During my not so brief intermission, I have had a lot of life changes. I went through a divorce, moved to a new home, switched my children's schools, took on a new job, and I am still alive to tell about it!
As a newly single mom in a newly rented home, I don't exactly have a ton of cash for decorating. Of course, this isn't a problem if you are sufficiently able to start where you are and use what you have. In this case, I had several bottles of acrylic paint, some painter's tape, a can of white spray paint, and a couple of canvases.
The fuse box in my rental home is located on the dining room wall, and is quite the lovely eyesore. I wanted to cover it without purchasing a large piece of art. Here is what I did in the wee hours of a sleepless night.
I started out by dragging paint in vertical lines using dry paper towels as paintbrushes. Now, of course if you have brushes, go for it, but I made do with what I had available.
I personally chose to start with my lighter colors and move gradually darker. Then, I rubbed a thin layer of silver metallic paint over the entire canvas for dimension.
The next part is probably the most tedious part of the whole process. I started by cutting about 8 billion 3 inch strips of blue painter's tape and affixed them over the acrylics in a herringbone pattern. You are more than welcome to measure these out and make your spacing perfect, but you know what I always say.....perfection ruins a good project.
Once I had all of my tape in place, I selected a few strips to remove for an added flair. Everything not covered in tape will become white in the next step, so make sure if you remove some pieces, you still are able to maintain the lovely pattern you just so painstakingly created.
Once I had my tape strips just as I wanted them, I headed outside to spray paint white over the entire surface of the canvas. Please make sure that when you perform this step you are outdoors in a well ventilated area. Spray paint is no joke!
As soon as I had coated the entire canvas in white spray paint, I peeled away all of my tape strips. You want to do this step while the paint is still fresh and wet. If you wait for it to dry, the tape will peel the paint away with it.
Voila! A finished work of art. Now to repeat all of those steps for my second canvas. Of course, you can do one, two, or even more of these in the color variation that best suits your decor and style. Right now, my entire home is done in quite random colors. The kitchen has vibrant shades of so many colors that just about anything would fit. Use your best judgement on what colors to select.
Once I finished, I hung both canvases on my dining room wall. Care to guess which is hiding that big ole mess of a fuse panel??
I'll give you a hint: It's the one on the left. I think that later I'll probably go back and add some vinyl wording above the canvases or some other pieces just to add to the look, but I am pretty pleased with how this project turned out considering it was a spur of the moment, midnight project.
How do yours look? I bet you did an awesome job!
Thank you so much for bearing with me during my extended break. As a reward...here is a picture of my little crazy man when he first woke up this morning. Imagine how fun this was to tame before school!
Happy crafting, and stay tuned. I'll be posting again soon....promise!
