Displaying the Kids' Artwork: Bulletin Boards

The kids and I love doing simple little art projects during our days at home,

but I'm tired of these little art projects lying in piles all over the kitchen counters.

Sooooooo, 

I decided to get creative and come up with a cute way to display all of their "creations."

I started with some cheap-o bulletin boards from Michael's ($5 each).

After taping off the inner cork part, I painted the wood part white.

After several failed attempts at spray painting, I learned the hard way that you really do need to sand the wood prior to painting it so that the paint will actually stick to the wood. 

Grrrrrrr...

I ended up using a good ol' brush and paint eventually after sanding all the chipping spray paint off.

Using about a yard of burlap from JoAnn's (with lots of leftovers) I covered the cork.

Here's how I did it...

Iron your burlap first to get rid of all the ridges and wrinkles so that it will lay flat.

 

Starting from one of the edges that you know is straight, use a T-square to make one other edge straight.

Mark it and then cut.

Lay your two straight edges inside the frame of your bulletin board and 

mark the other edges of the burlap to fit just inside the frame.

Cut the burlap to size.

To attach the fabric to the cork, you will need spray adhesive and tacks.

Starting at one end, spray some adhesive directly onto the cork and press the burlap down. 

Attach thumb tacks to hold in in place.

Work your way down the entire board, spraying, smoothing and tacking as you go.

Let it dry according to the spray adhesive's recommendations.

I let mine dry overnight. 

 

To cover the frayed edges and the slight gap between the burlap and frame, 

attach twine or decorative ribbon with a glue gun.

Start in one corner and work your way around the frame.

To make each board a little more personalized, I decided to add each of my kid's first initial to their bulletin board.

To do this, I printed out the letters (stencil font from dafont.com)

and cut them out with an exact-o-knife.

It probably would have been easier to use my cricut; 

I guess I wasn't really thinking at the time :) 

Using brown acrylic craft paint and a sponge brush, I dabbed the paint on.

Be sure to DAB, not brush or the paint will seep under your stencil.

Then I hot-glued some ribbon to the back and hung the new bulletin board in the play room.

Cheap, simple, and cute. 

Now that's the kind of project I love!!

 Linking up to these parties:

Funky Junk Interiors SNS#69: Bulletin Boards

Fingerprints on the Fridge: FYF

Chic on a Shoestring Decorating: Flaunt it Friday 

Be Different, Act Normal: Show & Tell Saturday  

The After Party Wrap Up

First of all, let me say that I was shocked by the number of amazing "Before & After" projects that were linked up to the first "After Party"!

Honestly I was only expecting a handful of participants, 

so I was very pleasantly surprised to see 27 awesome people linked up! 

So THANK YOU for making it a smashing success :)

There were so many great makeover projects that it's hard to pick the highlights, 

but here are a few that made my jaw drop they were so amazing...

Beth {Beach Cottage in the Desert} & her husband have been hard at work 

transforming their home into the cutest cottage. 

Isn't their kitchen makeover amazing!?

I especially LOVE the pantry they built.

Ann Marie {Twice Lovely} turned a $15 dresser into a piece of artwork.

I'm dying to find a piece of furniture that I can put chevron stripes on like that.

So cute!

My friend Emily {Cam and Emily} and her man have been  building up some sweat equity 

and adding some character to their first house. 

Their family room/dining room makeover is gorgeous, especially those dark wood floors!

Andrea {Oak Ridge Revival} got creative with a $15 thrift store mirror 

and turned it into a super cute way to display pictures and such.

How clever!

Lindsay {Country Girl Home}  put two separate pieces together 

{the dresser and hutch just happened to fit together perfectly!} 

and gave them a fabulous makeover.

I love the chicken wire she used to cover the doors - great idea!

How lucky was Tracie {Tale of Many Cities} to find this storage cubby in her own garage!?

A little sanding, some paint and accessorizing and it looks great in her made-over office!

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There were many more amazing projects that you can check out HERE.

Thanks again to everyone who linked up!

I'm looking forward to seeing many more fabulous BEFORE & AFTER projects 

at the next After Party, which will be held the first Thursday of April {April 7th}.

Hope to see you there!

The AFTER Party & A DIY Entryway Sign

Welcome to the first ever "After Party" at 3 Meadow Lake Cottage!

I thought I'd kick off the party by sharing one of my own

"Trash to Treasure" before & after projects...

The inspiration behind my project was this super cute sign from
Outer Banks Trading Group.

I fell in love with it the minute I saw it, 

but I am a cheap-o and figured I could make it myself and save lots of moolah.

I started with this little hideous treasure from Goodwill {it was only .99!}

First, I spray painted it with a satin white. It took a few coats to cover the red.

Once it was all dry, I carefully measured and taped off a 1/4 inch border.

Then using some chocolate brown acrylic paint and a sponge brush 

{that I already had at home}, 

I painted on a few layers {letting it dry in between layers}

until I was happy with how it looked.

Then I got on a roll and forgot to take pictures of the rest of the process...whoops!

But I'll try and explain the best I can :)

For the blue conch shell image in the background, I just did a google image search for "conch shell clip art" and I found this image...

I re-sized it in WORD to fit my sign and then printed it out.

Using carbon copy paper placed behind the printed image, 

I traced the conch shell onto my sign using a ball point pen.

Then I painted over my tracing using light blue acrylic paint and a fine tipped paint brush.

Once that was completely dry, I used the same technique for the "No Shoes Required" text...

I typed out the words in WORD {Mistral Font}, sized it to fit my sign, printed it out, traced it, and painted over the tracing using chocolate brown acrylic paint.

And ta da!! 

Here is the AFTER...

 

It's not perfect, but it's a cute low-dough version of the original!

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Now for the PAR-TAY!! 

Link up a BEFORE and AFTER post {past or present} 

and show-off your DIY transformation skillz! 

I'm looking forward to seeing what you've accomplished :)

Be nice. Play by the rules. Please.

~ Please link to the specific post and not to the main page of your blog.

~  Please put a link in your post that leads people to the party.

There's a cute button below that you can use or you can do a text link if you'd rather.

<center><a href="http://www.3meadowlakecottage.com"><img border="0" src="http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab258/ezacharda/afterpartybuttonjpeg.jpg"/></a></center>

~ It would be great if you became a follower of 3 Meadow Lake Cottage, too, 

but it's not required :)

You're Invited: The AFTER Party

You are invited to the first ever linky party at 3 Meadow Lake Cottage!

I'm a lover of all DIY BEFORE AFTER projects 

so that's why I decided to host

so we can all show-off our transformations  

and be inspired by others' creative projects.

The party will be held Thursday, March 3 {that's in 3 days!}

and the first Thursday of each month hereafter.

Examples of posts {past or present} that you may link up:

Room Transformations

Virtual Makeovers

Furniture Rehab

Trash to Treasure

You are welcome to link up any project 

that shows how you transformed the ugly into the beautiful!

Hope to see you there!!!

P.S. I'm a little nervous about hosting my first linky party...I don't want to be the dorky girl who throws a party and no one shows up :) 

So PLEASE join me on Thursday!

Starting the Living Room Project

Now that the Master Bedroom Project is completed, 

we've moved on and are starting the living room redecorating project 

{actually I shouldn't call it RE-decorating when it was never decorated to begin with!}.

As I said in my Virtual Living Room Makeover post,
our living room is the first room you see when you walk in our front door
and it's high time that it got some love.

Here is my vision for the room...

Here's what the living room looked like before we started the project...

First step = painting the walls.

A few months ago when I started hoarding collecting Sherwin Williams' paint samples

to make my own paint fan deck, I immediately fell in love with Sea Salt.

It looked like the perfect mix of gray and light blue.

Just to be sure I liked it in our living room, 

I got a sample pint of it and did some patch testing on different spots throughout the room.

Sadly, this made me fall out of love with Sea Salt.

It just looked too baby blue on our walls.

So I headed back to Sherwin Williams and got a sample pint of Comfort Gray, 

my second favorite paint color.

 Again, I painted splotches all over our walls and decided that although I loved the color,

it was just too dark for the room.

So back it was to Sherwin Williams for the third time.

I explained my problem to the paint guy and 

we started messing around with the tint of Comfort Gray until I was happy with it.

We ended up cutting the tint by 35%, 

which means the color stayed the same, it just lightened up a little bit.

It was love at first sight.

Not too light, not too dark, a perfect mix of blue and gray and not the slightest hint of baby blue.

Once the paint decision was made and the paint was bought, 

we had to figure out which walls to paint.

{excuse the mess of toys. our formal dining room is currently serving as the kids' playroom.}

There are several issues that make painting rooms in our house rather difficult.

First off, all of our walls have rounded corners, which makes in hard to find stopping/starting points for adding color to our walls.

Second, our house has an open concept floor plan, which means one room blends into another without any real definition of separate spaces. 

Oh and the shared ceiling in our foyer/living room/dining room is 17 feet high at its' peak!

I knew I wanted to paint the main wall with the fireplace. 

I wasn't so sure about the other walls.

But once we painted the main wall, it looked like the room was closing in on you,

like the wall was coming at you. 

To remedy that, we painted the big wall with the window in the dining room to anchor the main wall.

I didn't dare do the other walls for fear of ending up having to paint the whole house!

 

{yeah I know, that play room is a real mess!}

We only ended up painting the two walls, but who knows, maybe we'll end up painting more!

But for now, I am really happy with how it looks.

So my advice to those of you who have open concept floor plan homes and want to add color, but are scared for fear of not knowing where to start/stop is this:

Pick a color you love {test it out first} and start by painting ONE wall. 

If you like it, stop. 

If it looks weird, paint another wall. 

Keep going until you are satisfied with how it looks.

If you have rounded corners like we do, here is a good website that explains where to stop/start your paint:

How to Join Two Paint Colors While Painting Rounded Corners

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I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

We'll be out playing in the snow - yippee!!

P.S. I'm joining these parties this weekend:

Fingerprints on the Fridge FYF 

Funky Junk Interiors SNS #70

Just a Girl SAS