Newspaper Block Wall Art

I rather like this particular little project. It wasn't very time consuming, and it filled an empty spot on my wall that was just begging for for embellishment.

I really like this particular project because it's super customizable, and it makes minimal supplies- a block of scrap wood, newspaper, mod podge, and Sharpies.

 I started with this piece of scrap wood that I found out in the garage. the clementine is in the picture to show you just how small it really is. In all, it was about 7"x3.5".

 I cut it in half very imprecisely, then sanded off the edges and corners.

 As you can see, on the other sides of these blocks are imperfections, but they don't matter much, as these sides will end up against the wall.

 I grabbed a random sheet of newspaper we had sitting around- one that had mostly words, not pictures, as I like the look of words in the background.
I had orignally intended to use a page from a favorite book that was falling apart, but I couldn't find one, and I have a thing about destroying books that aren't coming apart/already apart in the first place. It just feels wrong. Especially one I like. So I stuck with the newspaper.

 I started by cutting out rough squares that covered the fronts of the blocks with extra to spare. If I had thought about it a bit longer, they would have been big enough to fold around the edges of the block, too, but I didn't. Maybe you will.

 This stuff is pretty much the most important part of the project. I think you might be able to use white elmer's glue, but it will be harder, and probably won't look as pretty. I was lucky, and found this in my craft drawer, but for those of you who don't have any, I'm sorry, but I didn't come up with a work-around for this one.

One thing you need to remember: follow the instructions for this stuff. It is very easy to make a mess with, and will ruin clothes if you're not careful.

Also, wash your brush every time you finish. Each coat of mod podge needs to dry for 15-20 minutes, so wash your brush between each coat, dry it off with a towel, and let it air-dry until you need to use it again. This will save you a lot of pain in the long run.

 I painted a thin layer o.f mod podge onto the front of each block, then pressed the newspaper onto them. Because this is a liquid glue, and partly because it's water-based, if you leave this to dry on its own, you will get rather ugly bumps and ripples in the paper, so I pressed mine with the nearest large and heavy book- my Chem textbook.

 This is how the two blocks came out. It was at this point that I realized what I had done with the edges, and considered getting my EXACT-O knife to the edges, and just leaving the fronts covered, but ultimately decided against it, just because I like the wrap-around look.

 I then cut the rest of the article into strips, being careful to leave out any graphics or images.

 I put thin layers of mod podge on the block front where I wanted the strips to go, laid them on, and then re-pressed them under the textbook. The thing to remember in this is that mod podge is a glue, so if you have any left on the block front that isn't covered by paper, you will be gluing the block to the table. Unfortunately, I did that on this block, which is what those two empty spots are. I left it, because I didn't think it looked terrible, but you should still be careful.

 When the fronts were glued, I decided to move on to the edges. The paper hanging over the edges was a bit too much on some areas, so I trimmed it.

 This is a rather fuzzy picture of how much mod podge you should want to use for gluing. You can't  really even tell that it's there, which is the perfect amount.

 To get crisp edges, the best method that I came up with was to lean the front edge on the table, then roll it back until the side rested fully on the table, then sit there, applying as much force as you can, for a few minutes. These won't be fully dried by then, but they'll be dry enough that they'll stay as you work on the other edges.

 When you've finished with two opposite edges, you will end up with two corners sticking up like this.

 Mod podge that edge, then fold in the corners as if you were wrapping a present.

 Then, again like wrapping a present, fold the remaining flap down. Use the same method as before for keeping that flat and smooth.

Repeat for the last edge.

 When your two blocks are done, they should look like this, more or less. Try to line them up like they were when you first cut them.

 Here comes the art... collect a big sharpie, a fine-point sharpie, and a pencil. I have two fine-points because one of them doesn't work well, and I can never remember which one.

This is hard to see, but I started out by drawing a tree branch and two birds onto the blocks, being careful to draw the branch continuing onto the second block, so that it all looks like one piece of art, not two put right next to each other.

 I then used the fine-point sharpie to outline the branch, adding a few embellishments where I thought it could use them

 I then outlined the birds. These were a bit more difficult, because they were somewhat more detailed, but it was still pretty easy.

 I then filled in with the big sharpie. I had a bit of a bleeding problem where the words had been ripped off earlier, but I just added a bit more sharpie an fixed it.

You could just leave these block like this, but I wanted to finish them and waterproof them.

 Luckily, Mod Podge works perfectly for that, as well. I painted on a rather thick coat- thicker than I had for any of the gluing layers- and let it dry.

And ta-daa! These could be left like this, for dest artwork, but I made them for the wall, so on the wall they went!

 I decided that I liked them a little better separated a little bit, like so.

 I had this package of post wall-mounting strips that are supposed to not damage the wall, so I decided to try them.

 Unfortunately, this particular method showed with wooden blocks, since you can't just peel back a piece of paper to get at the fasteners, but you can minimize the effect, and it's not a big deal in the end.

 And there we have it! Your finished wall art! This could also be done with bigger blocks if you wanted, and/or more intricate drawings.

This is where they ended up on my wall. They aren't very big, especially as compared to my other art work, but I feel like they fit.

Chibi Pillow

This week's craft is a prototype for a similar item I will be making for a friend's birthday at some point in the near future, and I thought that it made a rather nice craft in and of itself.

I'm not sure that you can call this a proper chibi, but I thought it was cute. For those of you who can't tell what/who this is (only 2/5 of the people I showed it to recognized it), this is Sherlock. As it, from the show Sherlock. As in: 

This Sherlock. (the one in the scarf)

Regardless, here are the step towards making your own chibi pillow.

First step: research. Generally, this just means scrolling through pages on pages of endless fan art, photos, etc. I used Google Images- whatever you want to use also works. I would suggest looking at chibis, cartoons, photos, etc. This was honestly the hardest or second hardest (haven't decided) part of the whole project- it is much harder than you might think to simplify a character down to a little square for a  pillow.

In the end, this is what I came up with. The really signature things about Sherlock's look are his curly hair and his scarf, so those were the things I tried to focus on.

 I then started out with this pile of scrap cloth in various colors that I thought I'd need (I wasn't just doing Sherlock originally)

 Needing two squares for each pillow, and making two pillows, I needed four squares out of this one piece of cloth. It being a 45" piece of cloth, I cut it down to 11.25" wide.

 To be fair, I actually ripped it- most non-stretchy cloth will rip if you just notch it at the front.

 I then folded it in four, and cut along the folds.

 I chose just one square as the one I'd focus on- of the other three, one will be the back, and the other two will be the other pillow.

 I began by measuring and cutting the first piece of cloth into the rough size of the square's top, to serve as the base for the hair.

 I didn't chalk out the hair line, and it turned out ok, but I can tell you that this was a lot more difficult than it needed to be- the best suggestions that I have for you: DON'T USE STRETCHY CLOTH. Also, felt is really nice, since it doesn't have to be hemmed. If you absolutely must used stretchy cloth, use the kind that can be burn-hemmed.

 I then cut out little circles (about 1" in diameter) for the eyes. Again, make sure you burn or hem these.

 This is to illustrate the burning that I did. The hope behind all of this is that you won't be able to tell, unless you feel it, that it's been burned.

 The next thing I did was to cut out the black strip for his coat.

 I then cut out the scarf pieces. Here was my biggest mistake- I wanted the scarf to be this size, as it stands out really nicely this way. Unfortunately, I forgot all about the fact that this type of cloth can't be burn-hemmed, it has to be actually hemmed. Even with a small hem, that too 1/4-1/2" off of the scarf, which was enough to not look as good.

 Now, this is the part that was competing with the research for the hardest part. Because his hair is curly, it has crazy curves and whatnot, and sewing on that hair with a sewing machine was difficult. It wasn't impossible, but it took a lot longer than a straight line.

 I then sewed on the bottom black rectangle, then the slanty bit of the scarf, then the straight part of the scarf. You can already tell that the scarf isn't as significant or large as it did a picture or two back.

 Sewing on the eyes I would suggest taking very slow or doing by hand. Also, make sure you lay all of this out before hand. Maybe even (*GASP*) use pins.

 I'm not sure if this will help any of you seamstresses out there, but this is the back of my pillow, in case you cared where I sewed what.

 I then sewed the second square onto the pillow, right sides together. In this case, with this cloth, that basically just meant sewing a square onto the face you've just created. Make sure to leave a slit of turning right-side-out and stuffing.

 I then turned it right-side out, stuffed it, and sewed it shut. Usually, I will just sew it shut with a sewing machine, and ignore the one little ridge created by the sewing machine, but since (as stated previously), this is a prototype for a gift, I decided to try my hand at an 'invisible stitch', which is often used to close things like this.

  Unfortunately, my skills at needlework generally encompass functional sewing, not necessarily pretty sewing, so you can kind of see my stitches. Not as much as you would a sewing machine, though.

 And there we have it! Ta-daa! Your very own chibi pillow!


The final product was about 11x11, but this could be sized up or down as much or little as you wanted, depending on materials and time.

Paint Chip Art

So, for those of you waiting for this two weeks ago, I'm sorry. I'm not a very consistent blogger... but behold! I have finished this project! (and I have a rather good idea for my next post)

Just as a note, this wasn't what I had originally intended to do- I had actually started this intending to copy a picture I saw somewhere of a rather awesome stylized peacock, but I couldn't find the picture later, so I did this instead. I still like it, a lot, and it's easy to add to, but still. I just thought I should let you know.

 To start with (this is a shocker, I know), you need a paint chip board. Or you could do this in a plain picture frame, as you will. However, I started with the the paint chip board I made last time.

 Next, I cut out this tree, and taped it on. Everything else has been and will be attached with staples, but paint chips are colorful, and inherently hide staples better than plain white paper.

 Next, I chose a few paint chips out of the ones I had left, I think 5 or 6, and cut out a bunch of leaf shapes from them. These don't have to be perfect, and actually look cooler with a bit of variance.

I then stapled them on in a suitably artistic manner, and.. ta-daa! You have your cool art work. I liked the falling leaf look, so I did that, but this method works for almost anything you want to put up there.

Paint Chip Wall Art

This week features a rather fun project for me: paint chip art! This, fortunately, is one of those almost-free things that you can do!

 I actually got the idea for this particular project a while ago, when I saw a particularly creative picture on Facebook of paint chips artistically attached to an apartment wall in a rainbow collage-type-thing.

I immediately set out to collect paint chips, and got all that I could get my hands on... and when I got home, I promptly realized that I lacked the wall space to create a masterpiece like the one I had seen, so I stored them all away in a box.

 Luckily, I recently found this unused cork-board around our house recently, and I decided to use it.

 I organized my color chips into sizes.

 Starting with the biggest ones, I started placing them

 I then added all of the medium ones.

 At this point,  I rather liked the design that was emerging, but wanted to spruce it up with some smaller ones, so I stapled down the big ones at a few key junction points, then started placing the smaller ones.

 This was the whole after-stapling collage of big ones. I could have been done here, but I liked the smaller 'pixel' look that I had seen, so I added some small ones. Unfortunately, I didn't like how it looked. Or how the second one looked. Or the third.

 Eventually, I settled on this design as one I liked. It almost made me sad, knowing that I wasn't taking advantage of the big ones underneath at all, but one of the big things I learned from this one was that trial and error are essential to this type of art.

And there we go! The final product! As it happens, I did sort of end up using the big one, as I decided to forego the right edge chips in favor of the big ones showing through, rather than cutting them.

Hopefully, I will, by next week, have up the follow-up to this project. No hints, except that this is only the first half, but in the meantime, enjoy your new collage! (also, one thing I like about this- it's easy and cheap enough that, if you decide you want to change the colors, it's easy enough to rip a chip off and re-staple something else in instead)