Prativya: tutorial

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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 – How to make pots look like expensive stone planters!

Every time I walked through the Garden section of Bunnings, I would dream about concrete/stone planters instead of the giant ugly plastic pots in my alfresco. That is when I thought of giving them a makeover.. What if I could give my existing sad plastic pots a new life as funky fake stone planters?

The pots were old and scuffed, but as they were in sound shape I thought it was a great idea to give them a new life versus buying new and expensive pots.

I remembered I had some Dulux Design Stone Paint lying around from our house painting back in February. So, thought it would be just right for the makeover. Do not have the Design stone paint? Fret not. I have jotted down steps that you can use to recreate the look with items that are readily available.

So, here is how I refreshed the pots.

Supplies needed:

A plastic pot to upcycle
Sanding block/ Sandpaper
Dust Mask for protection
Paint brush
Container for mixing paint
Disposable rubber gloves to protect hands
Drop Sheet/Newspaper for protecting the floor
Dulux Design Stone Paint
OR
Grey paint (or you can mix White and Black paint) - You could use regular wall paint.
If using regular paint, you will need the following additional items to recreate the effect:
Plastic bag for shading
Plaster of Paris

Directions:

Place the drop sheet on the floor, and start with sanding the pot with a sanding block or sandpaper. Wear a dust mask to minimize intake.
Wipe dust away thoroughly with a piece of cloth.
Take the paint out in a disposable container. If mixing colors to make paint, then do that here.
I straight away used the Dulux Design Stone Paint on the pot using a criss-cross pattern to get the realistic look.

If using regular paint, give the pot one coat of Grey paint. Work in criss-cross motion to get some texture. Don’t forget to do the internal ring of the pot too.
For the stone look, mix Plaster of Paris powder in one batch of paint and slap on the pot. Make sure you work with batches. Get details on this procedure in my DIY Copper Patina wall tutorial.
Use a plastic bag to scrunch out a lighter shade of grey to get patches like concrete.

Large real stone/concrete planters retail for more than $150, so I’m thrilled that these ‘stone painted’ pots look close enough to the real thing! Just look at the transformation:

Love,
Divya

DIY Decorative Diwali Candle/Tealight/Diya Floor Stand with supplies at home!

Diwali is just around the corner, and I wanted to make some new fun stuff for decorations around the home. It is our first Diwali, in our first home! This one has to be special, but I wanted to make something versatile, rather than one that would be tucked away for the rest of the year. That's when I came up with the idea of this Floor Diya Stand. It is quick and gorgeous, and will also liven any decor! Once Diwali is gone, it can be used as a cupcake stand for parties!!

Also, this project took me a total of 1 hour 15 minutes, and the end result is SO worth it!

Supplies needed:

Recycled Cardboard sheets - I used empty carton boxes which I had lying around from when we were painting.

Thick Cardboard rolls - You could use toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, or even wrapping paper rolls
Decorative paper - You could use scrapbook paper, origami paper, recycled cardboard sheets, whatever you have at hand
Laces
Glue
Glue Gun
Pencil
Ruler
Tea lights for decoration
Rhinestones, or any other items for decoration

Directions:

You can go with any other shape - triangle, circle or a flower for the "levels", but I thought squares would be quickest to make, and I was right. If you have time, you could tweak this tutorial to make any other shape.

Also, I wanted height, so I made four "levels", you can add or remove to suit your space and liking.

1. I started with cutting out pieces of cardboard. These would make the base and the "levels".
I used the following measurements:

- 10 cm x 10 cm
- 15 cm x 15 cm
- 20 cm x 20 cm
- 25 cm x 25 cm

Here are the final cardboard pieces. (You can see the paint splatters on most of them!)

2. Then, I started wrapping the cardboard in paper on both the sides.

Then covering it with glitter paper and some fun scrapbook paper. Now, you could go crazy with colors because Diwali is all about colors, but since I wanted to reuse this as a cupcake stand in the near future, I kept it subtle.

Here are the final cardboard pieces:

3. Now, I should have measure the height and all, but I just ended up using one toilet paper roll as it is, and splitting the paper towel roll exactly in half for the three pillars creating the height.

4. I had Glitter cloth lying around, so I used it to wrap the rolls. You could use some decorative paper fabric, lace, or glitter tape to cover it up.