A Work in Progress: February 2013

I've been absentee for awhile. Sorry!

Anyhow, today at Young House Love, they're having a thrift store challenge. You're supposed to take a $20 to a thrift store and see what you can score with it. Here's my take!

Madi and I hit up our local thrift store last Friday to get this thing done. She wouldn't cooperate for pictures, probably because she didn't want to be seen with me sans makeup. She's 19 months old, and I'm already subjecting the poor child to public humiliation. : )

Here's what we scored for $2:

This thing is HUGE. The inside of the frame is 2' X 3'. I knew I wanted to spray paint the frame ORB, but I didn't know at first what I wanted to put inside the frame, so I hit up Pinterest and found this:

Source: etsy.com via Kelli on Pinterest

It's for sale on Etsy for $16. I liked it a lot, but it was only an 8X10. And, like I said, it was $16. So of course, I tried to DIY. First, I tried using Microsoft Word. What a joke! Then I pulled up GIMP (a free but not very intuitive image editing/generating software) and played around for a while. Once I finally figured out how to manipulate text, I was able to put this together pretty easily:

It's not perfect, but it's good enough for us, for now. And if it's good enough for you too, feel free to take it/print it/enjoy it. Especially if you give me credit. Or money. Money is even better.

Anyway, blown up as big as it is on our wall, I can see imperfections (like how "protects", "trusts", and "perseveres" don't line up perfectly on the left side *shudder*) that would probably put me in the loony bin if I let them, so I try to only look at it from at least five feet away. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I had it printed by Shutterfly for $8.64 after a $20 discount that came in our latest box of diapers, and was shocked at how quickly it arrived.

After spray painting the frame, I used the original "art" board to make a mat. I just cut a rectangle out of the middle about a half-inch smaller both ways so there would be room to attach the poster on the back.

Normally I love crisp white mats, but since the word art was printed on plain white paper and used a very plain font, I thought it needed some interest. So I covered it in some fabric I had laying around from Madison's 52 week photo project.

I ran out of painters tape halfway through (I would have used something cheaper if I had it on hand, but I wanted to finish before Madison woke up that morning), so I switched to electrical tape, which was a complete pain in the boat to work with.

Thar she blows! And yes, that is a fat joke. This thing is HUGE. I hung it to be centered behind our love seat/on the hallway.

We are still in dire need of art for over the couch, but I've got plans. For Patrick. (Oh honey, did you really think I was going to let you watch the Superbowl?) JK. He can work on it during half time. : )