Saturday, June 15, 2013

I fought the law pt 2

okay, so your union jack is done.  what now?  well you do what I did and sit on your ass for almost 3 years.  ha!!!

so this spring, I wanted to change/finish/try something new in ty's half done room.  so I tackled the wall opposite to the flag wall.  oh, and I cleaned his room.  CLEANED.  grrr.

you can see that Ty has added his little touches:  hockey pictures, medals, movie posters!  I added the keep out {wall vinyl I bought a couple of years ago} and his name.  he wanted his bed moved, so it's in the corner now.  we'll see how long that lasts!  you can also see that the black canvas has lost its cds and it's blank.  I'll show you in a bit what I did with that!

the skull is also wall vinyl - stampin' up! I think.  I have a red flaming guitar on another wall in his room...but I don't think it shows up in any pictures.  I wish that SU! still sold wall vinyl!

this is the opposite wall.  the canvas is from winners.  one of my friends saw it, called me, bought it!  the abbey road sign was a find in jasper one year.  Ty's bed used to be against this wall.  when I moved it, it looked really bare.  so I set up his "music centre" against the wall and got to work!

so I had been seeing a bunch of cork-type things on pinterest.  Ty collects corks {he went through a cork-gun making phase and so my mom still supplies him with corks!} and I had promised to make a cork board for him.  then I got a bright idea!  why not make a guitar shaped cork board? 

step #1:  find a shape.  so my kids have these old paper jamz guitars from a couple of years ago.  they're fairly small-ish and really light weight.  and the PERFECT shape!

step #2:  trace your shape.  I chose to do my cork wall right on the wall.  if you aren't comfortable with this, you will need to do it on a piece of cardboard or plywood...and then you'll need to cut out your shape.  I traced my shape right on my wall {with a pencil!}.

step #3:  pull out your corks and your glue gun.  I'm not too sure if there's a proper way to do this.  so I started with my outline.  I hot glued the bottom of each cork and stuck it to the outline.  then I filled in the bridge of the guitar, since it was 3 corks thick - pretty simple.  then I started filling in the rest.  and then I ran out of corks.

step #4:  drink some wine.  or call your mother who you know will be drinking a glass.  in other words, this project needed more corks than I had collected!  I chose to use the wine-stained corks whenever I could.  I like the red-ish, purple-ish colour!  I also chose my corks with intent.  I used a champaign cork for one of the tuning pegs.


also, using some spray adhesive, I attached some postcards that a friend had sent me, to the wall.  my goal now is to collect some more postcards from GB to add to the wall.  and I want a wall hanging guitar stand for Ty's real guitar.

voila!  the finished guitar!  I love it.  but more importantly, my kid LOVES it!  there are some spaces in there.  if you were wanting PERFECT, you may want to lay out the whole thing prior to gluing it.  I wasn't aiming for perfect, just for my kid to be happy.  results achieved!

then, since Nate got some chalkboard in his room, I added a small bit of chalk board to Ty's room as well.  and to tie it all together, I used vinyl letters from the dollar store to write the words of our favourite rolling stones song.  let's sing together:  "you can't always get what you want..."

finally, this is what I decided to do with that black canvas:  we're going to collect concert tickets and glue them on.  when it's full, I throw some modge-podge overtop to seal it.  black keys.  mumford and sons.  the coldplay ticket just needs to be added.  okay, so they're MY tickets.  one day he'll collect his own!!

if I've been unclear in either of these tutorials, please leave a comment and I'll answer you!!  

happy decorating!!

I fought the law pt 1

okay, so today I am going to do a full stop and share with you a tutorial on how to create a british-pop-rock bedroom for your kid.  complete with a cork guitar!

I'll do this in two parts - the painting will be part 1 and the cork guitar will be part 2.  and trust me, lots of pictures!!  so the first part of my decorating was painting a union jack on a wall in ty's bedroom.  you will need a couple of tools for this:  a laser level, an ikea paper measuring stick {yes, I took one from ikea!}, a pencil, a couple of thicknesses of green painters tape, some paint samples {red, blue and white if your wall colour is really dark}, and a picture of a union jack on your phone!

mine is not perfect, but it ended up being fairly decent.  most flag dimensions are a ratio of 1:2.  so, that means 1 foot high to 2 feet across.  just use this ratio to create whatever size you'd like.

step #1:  using a laser level and painters tape, tape out the edges of your flag and the inner cross.  use your pencil to make all your markings.  I have a laser level that sticks to my walls.  it was a HUGE help.  it makes sure your lines are straight and you don't have to rush.  that laser line will wait all day for you to get your tape down straight.  I think my flag is 3x4 with in inner cross being 2 or 3 inches.  trust me.  if I can do the math to get this centred, so can you!!

step #2:  with different sizes of tape, tape the diagonal lines.  I used my laser level for each quadrant and did each quarter separately.  this is where having a picture of a union jack will totally help you!  then I painted the inner cross...


...and the diagonals!  I cannot stress this enough:  LET YOUR PAINT DRY!

step #3:  paint the other sections blue.  and once again, LET IT DRY!!!  your painters tape will not come off in a clean line if you pull it off when the paint is still tacky.  don't ask me how I know.  ha!

step #4:  so while you're waiting, you can create some canvases for your walls!  I used just plain white canvases from michaels.  then I got out my stamps and my paint and stamped the names of british bands on my canvas.  I had a big ampersand stamp as well, so that allowed me to create some space and a change in colour.  you could do this with vinyl letters or by hand, if that's your kind of crafty!  stamping is my kind of crafty, so I just used what I had.

canvas #2 was inspired by a tshirt my hubs has.  john owns this blue t-shirt with the red cross on one sleeve.  on top of it was a lion and a crest.  it says GBR on it somewhere too.  I stripped down the idea and just painted the red cross on white, then stamped one the name of one of my fave songs on the bottom in black.  on a third canvas, I painted the whole thing black then glued old cds upside down on it.  that canvas got destroyed in a fit of anger - the kid, not me! so I'm on plan b with that one!!

step #5:  take all your painters tape off and hang your canvases.  my walls are fairly light so I decided not to add white to my flag.  okay, I'll be honest.  I was tired of tape, so I didn't really want to do all the work that it was going to require!!

I'll post part 2 pretty quickly.  you'll see how this wall has morphed over the last three years!  I did this wall back in July 2010...

Thursday, June 13, 2013

up all night

I drank coffee WAY late tonight.  so I'm still awake.  watching the voice.  PLEASE don't tell me who went home this week.  I'm not staying up for that tonight.  I don't even have anything significant to write about.  I just want to be tired!

so, just a few things:
1.  there are 11 more teaching days.
2.  my baby turns 8 in just 5 more sleeps.
3.  10 more days of this whole30.
4.  16 sleeps until we're on a plane to california.
5.  I'm pretty sure I drank 4 cups of coffee today.
6.  I think I need to sit at the piano tomorrow and work out my stress.
7.  I don't like tornados.  and I wish if they were going to head our direction that they wouldn't show up during school hours.  I'm glad that it didn't touch down.
8.  I'm done with the rain.
9.  I baked 46 cupcakes tonight.  tomorrow I ice them.
10.  why do I do lists of 10?  it feels so blah.
11.  I am ridiculously emotionally overwhelmed right now.
12.  this too will pass.

so this is what I choose today: