Wooden Photo Plaques DIY

Supplies:

• Wooden Plaques
• Acrylic Paint
• Paintbrush
• Sand paper (for shabby chic look)
• Mod Podge
• Tissue Paper

Yesterday, I had the idea to make photo canvases to go above my fireplace. I stopped in at Jo-Ann Fabrics on my lunch, but they were out of canvases :(

So, I picked up these pine wooden plaques for $2.99 each:

I used Jo-Ann's brand of acrylic paint (it was cheapest), mixing white and black to get the grey I wanted, then painted with a thin paintbrush.

While the paint was drying, I printed my pictures on tissue paper. To get it through the printer, I taped white tissue paper to regular printer paper.

Onc the paint was dry, I sanded the edges and corners to give the plaques a shabby chic look. Then, I added a thin layer of Mod Podge Gloss (which now I wish I had gotten the matte finish, and will pick that up today):

Then, I gave the pictures a funky cut and placed them on the plaques. I smoothed the wrinkles out with my finger by working from the center out. You want to be very careful about your placment since tissue paper tears easily.

Voila!

I plan on putting a layer of Mod Podge Matte over the plaques to protect the paper. If you plan on doing this soon after printing your pictures, be sure that the ink has dried (if printing from an inkjet printer). Mod Podge will make the ink run if the picture has not fully dried.

I also may add a black ribbon to the back to give them that extra bit of cuteness :)

Ideas for the New Apartment

Here are a couple ideas I have for my new apartment:

Living room: 

Black, citron/yellow, gray, and white

These are Michael Miller prints from fabric.com:

Dining Room:

Since the dining room is connected to the living room, I'm going to use the same colors. Andrew picked up an antique drop-leaf table similar to this one except it's a natural wood that hasn't been painted yet:

I plan to paint it a gray shabby chic like this color and texture below with a white primer. (Actually, my husband, Andrew, will be doing the painting during his Spring Break lol)

I have some mismatching chairs that we (meaning Andrew) will paint an off-white color which I picked up at Ace Hardware. I will add cushions to two or three of them and will use one of the gray/citron Michael Miller prints from fabric.com.

Bathroom:

Green, White, Asian theme

I bought this Asian Collection Dynasty Green fabric from fabric.com to make the shower curtain:

I also bought 2 green memory foam bath mats and a bamboo bathroom set from Target:

I'm contemplating getting this Sushi Decor toilet paper covers by SciFiKnits on Etsy.com because it's so darn cute!:

I plan to do the shower curtain this weekend if we get everything unpacked and put away by then. It may be hard since our daughter, Na'omi, has been teething and is downright unhappy. Poor thing :(

DIY Obsession

As I prepared for my daughter's first birthday, I got into a DIY frenzy:

So I decided to write a blog on my DIY and craft projects. As a newbie in the DIY universe, I will guarantee mess-ups, re-dos, but most of all, fun.