Monday, January 31, 2011

Inspiration

I apologize for the lack of blogging over the past several months.  In my defense my little family moved out of state and bought our first house.  The first few months we had visitors about every other week which made it very difficult to get projects done.  The ideas on what to do are just flooding my mind.  I'm trying very hard to be patient and do things little by little.  Most of the projects my husband and I have been working on have been painting. We moved into a home that was what we call "boring builder beige".  Not just the walls but the ceiling and trim too and it just looked dirty.  As more and more of the beige gets painted the more I love our home.

While shopping at Target a few weeks back I was drawn to the blue and white decor they have now.
The picture inspired me.  I knew I could come up with something similar but without the $50 price tag.  Plus I really wanted something larger.

My first thought was to use stencils.  After looking around I really couldn't find any I liked that didn't cost too much.  Then I went to Joann fabrics and found some fabric I liked but wasn't sure that was the route I wanted to go.  About a week later I went back to Joann's and found what I was looking for.  It was a nice bonus that it was 40% off.

I had some frames that weren't being used and knew they would be perfect for this project.

 We had a set of four frames we purchased from Kohl's about 5 or 6 years ago.  Although they are nice they just aren't our style any more.

 We spray painted the frames to give them a fresh clean look.  Then taped off the black wood trim and spray painted the mats in Heirloom white.  We had extra from a previous project.  I never thought to paint a mat before but it worked well and looks great.  It absorbed a lot and took about 3 coats.  We then taped the fabric to the back of the mats.

 This is what we ended up with.
It looks awesome in our dining room. I have a couple other project ideas for that room. Once those are done I'll show the whole room.

This project cost me less than $13 for the fabric.  I have enough leftover fabric that I plan on making pillows for the family room.  All the other supplies I had on hand.

I've linked up to:

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia