just for sleeping. But a bunch of my RMS friends "bullied" me into at least doing a few things, including putting up curtains and some art. I didn't even have curtains, just cheap white mini blinds. I'm pathetic, but I don't care. The rooms people see look great!


I got the idea for some really cheap inexpensive art that would make a large impact from my friend AnNicole at Our Suburban Cottage. She had shared this photo with a decorating group when we were discussing alternatives to doing a wall of plates. "I can do that!" I thought, "I even have tons of fabric and a few embroidery hoops I could use!" I'm not going to give you the timeline on how much I talked about the project. Suffice it to say it's been more than a year since I first saw the inspiration picture!



Cheap balsa wood embroidery hoops at A.C. Moore cost me around $12.00 for 13 hoops! Can you believe it?! I already had all the fabric I could possibly use. My mom and I picked out all the fabric we thought might work and threw it on the quilt. Anything that didn't blend in we removed, and then we went through what was left, choosing our favorites, which were about 15 different colors and patterns.



My niece came over and we put fabrics in different size hoops, planning to use 2 of the same fabric at least twice, and finishing with an odd number of hoops. Once we were happy with the sizes we had chosen for the different patterns, she started laying them out on the floor in a horizontal oval. It took a while to get the different sizes and colors and their relationship to each other the way we liked. 




Once it was acceptable, we moved things out of perfect alignment to be more random and took a picture. This all sounds simple, but it took us several hours of switching fabrics out of different size hoops and taking lots of pictures before we were happy with this arrangement. I love using a camera to see things, it gives it a whole different perspective! The hoops were shiny new balsa wood. I used some acrylic paint very raw-creamy looking, so I used some acrylic paints I had around to dry brush the outer hoops in a mixture of gold, green and burnt sienna, aging them up.


My friend Mary graciously hung them for me. No one wants the girl with balance problems (me) standing on a mattress when there is no one else in the house. She didn't even mind that her whole back was in the picture, not that she should. What confidence! We used sticky-tack to hang the hoops, so they can easily be repositioned, and no holes were made in the wall. 



Ta Da! I think it looks great! We ended up hanging 11 hoops with 9 different fabrics. It made a huge impact for less than $12.00! I love the feeling of getting something done! the hoops have been up since February and made it through a humid summer without popping off the wall, which sometimes happens here in Massachusetts. The walls get "sweaty" and the sticky tack  can fall if it's holding something too heavy.


I hope this inspires you to try something a little different. You don't have to be an artist to make some artwork!

5 comments:

Julia @ Hooked on Houses said...

That's a fun idea! Looks great. :-)

Karen said...

That looks awesome! What a great idea.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that grouping turned out great! Looks perfect on the yellow.

Christina G said...

That is so cool..i have a ton of hoops sitting around! That would be gorgeous for my daughter's room!

LizzyT said...

That is such a clever idea and looks really good, well done!

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