A crafty victory.

On Saturday, I made an effort to be crafty. As you'll read below, I'm not a very crafty person AT ALL. I'm not very creative when it comes to art, but I decided to forego all of of my fears and insecurities about the situation and just go for it. The worst thing that could happen is I staple my hand to some wood. Or, it all looks awful and I threw some money away. Now that I think about it, both of those things would have been terrible.

But, lucky for me, I think it turned out okay!

The first thing I did was set out to create my "art." I went to Michael's, where canvases of all shapes and sizes were on sale, AND everything in the store was marked down 30%. So, I scored two canvases that measured 12"x24" and two others that measured 12"x12" for super cheap!

Next, I went to the Mill End store where I picked out some fabrics that would add color, but not overpower the senses. Hopefully, they weren't "too girly" as my husband says. I found some great patterns that were on super-sale! I bought a half a yard each of four different fabrics.

Materials? Check. 

That night after we got Rowan into bed, we popped in the first disc of Alias, Season 5 and I went to town. I ironed out all of the fabrics. I cut the fabrics to size. Then, I started wrapping. It was much easier than I expected! I started on one side and stapled the fabric to the backside of the frame with the staple gun. I then stretched the fabric to the opposite side. After tops and bottoms were stapled, I moved to the sides. Stretching, stapling, carefully folding corners so it would look smooth. 

After repeating this for all four canvases, I was done! The next morning, Erik helped me hang them in the pattern I imagined, and it looked good... but the wall was much too big and the art was much too small. So, I poked around online, trying to find some accessories that would work next to my newly-wrapped canvases.

Praise the Lord for Target and Ikea! I found some great little cube shelves to put on either side of the collage at Target ($10 for two!) and Ikea had a great paper-shade lamp for $10 and two vanilla, glass-enclosed candles for $1 each. 

After a massive meltdown from Rowan at Target, I came home & got him to bed. Once he was down, I finished my project! Make sure you click on the picture to see it in full. 

What do you think? Not too bad, huh?
 The color adds a LOT to the room! 

And I did it for under $40!