HOME :: CHALKBOARD wall in tween room

 

Hello everyone! Today I am finally sharing a special completed project from my daughter's tween bedroom makeover! As you know I have been working on her room and this is one of the requests that she had. She wanted to have a chalkboard wall somewhere in her room when we re-did it so I took the opportunity when she was gone one weekend to get it done and surprise her when she got home. I am not sure if she expected a typical black chalkboard wall, like the one I did on our pantry door, but nothing 'typical' was being done in this girls room! lol I decided to check out what colors were available to use for it and decided on a nice hot pink color. It definitely is anything but 'typical' for this custom chalkboard wall.

I am almost completely done with my daughter's tween room makeover and will be sharing the full reveal here (hopefully) soon as this makeover already seems like it's taken forever. Anyone else feel like that with room makeovers? If you follow me on Instagram, I am always sharing what I am working on at the moment and you may remember seeing a sneak peek of this wall that I did in her room. I LOVE the way it turned out and today I am going to share how I did it, how fairly easy it was and can I just say . . .  she LOVED it! YAY! That's all that really matters right? ;) 

Ok, so this is the space I decided would look great putting a chalkboard in. What you are looking at is a small space between her closet doors on the right and the door out of her room. Would I have loved to do a whole chalkboard wall in this color for her? Sure, but the room already had all of the other wall space spoken for so this is what I decided and I think it's perfect as it was long enough plus I didn't want to make it too tall as she couldn't reach high anyway. So let me tell you how I did it. First the before shot . . .
 

Step 1: I needed to decide on the shape I wanted to make it as I didn't want the typical chalkboard rectangle shape so I opted to mimic a shape that was already in her room just directly across the room next to her window: this vinyl wall decor I did awhile ago: 

Step 2: I grabbed a big piece of tissue paper, a pencil and decided to trace the outline to use as a template for my chalkboard wall design.

Step 3: This is the most important step as you need a way for the outline to go on the wall as an outline. Flip over your tissue paper and heavily color the line with a no. 2 pencil making it thicker than the original line on the opposite side that you traced.

Step 4: Hold up your tissue paper, tape it to the wall, have someone hold it - whatever you need to do to hold it in place and using a pencil trace over the line on the front and it should give you a rough outline transferred to the wall for you to use when you paint this shape in. I purposely darkened this photo below in the hopes that you can see what it should look like. 

In the spirit of 'keeping it real' when I went to transfer my shape to the wall, it was too wide for the space. Doh! So I basically ended up free handing most of it and making it work. Gotta do what you gotta do, am I right? ;)
 

Step 5: Carefully start painting in the outline of your image and then fill in until you have it completed. I usually do 3 coats when I am painting with chalkboard paint but that is my opinion but I am sure you could do less.

 

Step 6: Make sure to 'season' the chalkboard by using the side of a piece of chalk and rubbing it all over the painted surface of the chalkboard design. But please make sure to follow the directions and wait until the suggested drying time is complete before doing this.

 
That is it - you now have an amazing chalkboard wall! One thing I did was hung a small shelf under the chalkboard as it does a couple things: 1. it catches a lot of the chalk 'dust' which is a very good thing as that is easier to clean than carpet and 2. it serves as a place to hold the cute tin of chalk that she can use.

So what do you guys think? She absolutely loved it and I love running in her room while she is at school and writing a message to her plus when she has friends over, they love it too! 

Have you ever created a chalkboard wall in your home? I would love to know, so comment below as I am wanting to do another area as well and would love to hear what you like. Thanks for reading. xoxo

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HOME | MADE :: Small Space Patio Makeover

     

Guess what is finally back? That's right, the HOME|MADE series! I am sorry for the little hiatus but sometimes that happens. But luckily I have a few projects to get you all caught up on! Everyone say YAY! ;)
 

As a reminder: HOME | MADE is a bi-monthly series on home renovations MADE into nicer living spaces and the things used to get it there, the supplies used and all the DIY details. ALL to make my house feel like a HOME. ;)
So . . . 

 

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Today I am sharing my outdoor living space. It's small but I'm gonna make it mighty! ;) When you live in a condo, you get what you get. I am fortunate that I have THREE patios - the other two are patio/balconies. But this is the main one I wanted to do a major overhaul on, as the front door is just to the left of this photo above. (but that's getting a complete makeover too and will be in another blog post.)

We had neglected this area of the house for some time, meaning we never used it, so why "liven it up"? Well that all changed when we got our puppy last fall. WHY it took getting a dog to actually want to start using our patio again baffles me too but let's just go with it. Sometimes my reasoning makes absolutely NO sense, except to me. ;) All I can say is we never really exited our house through the front door since we have a walk-out basement/garage so that could have something to do with it.

Here is my 'official' list to accomplish JUST with this space:
 
- power wash the deck
- remove mildew from deck
- paint the deck
- plant some new flowers
- spray paint old patio chairs
- spray paint old patio table
- spray paint star decor
- freshen up space with some new decor
- purchase patio rug

- plant some perennials 

- make a sign to hang by patio door 
- paint the fabric part of the chairs 


**so far I have been able to cross most things off . . . YAY! 

 

So here we go, the reason you are here . . .my progress on Project: Patio Makeover!

Step 1: 


I only have a few "before" pics as I was so excited to get started that I totally forgot to take some really good before pics (sorry) so we will start from here & go with it!

And here's the thing about this pic too, we had already cut the bushes down to where they hit below the balcony level, added some new flags, painted the star up by the door AND spray painted the old patio table, at this point!

So my first step was clearing the patio and cleaning it and removing all of the mildew from it. AND as you can see from the photo below after cleaning, how damaged some parts of the patio are from the weather and just aging, so we are going to fix all of that in our next phase (when the weather cools) and repair the splits and repaint it all.

Step 2:  
Painting! 

Buying all new furniture for our patio was out of the question, so this is an easy alternative to buying all new. Just breathe new life into what you have already! Spray paint & then spray paint some more! ;)

I knew I wanted to use the color scheme of navy, turquoise, light blues and white for the patio area as it matched some FAB clearance items I found in the Target patio area about a month or so ago.

The first thing I spray painted was the old patio table. This thing was 10 years old, black and had started to rust in spots. So I took some steel wool and buffed out the rust spots, clean it off and spray painted it a nice turquoise color.

Step 3: 
Painting the chairs!
I had never spray painted patio chairs, so I taped off the fabric from getting sprayed (even though I would love to paint that too) and away we sprayed. Indigo blue from Valspar was the color of choice for this and it was amazing for these chairs.   

 

 

Step 4: 
Decorating the patio! 

Like I mentioned already, I had grabbed some patio items on clearance at Target which inspired the whole color scheme into action, so this part of decorating was the part I was looking forward to the most!

A new chevron rug, chair cushions, pillows and of course a stool! Loved it all.

I hated to decorate without having painted the deck / patio area yet but we will do that when the humidity breaks and we know the paint has a chance to cure properly. I went ahead and added a few things out here so we could start enjoying it but will really tweak it in the next phase of this project! ;)

But here it is and it's definitely NOT finished but it's a HUGE improvement and we're off to a pretty good start. At least we can actually enjoy sitting out here and using this space now! 

Step 5: 
Enjoy! 
Our little pup, Chili, is loving being outside and looking for squirrels from the woods! ;) AND as you can see from the photo on the left, when he's NOT out here with me, he is peeking out and letting me know he needs to be! lol

 

So what do YOU think? It's a start. But a pretty good one as I have more projects done with this space, than not. The thing I have found when working with a small space is make it cozy. Buy a FAB rug, make your old chairs comfy with the addition of awesome pillows, get a new candle to burn, plant some fresh flowers and get some color out in the mix! You can transform even a small space, such as mine, into a place that you will LOVE! 

We all are loving our "new" space . . . lots of early morning coffee drinkin, magazine reading and down right chill-axin is happening out here now! ;)


A few more details for you . . . 
This is a shot of the tiny area, in front of the patio, that we have to plant in. I added some flowers in pots for now, until I decide on what perennials I want to plant out here as it only gets a little bit of light in the mornings.

Just so you can get an idea of what else is out here in front of my place, that's a sidewalk shown on the bottom right of this photo below and just to the right is woods. So this pathway-sidewalk has six condo units total in this building but there is one other building across from us, that only has four units. So it's very private and if you like living in the woods, you'd love it.

 
I really hope this post helped motivate you, if you are planning on tackling a small outdoor space to make into a little cozy haven to relax & just hang out! I can't wait to share some more updates with you soon as I already am working on them.
 
I would LOVE to hear if you have ever transformed an outdoor space recently or are planning one? What color scheme are you planning to use?

Please comment below with your thoughts as I would love to hear from you! 

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CRAFT :: DIY Heart Canvas Art

It's time to get your craft on! I am loving how my latest craft turned out so I am sharing it with you today & showing you just how easy this one is to make for yourself or someone else. It's a simple craft DIY using just a few supplies & a couple hours and then you will have your own DIY heart canvas art!

I made this one for my daughter as I am still currently working on my her bedroom re-do (still) and wanted to make her some custom artwork from her mama, that was simple enough for anyone to make as well. 

You just need to grab a few supplies: canvas, scatters, paint, paintbrush, hot glue gun/glue, and a pencil. I picked up this canvas at Hobby Lobby in a 2-pack for $3.99 & it's 8x10 in size. I also grabbed the scatters (pink and white balls) in the Valentines section at Hobby Lobby at 40% off so this whole project cost me a whopping $6 I think. As far as paint goes, use whatever you have on hand. I chose this Valspar color sample paint from Lowe's (from my paint stash) as I am addicted to these sample sizes & pick a 'few' up every time I am there to use for projects of all kinds.

First you have to make two decisions: what will your shape be & what do you want it to say? For this example, I chose a heart shape and to paint "I" and a U" at the top/bottom for my daughter's art. The scatters will be glued on using the glue gun and the letters will be painted on.

Next, I hand sketched the "I" going along the top and the "u" at the bottom with my pencil. (sorry for the dark photo but purposely made it dark so you could see it)
No worries about your lines being straight or perfect as it's ART . . .ART is always perfectly imperfect! ;)

I would recommend that you "lay out" your shape (heart) first before gluing them down or even painting so you can get a sense at how they will all fit together and how much room you have to paint your letters. Once you get it how you think you'd like it to look, take them off the canvas & move to the side & begin painting!

Like I said earlier, just freehand paint it, no one is judging how great it looks. =) Then after I painted the two letters, I went around the whole edge of the canvas and painted with the same color so my letters looked like they ran off the sides.

  

Once your paint dries, its time for the final step: gluing on the scatters. For this heart I did the outline first & then filled in until I got this . . . 

The best part is my daughter LOVED it and she always will have something in her room hanging that says "I love u" from her mama! =)

Super easy and quick right? Now who's gonna go make one? Raise your hand . . . please let me know below if you think you will try this project as I would love to know if anyone was inspired. Or maybe you have already done a canvas art . . . let me know what you designed or painted. Try it, you'll love it! ;)
 

Are you loving the "eye candy" here? 
  

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Looking forward to seeing you again! :)