DIY Patent Wall Art using Recycled wood

These walls have been bare too long. I have been thinking of putting something fun and impactful on these for a REALLY long time. I contemplated doing some art of my own, but one fine day watching Fixer Upper, I got the idea of using some Patent Art on the walls! (I love you, Joanna!) I knew that they would be the perfect fun quirky pop of color on these boring white walls without going over the top.

{Warning: This is an image heavy post!}

 

Right in the middle of the wall is a door to my craft room, hence making it trickier to decorate:

Then started my research on vintage patent artwork and came across the Google Patents website online. You can find patents on all sorts of things here.

Since this is a part of my Coffee Room, and I recently installed my Penny-farthing Cycle planter on my DIY Faux Copper Patina wall, I thought, what better than to have something related to "cycle" and "coffee"? I could not believe the amazing stuff I found on this site on just the two of these! I shortlisted a few, and downloaded them for my personal use. From what I know, the text and the drawing of a patent are not subject to copyright restrictions and the images are free for personal use. If you want to use an image for something other than your own personal use you may have to check with a lawyer or the patent owner. I did not have to worry since these were for my home.

However, since my walls are white, I wasn't too happy with this color combination.

Using Adobe Photoshop, the colors were inverted quickly to produce some super fun black and white images, and printed on A3 sheets. You could convert them to colors of your choice as per the decor in the room, but these were perfect for mine.

 

Supplies needed:

• Inkjet printer (for printing patent art)
• Old fence wood/ pallet wood or similar
• Sander
• Wood glue
• Clamps/weights
• Nails
• Screws
• Hammer
• Thin wire 
• Mod Podge (or similar glue)

1. Out of the four, I selected three for print, still contemplating how many to hang, whether to cover both sides of the door or just one. My final images were approximately 28.5 cm X 41 cm in size. I decided to leave the white borders.

2. After this, we started work on the wood base. We had some left over old fence wood, so we gathered that for the project. 

3. Then we lay out the printed art on the wood pieces to have an idea of how big we wanted the backing to be. My backing is 16 cms taller and 9.2 cms wider than my patent images. So, we cut the wood pieces, and began to sand to make it a little smoother.

4. We attached cross braces on the back to make it sturdy. We used wood glue and the old nails with hammer to keep them in place.

Here is how it looks in the front:

There were some paint drips that I missed so I sanded it again.

6. Then was the fun part of pasting the patent image to the pallet wood. I tried to measure to make sure the image was centered from all four sides. Then I glued it with Mod Podge, but you can use any similar type of adhesive. Make sure you remove any air bubbles as it dries.

As you can see, I decided to go with the coffee pot and the penny farthing cycle images since both of these were most relevant.

I managed to get some wrinkles on mine, but I think they added some old world charm, so left it anyway. I Mod Podged the rest of the wood too to make the wood color consistent.

 

Then I left it to air dry.

7. Now for hanging the art on the wall, we used small screws on both edges of the cross braces and then wrapped a wire around them.

 



..and ta-da!

7. Here is how they look on my wall. I think they look fab!! (We had everything at home, so yep, this project is complete without spending a single penny!)

I thought the white edge of the patent art was a little too white, so with some diluted brown acrylic paint, I painted it to distress it a little.

 



I love how the brown of the wood complements the wood floor and parts of the Faux Copper Patina wall.

To reiterate what it looked like before, here's a quick Before and After:

Here are some extra images I had created, but decided not to use. Feel free to use them, or check out others on the Google Patents website:

 

YAY! Thrilled with the final outcome of this project!
{I think Joanna would be proud! :) }

Hope you are inspired to do something fun with what you have at home!

Love,

Divya

DIY Color Swatch Art

The wall in front of my table in the craft room had been blank and drab forever. My initial plan was to add a pegboard but husband had a fit at the number of holes we would be making in the wall in the process. Check out the rest of my Craft Room/Study here.

While watching the Fixer Upper series, I noticed some Color Swatch Art in one of the styled houses and literally fell in love with the idea. I knew that this would be the perfect pop of inspiration I needed on my wall, also adding color to the space.


The same day, we were off to Spotlight to get some canvases for the purpose. I grabbed 8 of the 11"x14" ones for 2$ each. (SCORE!) Just look at the transformation!

Supplies needed: 

• 11"x14" canvas - 8
  (Technically, the number and the size of the canvas would depend on the size of the wall you would like to cover with this project)
• Acrylic Paint
  (In the colors you would like to paint, or you could mix up colors to make new ones, totally up to you!)
• Alphabet Stencils 
• Mod Podge
• Pencil
• Ruler 
• Eraser

Directions:

1. I started with creating an outline for the color swatch with a pencil and a ruler. I wanted a 1 cm border around three sides, just because I think that looked better. My measurements of the square hence, turned out to be 25.5cm x 25.5cm. I created these on all the canvases as a guide for the paint.
    
   
2. Then I decided on the color palette I wanted to paint, and started to fill in the squares with the decided colors. I decided on the following shades: Crimson Red, Cadmium Yellow, Cobalt Blue, and made some pastel and neutral shades: Jade Green, Lilac Purple, Light Pink, Steel Grey and a Bright Orange. The painting need not be perfect, so I slapped the paint on!
   
   
   
   
   
3. Once this was complete, I stenciled out the color names on the bottom of each swatch canvas with pencil. I could have spelled out the exact color, but I only wanted to replicate the look and feel of a swatch, so kept it super simple!
   
   
   
4. With black paint I filled in these words. This was the most time consuming and tiring part of the entire project since this needed to be precise. You could use other mediums to do this, but I wanted to paint.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Once everything was dried up, I mod podged all the canvases to seal and finish them up. This gave them a professional look and removed any major inconsistencies in paint color.
   
   
   

   

Two more to finish, and that's it, all done and ready to hang... love them to pieces! We used 3M Picture strips to hang these canvases. Trying to figure out the arrangement here:

And this is what the final arrangement looks like! They add such a fun vibe to the room and lots of pops of colors - perfect accompaniment to my doodle wall!

Hope these have inspired you to make something fun and colorful for your home! 

Xoxo

Divya