Colorful Mosaic Wall on the cheap!!!

scrapbook paper mosaic wall

Like a lot of people, I live in an apartment. The type of apartment complex that doesn’t allow painting of any kind. I really try to jazz up the blah eggshell walls with color, whether it be colorful artwork or colored lampshades that cast a hue on the wall. Well, I wanted to step it up a notch with my décor beyond that and do something totally different with my bedroom wall that would make visitors come in and say, “Wow! You did that?” And the cool thing is that I did it all for under $20! Yep, for $20 bucks you can get a totally rockin’ wall that is full of color and will brighten up any room!

What do you need?

– Multicolored scrapbook page packs (I purchased mine at Target and 50 sheets came to a pack; I purchased 2 packs)
– Aleene’s Tacky Dots (available at Michaels)
– tape measure

So, I’m not going to do a full-blown step by step tutorial, but I’ll give you a very easy rundown of what I did. I measured out the length of my wall, then I figured out how many square 12×12 pieces of paper would fit into that length. I picked out 9 different colors from a multi-color pack that I liked and placed them in a random fashion. Starting at the top, I horizontally placed the paper (to adhere to wall I put dots in the four corners of the paper and pressed). I then began on the next row. My goal was to not repeat two colors in a row vertically or horizontally. It was a challenge, but not that hard once I started doing the mosaic. I tried to not get too many colors together or have similar colors sitting next to each other. I wanted it to look like a mosaic of color that looked random in placement and aesthetically pleasing overall. Does that make sense?

Honestly, I’m not a by the book/measurement kinda girl, so a lot of this was eyeballed. Oh, and word to the wise. The dots need to be carefully removed. If you tug the paper off the wall, the Zot will remove the paint (OOPS!).

I’m really with the way it turned out and am excited to finally show it to you!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Upcycled Tins w/ Scrapbook paper and Collage Pauge™

upcycled tins with scrapbook paper

I created this crafty project for my office. I was pretty tired of these old tins, so I revamped them with some scrapbook paper and Collage Pauge™. Here’s the tins I started out with!

Tins before

Now, I admit they are pretty cool in a nostalgia way, but I’ve been looking at them for the past 5 years and frankly, I’m bored with them. Decopauging them and giving them a new look was so super easy! I decided I wanted each tin to follow a basic color theme, and then I found papers in my stash that I could use (I have a lot of 79¢ sheets that I bought a few years ago with the intention of using them…if you’re a paper crafter like me, I’m sure you can totally relate!). I then cut the papers into strips with scissors the height of each of the tins. If you are more particular, you may want to cut the strips with a paper trimmer. For some of the strips, I didn’t measure them beforehand, so I cut some off after I decopauged and then folded them over the rim. Here’s a pic in progress!

Collage Pauge strips

I used the sparkly Collage Pauge™ to add a little glitz. You can use a foam brush, but I just spread it with my fingers. The tins will look great in my office once I get it all together! I’m admittedly slow and messy. It’s not easy for me people! Ha ha. My office is going to be a colorful conglomeration of all kinds of bright colors! No rhyme, no reason, just colors and things I like! I’m going to feature in the next couple of weeks a lamp project for my office, and I’ll include a tutorial for that one as well!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Feelin’ Earthy


bracelet and earring set
Originally uploaded by swelldesigner

I just typed a long blog only to have my program lock up on me. Boo…

This is my creation for the night. I’m happy with it. The natural/earthy look came through (based on the assignment I was given by a friend). It’s nice to feel a sense of accomplishment on a project well done. I don’t know how painters do it. I like being able to whip something up in an hour, photograph it, and upload it and throw it out to the universe. Something very satisfying about that, if you ask me.

Something also very tiring about it…speaking of, I’m outtie.