DIY Arrow Painting and New Couches

Hey everyone!

I’ve been meaning to make this post days ago but, life happens. It’s been a very busy week here at the Robert’s household. Sadly Jared is away on a field op but, one of my best friends Lidiya came to visit me for the week and I am so pumped for that! With that said, I have been so focused on making our home “guest ready,” and I’m finally ready to relax.

I’m excited to share with all of you our new couches and what I have been working on this week! I am so in love with these new couches. Our first couch was the Ektorp sofa in Blekinge White. We only had the sofa because in our first townhouse on base, there was only enough room for one couch. I remember the night I got it, I was so excited. People told me I was crazy for getting it and that I need to “wait until I have kids.” First off that won’t be for a couple of years, and secondly that couch could seriously last you forever if you wanted it to! Its durable, easy to wash and clean. If you make a spill on an upholstered or faux leather couch, then the process of getting it cleaned is a lot harder. With the Ikea couch and now this new set, I can just easily put it in the washer and a couple of hours later I have a fresh clean couch. (: This photo was the set up in our first home on base.

Now the reason we chose a new set was because there were some flaws with the Ikea sofa. Its lower than most couches, which gives you the small appearance, and I wasn’t to crazy about that. And mainly because Ikea is about 5 hours away from us and I didn’t want to pay 300$ in shipping, no thank you. So this new set is from Rose Brothers right on Lejeune Rd. They are down, which makes it so comfy, and they are bigger and deeper. I also like that they are beige, it gives me a break from washing it every other month. The brand is Synergy, and it is completely slip-covered. I can honestly say that their great couches and I’m planning to have them FOREVER. Seriously, ask my husband (: Now back to my project!

I’ve been trying to come up with ideas on what to do with the main wall in our living room because that thing is huge! Seriously. I contemplated on making it a gallery wall but, I don’t even want to imagine how many frames I would need to buy to fill the wall up. SO it finally hit me, and I’m excited about what I was able to come up with. And the most awesome part about it? It cost me 28$ to make this huge piece of art. I’m not going to lie, It was a pain in the butt at times making this thing and trying to hang it up but, that’s my fault since Jared offered to help when he came back…but lets be serious, I can’t wait that long.

So before I post how I Made this, I would like to say this was a process of trial and error. I had a plan and that completely fell through. So I’m sure there is some right way to make it work but after trying and failing I just went the easy way, and I’m glad I did because it looks great up now!

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Instructions

So we went to Lowes and bought 3 – 8ft long moulding. We looked for the thinnest we could find, because I wanted something light. I’d say lattice is a little more flimsier than this moulding. The overall cost for the three pieces was 20$. Then we cut one of the pieces in half. So now we have 2- 8ft and 2- 4ft. Next we cut all of the angles, with my new awesome little angle cutter.

After that, paint the color that you desire. I chose white. Thanks to Murphy for being a big help while I was drawing the arrow.

While all that was being painted and drying off, I started drawing my design on my material. Instead of buying linen/canvas cloth from a craft store, we bought painters cloth drop from Harbor Freight. It comes in great condition and you get so much more for your buck. Overall cost of it was 5$.

I then traced the design I wanted onto the material. I don’t have a picture because it was too light and my camera couldn’t catch it. So here is the painting part. It was pretty tough trying to paint it freehand. I wanted to tape around it, but of course we didn’t have any tape (I then remembered I used it all up during christmas time). The paint I chose was Knights Armor. I love the color. I didn’t want true black but something with a little grey in it, and this was perfect. (For those of you who know me, know that I LOVE grey everything.) We purchased only a sample of it from Lowes, and its Olympic “Knights Armor.” The total cost of the sample was 3$.

Once everything was dry I laid out the cloth and put the moulding around it. I got my stapler and liquid nail glue ready.

 

So my plan was to glue and staple all the angles together. Well I did that, and when it dried and I picked it up, Every thing fell apart. GREAT.

I laid the Border with the white paint facing the floor, and the painting on top, with the back of the painting showing. Then I stapled it from behind, making sure that its fit and tight all around. I then took my liquid nail and glued all the edges to the border. After it was dry (yes I did this all by myself) I marked where I want it on the wall and put my first nail onto the top border right in the middle and then the bottom. I used the little pin nails because it is so light. Now remember, all of my angles are just dangling. SO I then put nails through the top border angles and bottom angles. And then I was finally done. Now I hope if you try to make this that you do what works best for you and your structure. Were not moving anytime soon so I don’t mind nailing it into the wall, it was fast and easy. Thanks for reading on how to make this, and I hope it inspired some of you to make something like this! Here is a before and after of out living room.

Maliik and Nahla wanted to model the room.

 

DIY Deer Art

So lately I’ve been looking on Pinterest for art ideas to fill up all of our bare end tables, dressers, walls..etc. And I have fallen in love with the deer silhouette! Ive looked in Hobby Lobby, Marshals, Ross, Home Goods, and I cannot find them anywhere. So here is my easy DIY tutorial. It has a classy slash rustic feel to it, and I love how it looks on my dresser.

Here were some of my inspirations.

So this was the photo originally, I really like the frame of it, the picture not so much. It was 50 cents from Yesterdays Thrift Store.  The white paint I used was just leftover paint that I had.

Then I used this silhouette that I printed offline. I filled mine in with white paint in a paint app on my mac, so that I wouldn’t waste so much black ink when I print it off. Then after the white paint on my picture dried off, I layed the silhouette where I wanted and traced with a pencil around it.

After that I just used some leftover gray paint I had and filled it in with a small paintbrush. I even stayed inside the lines (: Hope you guys like it!

Well hello everyone!

A few weeks ago I created this blog and I’m still trying to figure it all out. I’m not a writer, in fact I don’t like to write and I probably wont have too much to say, but I will have a lot of updates to share! Over the next couple months before Jared (husband) deploys, (hopefully not) we will be working on updates to the house. If anyone has noticed, I don’t post too many pictures of our house but I realized starting a blog and keeping up with all the updates to the house will be beneficial for everyone who keeps asking to see the house. (sorry I haven’t posted pictures, I just like projects to be done before I post about them.)
Anyways, why are we updating our house? It’s brand new right? Absolutely, but I just don’t like having a cookie cutter builder’s grade home. I’m hoping that by the time that we move in a year and a half out of this lovely (cough) town, it will have a lot of appeal to it and will attract tenants easily, and those who actually appreciate a nice upgraded home. Im terrified of what could happen to this home when it’s no longer occupied by us, which is why all these updates are important to make sure we find good renters. But about our house, we bought it in October, and it was a great buying process. Our floor plan was the “Carolina Wren,” hence my blog name? I absolutely love this house and it is our Carolina Haven (: I’m excited to finally start making this house our home until next summer! And now college awaits me in 2 hours so I should probably get some sleep, goodnight everyone (: