How to make your own printables

Hey hey! Hope you had a lovely weekend! Our temps here are unusually high for this time of year – today we took a long walk and even played at the playground. Crazy! It’s supposed to be in the 50’s again this week!

I still say we’ll be paying for this soon enough. I have no doubt we’ll be under five feet of snow in a few weeks. We shall see. :)

So if you have looked at oh…a few blogs lately, or surfed Pinterest for ohhhh…a few seconds, you’ll see a TON of fun printables. They’re fun graphics or sayings and they are all the rage to print out and frame right now.

I think they are too fun and I pin pretty much any free one I see anymore. ;) So I was psyched the other day to see someone pin a post on how to make your own printables:

(source)

In my old life I did a lot of graphics work – I worked in marketing and whenever possible, I created the advertising, annual reports, brochures – all that good stuff. When I had time and could really concentrate on it, I really enjoyed that part of my job. (I used Quark – is that ancient now or do people still use it?) So when I realized I could make something fun with only Picnik.com (which I use to edit my photos anyway) – I was hooked!

I made a super easy, basic printable for my office today and then recreated my steps to show you how to do it! Did I mention this is totally, completely FREE? Booyah!!

I’m sure this has been shared a meeeellion times in blogland, but that was the first I had seen it, so I wanted to share it with you too. First, open the Paint program on your computer. I had to search mine out because I never use it. Just open it, then save the blank screen as a document:

Open up Picnik and download the blank page into it:

To pick a background color, go to the Effects tab and then pick the Duo-Tone option:

I just pick the same color for both since it asks for two colors (this would typically be used for a photo, hence the need for two colors).

Then, because I wanted this one to run vertically, I went to the Basic Edits and rotated the image:

And then it’s time to have some fun! You can add graphics by going to the Stickers tab and pasting them in. I just wanted text for this one, so I chose the Text tab (duh) and then picked the fonts I wanted:

You can send the text back or forward (to layer) by right clicking on the text box. I didn’t do anything fancy schmancy on this one so it wasn’t needed.

Because I knew I wanted to print this out in an 8 by 10 size, I finished it up by going back to Basic Edits and cropping off the bottom:

Save the file to your computer, then open it in MS Word (or whatever program you’d like) to resize it and print it out.

I ended up printing mine at home and it came out beautifully. I used a ton of ink in the process I’m sure, but I really didn’t want to make a run to the printer today. ;)

I used the lyrics from the song My Life by Robin Thicke – I love that song and it’s used in the movie Dispicable Me (light. bulb.), which is one of our family favorites.

The lyrics are totally hokey but they say how I feel:

I wanted to print it out on some pretty cardstock but didn’t have any. So I cut a paper-size piece of the stuff I use for my fake photo mats and stuck it in the printer. It worked great!

I use these large pieces of poster cardstock all the time to do “mats” for my art and photos. I just laid the paper that came in the frame on the paper and cut around it to get the size I needed:

Then used double stick tape to stick the printable on the paper. I just eyeball it but you can measure if you really want. :)

I picked random fonts that I thought were fun – they  have no rhyme or reason to them. The whole thing makes me smile. :)

I LOVE how it turned out:

Aaaand it’s impossible to take a good photo of a glass surface. For real. If you look close you can see my not washed hair and glasses and pj’s still on. Scratch that -- don’t look close.

;)

It’s hanging in the office, which I will share this week. I will. Even if it kills me. :)

I just have to do a TON of spray painting and then it. is. done. GoodNESS.

I love that aqua color and how it ties in with the lovely lady lamps:

Fun, eh? You can SO do this, even if you have zero experience with graphics or computers or whatever. I pay to get a few extras with Picnik, but you can do all of this with their free options – they offer a ton of free images and fonts.

The link I shared above shares how to add images and shapes to your project too! It’s super easy to follow – check it out here!

If you’d like to use my printable, you are welcome to it! You should be able to click on this image to get the full size. Then you can save it to your own computer:

I looks like butt on my screen for some reason, but hopefully this will work! 

And yes, I know there is a grammatical error error (its) but that font wouldn’t accept an apostrophe for some reason. I choose to overlook it, but I know some of you may not be able to. ;)

It took me a total of about 30 minutes to create this one, but I could have been sucked in for hours if I had more time. I find this kind of stuff fun cause it’s cool to play around with different images and fonts.

Hopefully this will work for you and you can create your own! The possibilities are endless! Create your own holiday cards, invites, birthday stuff like cupcake toppers, fun stuff for holidays…I could go on and on!

So have you tried to DIY your own printable yet? I’m feeling pretty behind, but now that I know I can do this fun stuff with Picnik, the world is my oyster! I may even create my very own blog button!! WHOOO!

Absolutely FREE (and beautiful!) art

Well my goodness you lovelies – thank you so much for the sweet comments on our family room redo!! You all made my day. :) I SO appreciate each and every one!

I’m sitting here this evening with one of my very favorite people – my dear friend Traci from Beneath My Heart:

(Traci at our recent IKEA trip.)

Yep, she’s here. In my house. Staying the night.

I’m in heaven. LOVE her!

So does the Bub, by the way. And the dog. I think there will be a very sad little boy and dog when she leaves. :(

We’ve been working on a fun little project in the office and I’m loving it! I can’t wait to show you, but we’ve talked a little too much and didn’t get enough done today. Hopefully we can talk and work at the same time and get it finished up before she leaves. ;)

For now, I’m really excited to tell you more about the art in the family room! I needed to fill some of the walls in the space, but I got to that part of the redo after I decided to not spend a dime in July.

Well. Drats.

I was determined, and was forced to get a little creative – and I love how it turned out! The best part -- this art is 100 percent, absolutely free for everyone. WHOO!

I found the NYC Digital Gallery years ago, and just haven’t made the time to go through their prints till now. (The thrill of not spending any money made up for the time it took to find what I wanted!) The Gallery is such a great resource -- it provides free access to over 700,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's collections.

And it is AWESOME.

If you are using the art on their site for personal, educational, or research purposes, they are absolutely free. (They can be used for commercial purposes for a reproduction fee.) Basically, they are free “printables” you can use for art in your home.

Told you – awesomesauce!

I found a few I wanted to share and then I’ll show you what I ended up with!

There are seven categories of prints, like arts, buildings and geography. But I especially loved the Nature and Science artwork, and thought this horse print was especially striking:

Wouldn’t that be fabulous in a library or office?

This one was a cover of a NYC theater program in 1930:

Isn’t that gorgeous?

I think a series of these shoe prints would be adorable in a closet or bedroom:

Or even a little girl’s room – how fun!

And yes, you can make your closet a fun space – especially when it’s FREE to do so. ;)

I especially loved the maps – this one of Italy because someday I will go there:

And I loved the aged look and beautiful colors of this one:

Wouldn’t that be amazing blown up into a huge print?

Originally I had planned on using botanical prints in the family room, and there is an insane amount to pick from on this site!

So many beautiful options!:

You may notice I added some pops of blue throughout the family room space, and I wanted to pull some blue to the wall by the TV to balance it out.

When I found the Ocean Flowers collection, I was hooked:

They were set on the most beautiful blue background and I was completely smitten. I thought they were perfect – they were a little bit more laid back than the botanical prints, but also a bit sophisticated. And they were so interesting!

All I did was take the image, copy and paste it into a Word document and make it as large as possible. (I made the margins super small.)

I had large frames from our powder room art that I took down weeks ago:

That room is in limbo, waiting patiently for it’s new paint. Wait line bathroom…wait in line.

Years ago I had painted the poster board behind those old prints chocolate brown, so I just painted them again. Then I just printed out the art from the Word document, cut it out and taped it to the middle of the poster board:

I doubt I’ll ever pay for mats to be cut again – this looks great every time! I wanted the poster board “mat” to be a flat, white paint, but all I have is glossy white – so I used a very light blue paint I used on the farmhouse desk in the office.

It looks really cool – turns out it’s the exact same tone of blue as the images:

I absolutely LOVE how they turned out!! And the best part – I didn’t spend a dime! I printed them on leftover cardstock, but you could just use regular paper (it looked just a good). And if you don’t have frames already, check out Goodwill and spray paint them the color you want. SO easy, so cheap!!

You just need a color printer, and if you don’t have one, ask around. :)

I love the “gallery” look of the prints:

It filled in that little spot perfectly! And it gave me that pop of blue I wanted on that side of the room:

The fact that these are free is fantastic – but I also love the variety. It’s all so original and different – no one else will have the exact same art. (Well, I guess some of you will, but you probably won’t know each other. So you’re good.)

Check out the collections at the Digital Gallery here. Give yourself some time to browse – you’ll be there awhile. ;)

Have you gotten creative and come up with free art? I’d love to hear what you did!

DIY memo board, take two

Hey all! This week is going by SO FAST! Can you believe the weekend is almost here?

If you’ve read this here blog for a while, you know I share the fails along with the good stuff. And sometimes there’s a project that’s not necessarily a fail --  it just doesn’t work the way I had hoped.

Case in point – the DIY memo board in my office:

I showed you how I made it back in January. After I finished, I hung it up, admired it, and then stuck my first pin in to hold up a reminder…and the hives started.

The pin put a huge hole in the beautiful fabric – the fabric that pretty much inspired the whole room. The fabric I LOVE that I do NOT want to have meeeellions of holes in.

Breathe Sarah.

:)

I tried different pins, and again with the hyperventilating.

The fabric I used on my old board worked fine:

I know that one looks a hot mess – it was on it’s last leg. :)

Anyway, that fabric was thinner, so it did fine with the push pins. The new fabric, notsomuch.

Because I really wanted to have a memo board I could actually use…I had to figure out a new way to go about this project.

It finally came to me, in the form of magnets.

And it only took three months (who’s counting?) but I finally got it done. Again.

I picked up a sheet of metal at Lowes that was the perfect size for what I needed. YES! No cutting necessary. Until I got it home and realized they put the wrong tag on it – and it was six inches too long.

I don’t have metal snippers of any kind, but I was determined to not go back to the hardware store again – so I tried our do-it-all scissors…and they worked!:

We LOVE these things – they cut through just about anything. Including metal. ;) Who would have thunk? (You can find them at Bed Bath and Beyond.)

I used plenty ‘o Liquid Nails on one side of the metal sheet:

And centered on my piece of foam:

I wrapped it with the fabric – again. And secured the fabric to the back of the board with hot glue. Again. :)

Then I used my nail gun to nail it onto the back of the frame:

If you attempt this, you could use either the foam board (for push pins) or the metal (for magnets) – you really don’t need both. I just used the foam because I had it, and it made it easy to attach it to the back of the frame.

When I was done, I realized the frame needed just a little somethin’:

And decided it was time to stress a little and do a little distressing:

I always sweat when I do that, even though it’s no big deal – if you sand off too much, you can just touch it up with paint.

But I do always stress. :)

I finished it up (again) by adding a coat of poly to protect it:

And now, it’s finally ready to do it’s job:

For reals this time!

I made some DIY magnets by taking some cute scrapbooking brads and little magnets:

I just took off the “brad” part (they twisted right off) and glued a magnet on the back:

So I finally have a spot to put all of my memos…you know, cause it’s a MEMO board.

Not a sit empty for three months cause you’re going to ruin it if you use it. :)

I still don’t know if it will stay in that spot – it’s convenient, but it depends on how much I put up there. (These were just random things I had nearby.) If it gets too cluttered I may move it across the room.

I’ll live with it for a while where it is and see how I use it. But now, at least I can USE it:

And not just admire. It’s function over form around these parts. :)

You may have noticed…no, I still haven’t painted the board and batten. Soon. I swear. I’m mentally preparing myself.

Let’s just focus on how far it’s come, umkay?:

Now…onto filling holes, caulking, priming, painting, filling holes, caulking…whimper.

Hold me.

:)

Photographs: My favorite art

Well hello all! Can you believe it’s almost the weekend already? I swear this week has absolutely flown by.

I got one project completed this week that I’m really, really happy with. (GLEE!!) And I did most of it with what I had, which is always a bonus in my book. :)

When it comes to filling wall space, we don’t have much real art in our home. OK, let me rephrase…we have ZERO real art. :)

An outlet Ballard Designs piece is the closest we get to actual art. Instead I’ve fill our walls with a bunch of molding and lots and LOTS of pictures. Bunches. Gaggles. :)

Photographs are my very favorite art. They’re cheap (most of the time I print them out at home and almost all frames are from Goodwill), they’re easy, and they add a personal touch to our home that no art could.

I’ve grouped framed pictures in almost every room in our house. The playroom:

See that squishy face? That’s my baby:

The cowboy is my Dad as a boy. I could die. :)

That wall of photos is getting a redo soon. I may move the shelves around and am definitely adding new photos throughout.

I filled an empty wall on our stairwell with photos as well:

Don’t worry…the mice are gone. As much as I HEART them. :)

And I used photos in a wall in our bedroom as well:

You can see they’re usually hung willy nilly. I like the scattered look when it comes to framed photos, which is REALLY weird for me, since I’m the symmetrical queen.

When I started the impromptu redo of the living room, I knew exactly how I wanted to fill the space between the windows. I took at look at the colorway on the fabric I picked for the drapes for some color inspiration:

I big fat LOVE when they do that! It makes it so easy to work with. You’ll notice there’s 16 different colors in this beautiful fabric, which gave me plenty of options to choose from.

And it turns out, I already had exactly what I needed. :) About eight months ago, I started collecting frames at Goodwill for an idea I had for the living room. I even spray painted them months ago – I bet it’s been about six months.

But when I tried my idea in the room, I didn’t care for it (more about that later!) and left it sitting for months. And wouldn’t you know it – the colors I had already painted the frames worked perfectly for my new idea:

I love using what I have. And I love it even more when the spray painting is already done. ;)

I started finishing off this spot with a Goodwill lamp – it was blinding me with it’s brassiness at the store, but I knew it could be a beauty:

Doesn’t it have the loveliest curves? Oh, she’s so darn pretty. :) I sprayed it with a primer and then a couple coats of Rustoleum’s Heirloom White. I had the shade, and added a ribbon from my stash around the bottom. I love how the color in the ribbon is an exact match to the light brown in the drapes.

That is what I’m talkin’ about! Totally by accident and it worked great. Whooeee!!

I kept the accessories in the HomeGoods tray simple. I didn’t want them to compete with the art:

The rattan ball was a couple bucks on clearance at Pottery Barn years ago. The books are those faux books, and I covered them with a linen fabric last year.

The art is my very favorite part! They’re all shots I took (with my point and shoot camera by the way) last year:

I used a few of the wildflower shots (from our neighborhood) and a leaf from a hike last fall. I was going for bright colors that worked with the drapes. LOVE.

I don’t even use mats most of the time – I just cut out white paper and use spray adhesive or double-sided tape to mount the photos right on top. You can’t even tell they’re not the real thing!

Like I mentioned, I usually print my photos out at home (and usually just on basic printer paper), but this time I splurged a little bit. I uploaded them to Walgreens.com and picked them up an hour later.

Uhh, hello?? How have I missed this fabulousness all these years? I knew about it, just never did it. And I’m now hooked. I think the five pictures were about $12.

The new art is the perfect finishing touch for that part of the room:

I’m so in love with it. I smile every time I walk in this space.

There’s still much I want to do – not sure that mirror is staying on the right (it’s a little small). You’ll see a peek of a Goodwill coffee table that’s waiting for a redo. And there’s pillows to make as well. (I am going to attempt to make a pillow with a zipper people.)  ;)

And if you look close enough, you’ll notice the drapes are different lengths, still aren’t hemmed (will they ever be? I don’t know, I don’t know!), and there’s a few holes in the wall I need to paint over.

I was able cover most of those with the frames though. YESSSS.

Because you know I’m a lovah of before and after pics, let’s check out the difference so far, shall we? The dark before:

And with new drapes and a little reworking, the now:

BOO.yah. LOVE it.

I know many of you are loving the fabric as much as I am – I got it from Calico Corners and it’s P. Kaufman fabric:

I’m trying to find it online and haven’t come up with anything yet. I’ll let you know if I find a link!

So, do you use photos as art in your home? I know one thing – if we ever sell our house, the realtor is going to have a heyday with us. Aren’t you supposed to depersonalize? We’ll have LOTS of empty walls! Or they’ll just have to deal.  :)

P.S. The lamp shade on the side table was a vintage find years ago. Isn’t is perfect?

P.P.S. The spray paints/colors I used on the frames were Rustoleum’s Heirloom White and Espresso and Valspar’s Everglade.

**Adding this to my friend Melissa’s party: