Friday, July 22, 2011

Family Art Gallery

For a while now, I've been wanting to have an art gallery in our house that showcases both Sophia's and my own artwork, hung side by side. But I wanted it to be easily changed out. I also wanted to be able to hang canvases and paper.
My solution. I bought about 12 frames (some had artwork in them) from Goodwill for about $11 total. Every 3rd Wednesday of the month is half price day at Goodwill (at least in my area).
So I got all of these frames. Cleaned them up. Removed the glass and artwork if they had any in them.

I layed them out on the floor to play with the configuration.

Then I painted them white.


Next, I added the chicken wire. I've seen other people do this on blogs and it seemed like the perfect solution for being able to change out the artwork and be able to hang canvases and paper pieces.


You just need wire cutters and a staple gun to attach the chicken wire.

Then I took them outside and spray painted them with a gloss white to make sure the chicken wire matched the frames (as seen on my other blog The Kaminski Chronicles).

Next up, since the frames were very worn and imperfect, I decided to use some course sandpaper and distress them.

Here's how I hung the canvas above.

I used a sawtooth hanger and a S hook.

I used clothespins that I spray painted white to hang the paper pieces.


Eventually, the frames will be hung in our office on a big empty wall, but for now, this is where they sit. Russell says he's not hanging them until the grass grows back that I killed when I spray painted my frames.

The good news is that I'm seeing some green return already. Hopefully, my gallery will be hung up by Christmas. :)




Monday, July 18, 2011

Family Hutch


My latest project has been to repaint a hutch that I was given by my dad. It belonged to his mom (my grandmother that I never met). Originally I painted it brown as seen below (I painted it back in 2006). But, it just wasn't doing it for me. So I chose  Cherry Apple by Glidden to repaint it with. It took MANY coats of the red paint to cover the brown but I didn't want to use primer because I thought it would make the distressing part easier.


I'm really happy with the red! Sometimes color risks pay off.