threadbare memories

Happy Thursday, friends!  Today I want to share a post with you from 2012--it's been my most popular post by far and it's one of my favorites too. 

 You know I love helping with room designs and this is an easy way to make meaningful wall art for your space. 

As a mother of three boys I have come across two dilemmas.  Yes, only two.  What to put on their bedroom walls that both they and I will like?  and What to do with all of those threadbare t-shirts?  You know the ones--the this is my favorite shirt so I'll just put it on the end of my bed instead of in the laundry so I can wear it again tomorrow shirts.  They're worn so much that they become a sort of uniform for an age.  Those shirts used to annoy me but now just the sight of them brings back so many memories. Kind of like seeing my old 10th grade KFC uniform and the memories that it brings back.  Ok, not like that at all. The truth is, I miss some of those little pieces of knit.   

Enter the t-shirt canvases...

I began making these when my boys were little. It takes about 5 minutes and can be an easy collage to add to as shirts are outgrown. I don't use all of their t-shirts, just the ones that spark a memory. 

Begin with a canvas and a well-loved shirt.

  

The canvas I used today is 6x6 but you can use any size.  I had to go small because this shirt is so small.

 Put the canvas inside the shirt and wrap the shirt around it. 

You have to finagle it a bit to get the graphic on the canvas evenly. 

Grab your trusty staple gun and begin stapling around the edges. 

It works best if you staple opposite sides first. 

Once you've stapled the shirt enough so that it isn't pulling, cut off the excess.

 

All done.

   

You have now become an official t-shirt canvas artist.

Click here to jump to my writing blog!

the painted pillow

When I ordered this pillow cover from h&m I didn't know what I'd do with it, but knew that the possibilities were worth $4.99.  By the way, who knew that h&m had such great bedding!?  My mom got the boys linen duvet covers and shams for Christmas from there, and we love them.

 I honestly don't have any photos of the painting process because I really didn't think I would like it, and especially wouldn't post about it. 

But one day as I was painting the canvas you see the corner of this photo, I decided to experiment with painting on the pillow cover.  

I placed a piece of cardboard inside the cover (there's a zipper in the back) so it wouldn't bleed through.  I used both fabric paint and acrylic paint.  

After it dried, I removed the cardboard and put the pillow form in the cover. 

I love the way it turned out!

I should probably make a disclaimer that this is not the pillow you'll snuggle up with--it is not soft.  It's just a simple way to add color to a room.  

Wouldn't this be a fun project to do with your daughter for her room?

You can barely tell in the photos, but the gold that I used was metallic so in person it catches light--so fun!

I found the turquoise chair at a flea market in Shreveport.  I didn't even have to paint it!  The frame on the wall is from the trash, and the branch is one that was on our porch one day that I decided to hot glue it to my wall.  Don't worry, it comes off easily.

One more thing--do y'all have the Color Snap App from Sherwin Williams?  You can take any photo and match the colors to make a color pallette.  So if you have trouble putting colors together for projects like this or for decorating a room, you could use a picture to get started. 

Here are a few photos that inspired me to make a color snap pallette. Once it matches all the colors, you can click on any of the small squares at the bottom to see the name and number of the color.  

marbelized art

The DIY I'm sharing with you today is easy, inexpensive, and colorful.  I'm always looking for colorful art for my walls. 

 

 

I loved Oh happy day's tutorial on how to marbleize ribbon (isn't that the coolest!) so I thought I would try it on a few small canvases I had.  If it turned out, great, and if not I would just paint over them.  This is the attitude I have to have with all diys because goodness knows I've had lots of fails.

What you need:
shallow pan that you won't mind tossing when you're done
3-5 colors of fingernail polish--get the cheap kind
skewer or tongs, I used popsicle sticks because I bought a package in 1988 and still have so many
canvas or whatever you are wanting to marbleize
cover your surface because this can be messy
Since this is way smellier than you would think, open windows or do this outside.

Fill pan with a few inches of water

You'll want to do the next few steps super fast because the fingernail polish dries quickly when it's in the water--this is why there are no photos of dipping the canvases in the water.

Open the polishes and pour them into water, use skewer to drag paint around a little.

Dip the surface of your canvas in the water.  It really just needs to touch the surface, don't plunge it deep. The canvas will grabbed the paint instantly. 

Raise it up but leave it facedown for a few seconds to allow it to drip.  Turn your canvas over (do this move quickly so the paint stays in its original place) and put on covered surface to dry. 

I also did the same thing for the edges, but you could leave them white if you want.

It's always nice to have the help of a buddy when you're doing a project!

After we finished all of them , we put them in the garage to dry overnight because we didn't want them to dry outside but also didn't want our entire family to get loopy from the fumes.  Using a flattened box as a drop cloth makes carrying them easy.

I hung my favorite three together on a narrow wall space.  You could use larger canvases but you'd need to have a large enough container for the water and polish that you wouldn't mind throwing away when you're finished.  

duct duck goose

If you follow me on instagram, you've seen my duct tape wall...or is it duck tape?   

 

 

I had seen a room with tape for stripes, so when I saw GOLD TAPE at Kroger (what!?), I had to grab it!

 

Our entry needed a little something so why not, I thought? 

 

It was a day that I had people coming over in a few hours and I should have been cleaning or cooking or cramming piles of clutter in drawers, but when inspiration strikes...

The only reason I did such random lines was so I didn't have to measure or get anything exact.  Rulers (and timers) are not by bff. 

I used scissors to cut the edges which is why they are a bit wonky.  A sharp exacto knife probably would have worked better, but oh well.

Here's the funny part, there are two very different responses to this wall.  Some get it and have even tried something similar in their own homes.  But when others see it, the conversation goes something like this--

them:  oh, are you going to paint over that tape?
me: nope, just leaving it like it is.
them: oh-ohkaay.

I guess we have to be ok with people not getting it.

True creativity is birthed when we can get beyond wanting everyone to understand our design or art or clothing. 

How not fun would it be if everyone got everything about us!? 

Trying to "fit in" to the design world, or any "world" really (remember middle school?),

makes us paralyzed and unable to make a decision--trust me, I've been there. 

 

Eventually you either have to make decisions and learn your own likes and dislikes, you never do anything, or you play it really safe and your home ends up feeling very generic--I've been there too.

                       

Hello dead wreath.

 

  

What are some of your design ideas that not everyone understood?

 

And in case you completely zoned out trying to figure out if it's duct or duck tape, go here.

the writing on the wall

  

I couldn’t get them out of my mind.  Over and over, minute by minute, day after day.  These thoughts, this movie reel of all the things.  The things I wasn’t good at, the things I had done wrong, my weaknesses, my sin…the ways I had failed and thought I had failed.  

I was putting on my mascara for goodness sakes—what was wrong with me?  “I’m not…I should have…I can’t believe I…I’m so…too much…not enough…”  They were all I could think about.  They were heavy.  They were persistent.

 I sensed a nudge to write them down.  So I wrote--things that are embarrassing to admit now, but these were my chains.  Pages. I was plagued with these thoughts.  As I skimmed the paper I had just filled I saw it—I was being accused. 

Then a moment I will never forget.  Words I had read days before were brought into my mind just as timely as a drop of rain on a drought-ridden land.

But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation

…Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,

Imagine my delight reading these words—without blemish…free from accusation…no condemnation…set me free…what the law was powerless to do, God did…in order that the righteous requirements might be fully met in us.  Really?  No accusation?  No condemnation?  None?  Not even one?  Not even one.  I was not condemned, but set free.   Set free?  Completely free?  Yes, completely.  

I had been living under the accusations, believing that they were an accurate commentary on my life.  But they weren’t the truth about me at all.  The truth would have set me free, not locked me up. 

The accuser was my enemy and fed me this mixtape of self-focus and despair, making me paralyzed and hopeless.  He does that doesn’t he? He is never short supply of past sins, regrets, and misinterpretations of others’ thoughts and actions toward us. He glories in our inward focus and abhors when our eyes are lifted. He causes us to question God and His heart for us, painting all of life a dark shade of grey, trying to convince us that that’s life’s actual color.    

But these words, these life-giving words that began seeping in, were acquitting me.  No, not just acquitting me, they were exposing the mess that was my mind and shining the light on all that my Jesus did.  He took it all.  Were some of these true?  Sure, some were, but in Christ I was no longer identified, labeled, or even guilty for them.  In Christ, I possessed the perfect righteousness that was His.  It was unfair, really—this trade He made.  He took all of my weaknesses and sins—accurate or perceived, large or small, and traded all of Himself for it.  He traded the accuser's words that were bringing death for His freedom-words of life. He was condemned so I could be set free.  That’s hard to get, but in this moment, I got it.  He wasn’t just loosening the chains, giving me room to move around in them, He was cutting them into pieces giving complete freedom.

I’m not sure why living in this freedom feels like such a fight.  My mind drifts to accusations like these often, but this cycle of redemption brings sweet intimacy:  I see the mess, even live in it for a time—He reminds me of the cross, that He’s the chain breaker—the words that give life remind me that in Him I’m not accused—He draws me close—I live in freedom and awe.  I’m free.  And I am undone. Because He is undoing me.  This is truth, this is the truth we live in and invite others to enjoy.  He alone gives freedom and life. 

After posting my sharpie walls on instagram a few days ago, I decided to share with you the story of these walls.

I guess I didn't actually give you a 'how to' because the how to is: 

Paint your walls,

write whatever you want on them with a large sharpie.  The end. 

But as my 8 year old sat on the top of the potty (this is in an itty bitty potty room),  with Bible in hand, reading Romans 8 to me as I teetered on a stool and wrote, I asked God to write these words on my heart and the heart of everyone who entered this little room.  And I think He is.

today's post is brought to you by the letter h

I've been looking for a wooden letter to add to our kid's art wall for some time now.  My favorite was the sleek, modern, wooden W that I saw outside of the women's bathroom at our local mall, but no luck in finding out where they got it.  Ever ask a bathroom attendant if they know where the "W" came from? Yeah, well I don't suggest it.

So after I had some leftover moss the other day from crafting some wreaths with a friend,

isn't her finished wreath great?!

I decided who needs super cool, modern wooden letters anyway?  Not me.  I'll just make my own letter thankyouverymuch. 

The "super moss" and the letter came from Hobby Lobby.  I think the moss was $7 and the letter was $3.  It comes in one big sheet so you can use it for multiple projects.

 

The first thing you'll want to do is lay your letter on the back of the moss, trace around it, and cut it out.  I don't have a photo of this because I forgot to take one.
    

 I used mod podge to adhere the moss but you could use a hot glue gun or even Elmer's.

 Press the moss onto the letter...

 

Lay your letter, moss side down, and put something on top of it for a few minutes.

Now that might be one of the quickest (10 minutes) and cheapest ($10) crafts I've done in a while...well except for my kitchen curtains.

It's just leaning up there right now so I can keep my options open if I need to move it.