Things That (P)inspire Me: Words, words, words…

Polonius:

What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet:

Words, words, words.

-Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, by some old guy… rhymes with “steaks beer.”

(Thank you for humoring my theatre and literature nerdy-ness for just a moment.)

Ok, I looove DIY wall art, but I lack the key artistic skills necessary for the more obvious things (painting, drawing, etc.). However, I’m a big fan of words as decor, or typography as most of the blogosphere is referring to it (though the definition of the word typography is a little narrower than just “word art,” but I’ll ignore that for the sake of simplicity).

Last week, I posted about using Wordle.net to make fun, customized word clouds. After posting this, I got all excited about words as decor… then looked around my apartment and realized I was kind of already doing this (oh, the things I do to compensate for my lack of artistic skills):

These Mr. and Mrs. pillows in my bedroom…

The word “LOVE” right above the bed…

See the “YUM” letters in the kitchen?

Even one of my Christmas gifts to my brother involved words: Scrabble Tile Magnets

Variations on a theme, as you can see. So, I decided to probe the depths of Pinterest (along with a little Google image search action) to curate a collection of other examples of words as decor. As always, click on the image to take you back to the original source website.

Dresser with words made out of nail heads

Source: Fresh Home Ideas

Oh, Anthropologie...

Source: Me and Jilly (but originally featured at Anthrpologie)

aw...

Source: Scrap Studio

No, you are MY sunshine!

Source: Cellar Designs’ Etsy shop

Rug

Source: Home Goods blog

Click on the image to take you to a blog tutorial about how to do lettering without a stencil!

Source: That’s My Letter

Well, obviously I would love Scrabble tile pillows... who doesn't?

Source: Emma Smart

Top 500 SAT words shower curtain -- It's sold out, by the way, but I could totally make one of these.

Source: Urban Outfitters

Eye chart wall art

Source: ROC Eye Chart Art

Cardboard letters wrapped in a sheet of moss

Source: Pottery Barn

Yarn wrapped letters

Source: Cotton & Curls

a map of the world

Source: The Meta Picture

Letters wrapped in a page of a map

Source: Callaloo Soup

Framed letter collage

Source: eighteen25

Letters wrapped in string and tissue paper

Source: Kids’ Activities Blog

Large quote on plywood

Source: Nothing but Bonfires

"Love" string art

Source: Que Linda

Ooh… I especially like the last one. Reminds me of this project, but a slightly different technique. Hope you enjoyed my finds!

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Link URL: https://thegingerpennypincher.wordpress.com

Image URL: https://thegingerpennypincher.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/feature-on-the-gpp-button.jpg

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Scrabble Tile Magnet Tutorial

Books and Nooks: The Living Room Edition

The Odyssey of the Curtain-Rod-Bookshelf Thing

Wordles = Free DIY Typography Art!

If you’re like me, you’re a bit artistically challenged, at least when it come to painting, drawing, sketching, etc.  And if you’re like me, you’re often financially strapped and unable to shell out the big bucks for real art (Ah… some day…).  However, one of my favorite DIY ways to create art, especially typography-style art — without having to resort to stick figures and crayons — is to use a lovely little website called Wordle.

 

Straight from the website, Wordle is “a toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide.”  Best of all, it’s free!  You may need to download a Java applet if your computer doesn’t already have it, but that’s free (and painless/easy) as well.

How it Works…

Well, of course you can check out the FAQ on the website for some real help, but in case you’re wanting a quick-start guide and don’t want to wade through the bajillion FAQ (they’re so darn helpful), here goes:

First, click on the “Create” tab at the top of the screen.  From here, you can type in as much text as you want (tip: the more words you type, the better your wordle will look).  You may also enter the URL of a blog, website, or del.ici.ous username to make a wordle of their tags (I don’t personally recommend this feature, it never turns out as interesting as I hope it will).

Things to keep in mind…

The size of the word is based purely on how many times you type a single word.  Type it ten times, it should be quite large; just once, it will be the smallest.

To put phrases into your wordle, separate the words with a tilde character —-> ~  (no additional spaces needed).  So if I wanted my Wordle to have the phrase “I love you.” I would have to input it as: I~love~you.  Get it?

Again, the more words the better.

Next, copy and paste all of your words and phrases into a text field of some sort.  This is tres importante because once you hit “Go,” you won’t be able to go back and change anything — all the text will be lost if you go back on your browser or hit “create” again. (I just paste mine into a MS Word doc, just in case I notice a typo or want to add more words after I hit “go.”)

Hit “Go” to generate a wordle!  Ooohhhh….. Aaaahhhh…….

From here, you can alter the font, color, and layout of your wordle.  Play around with the different features until you find what you’re looking for.  You can also create a custom color palette, changing the background as well (so it’s not just limited to black and white, in case you were wondering).

You can’t save wordles from the wordle website because they are Java applets, however you can take a screenshot of your Wordle and edit it in Paintbrush!

“How do I take a screenshot?”   What a fine question!  :)

On your computer’s keyboard, hit CTRL and the PRTSC/ SYSRQ key (bottom left hand corner and top right hand corner, respectively).

Then open Paintbrush (or a similar program) and hit CTRL + V to paste the screenshot.

From here you can use the cutting tool in Paint to cut just the Wordle.

Then on your keyboard, click CTRL + N to open a new Paint window, choose to not save the current window, then hit CTRL + V one last time to paste your cut Wordle on the Paint canvas (isn’t it purdy?).  From here you can minimize the white space of your canvas by pulling it in from the sides (look for those handy arrows that creep up when you run your mouse over the sides).

Finally, you can save the cut wordle by going to “File” at the top of the screen, clicking “Save As,” and giving your Wordle a name (then, you know… save it!).

Now that you have it saved as an image file, you can do whatever you want with it!  I think I’ll be sending my to Staples to get printed (their color printing is so much better/cheaper than what my printer can do).  Then it’ll go in a frame and I’ll stick it on the to-be-revealed-one-day-art-wall (we’ve still got some work to do).

But first, I have to decide which one to pick/print.  Josh and I honeymooned in New Orleans, and it remains one of our very favorite places to go.  I thought of as many NOLA related words as I could, then typed those into the Wordle text field and voila!

Three fun options for the future art wall:

(This first one has a typo…  I know, I know…)

or…..

 

or………

 

 

 

 I think I’m leaning towards the second one. What do you think???

 

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State String Art

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State String Art: Twelve Weeks of Christmas, Week 12

Welcome to the final installment of…

The Twelve Weeks of Christmas!

Sigh…

This is it!  With Christmas coming this Sunday (What?!  No really!), I have one last DIY tutorial for an easy, versatile, and cheap — did I mention it was cheap? — gift idea.

String art!

So, rewinding… here’s my Etsy inspiration (just to reiterate, this is inspiration — I did not make this one):

(click on image for original source)

Well, I saw this pic (and its sky high price tag) and thought “I could make one of those!”

… and I did:

In case you’re wondering… or maybe your U.S. geography is a bit rusty… or you haven’t seen that TV show How the States Got Their Shapes (it’s a good one!), this is Tennessee.  I made this one for my father, who is a Tennessee native as well as a HUGE Tennessee football fan (thus the orange background).  The heart represents Knoxville, which is his hometown as well as the college town.  Once I set out to do this project, it only took about three hours and it was surprisingly easy.

Here’s what you’ll need…

• A piece of wood
• Small nails (short length)
• Paint (optional)
• Embroidery string
• Hammer
• Pliers (optional)
• Patience (at first)

How to Make it:

First, I got a piece of wood.  I actually found this one at Michael’s for about $10 (they make these with beveled edges and in various sizes and shapes).  Looking back, that was not the penny-pinching-est option, but I was strapped for time, so… ya know.

(Later the same day I found THE cheapest option and kicked myself immediately: a wooden cutting board!  And I totally saw the PERFECT size at a local Dollar Store for three bucks.  Ah well… next time.)

Then I added two layers of Tennessee orange paint to the board and let it dry (I just used an acrylic-in-the-bottle-nothing-fancy paint.)

Next, I Google Image searched for a picture of the state of Tennessee.  I found this one and printed it out (I had to use two sheets of paper to appropriately fit my piece of wood).

Then, I cut it out to make a stencil — because you KNOW I’m not about to sketch/free hand that thing.  Uh uh.

I traced around the edges lightly, and then…

STOP.

Hammer time.

(Sometimes the hammer and nails did not do exactly what I wanted them to and in those cases, I just manipulated the nails a bit with pliers and re-hammered.)

Done.

Or halfway there.

The next part actually made me so nervous, my palms got clammy.  I know… weird.  But I get really anxious about these kinds of things!

However, once I started going, it was SUPER easy (just the getting started part I had to get over).

I tied the string to an outside point, then began looping it from the heart to the state lines.  I used ONE CONTINUOUS PIECE OF STRING (I didn’t cut it, I just held it in my hand as I looped it around).

Given the nature of this particular shape, each nail in the heart held many outside points, so don’t worry if you use the same inside heart nail for 10+ loops (as long as you don’t think it will pop off if brushed accidentally).

Here’s the finished product one mo’ ag’in:

I’m not saying it’s perfect, but I’m pretty pleased with it (and now I’ll know for the next time).

As you can see, I signed it — I was giving it to my dad after all — and used a metallic silver Sharpie.  I also used the same Sharpie to color each nail head and add a thin silver line around the beveled edges.  This was not really necessary, but sometimes I can’t be stopped when I’ve got a Sharpie in my hand.  (Josh finally had to reign me in — his exact words were “You’ve done enough.  Put the Sharpie down, Courtney!”)

Hey — let’s look at some more pictures of it!  This time, different angles…  Go Tyra Tennessee!

For a grand total of $12 and 3 hours spent, I have a project that I’m excited about AND that my dad loves!

P.S. — Yes, my dad reads this blog, but he has already received this as an early Christmas gift.  He came to visit this past weekend, and posed with the problem of safely wrapping it for his suitcase on the plane, I decided just to give it to him early and enlist his excellent engineering skills to solve this problem.  Something about cardboard and a platform???  I don’t know… I let him figure it out.  :)

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Check out what you may have missed…

The Twelve Weeks of Christmas

A Follow-up from Teresa (Crafty Tips)

When I posted the blog-style birthday tribute for my mom last Tuesday (check it out HERE), I got an overwhelmingly lovely response from the comments and e-mails I received, and it turns out that you all think my mom is as cool as I think she is (though I’m not surprised, I had a feeling you were smart people, you GPP readers).   I decided to get a follow-up from her —  specifically, I wanted to get some more details on some of her crafty projects, and hopefully make them accessible to all of you.  After all, Christmas is really soon and a lot of her ideas and projects would translate brilliantly into handmade, cost-effective gifts.

So, instead of me trying to summarize her response, I decided just to directly quote her here, copy-and-paste-from-the-e-mail-she-sent-me style, and I have also augmented some of her responses with clarification and elaboration of my own (in italics) per her request.  Hope these tips help!

First, I want to start with a project that I actually forgot to mention in the previous post, but which I love all the same.  If you’re an HGTV fan, you may be familiar with David Bromstad, the first winner of HGTV’s Design Star, and also the host of Color Splash: Miami.  This interior designer, who is also an accomplished painter and muralist, loves to create original art for each room project he works on, and they often take on an abstract style.  Here’s an example of one of his paintings (found here):

by David Bromstad

Using a similar technique, my mom created her own version:

By Teresa Hyke Foster

And here’s a some close-up:

David Bromstad inspired painting, close-up

Yeah, I like hers more.

So, here’s a step-by-step directly from her to help you achieve a similar effect (my comments in italics):

“The David Bromstad- inspired painting is done just by lightly wetting the canvas (with a spray bottle of water), dripping craft acrylic paint — from the little bottles, not the tubes — onto the canvas, and then using a spray bottle to spray the wet paint (no brush is needed, and DO NOT use oil paint as you will have a hot mess).  The paint will start dripping.  Add more paint, and allow to drip until the desired effect is achieved.  Very simple!”

Thanks, mom!

About the Preservation Hall painting, my mom says: “I wanted to paint you and Josh a picture that would remind you of your honeymoon and your love of NOLA. With Preservation Hall, I Googled a publicity photo, printed it out, and drew the design on the canvas and painted it. If transferring a picture is out of someone’s ability, then a picture could be blown up and transferred by using graphite paper and tracing over the design.”

(Oooh, graphite paper.  That’d be the option I would have to take.)

And here’s a picture, just to remind you:

Preservation Hall painting

And… last but not least the Statue of Liberty pillow:

Statue of Liberty pillow

This is an example of me assuming a project was done one way, when really it was a bit more complicated (albeit still totally accessible to the less artistic like myself).

Here’s what Teresa says about it: “When I painted the Statue of Liberty pillow, I Googled Peter Maxx (my family has one of his prints in their home). I drew a black and white version on paper with a black sharpie, then transferred the design with a vanishing pen to the fabric (when the ink gets wet, the marks vanish — those can be found here for under $3). I held the design that I had drawn with a sharpie up to the light (I taped it to the kitchen window and transferred the design to the fabric with the vanishing pen). If you have a light box that would work also (who has a light box, mom?).  Then I just painted the picture (with black silk screen paint), let it dry over night, heat set it with an iron, and then sewed the pillow. You could also use regular black fabric paint.”

(Doesn’t she make it sound so easy?)

Hope these tips help and inspire you!  If you have any more questions for Teresa/my mom, let me know and I’ll pass those on to her and try to get them answered!

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