DIY Large Wall Art For Under $50

If you've been around TSF for any length of time you may know about "the wall" in my kitchen. No, it's not just any wall...it's "the wall". It's been giving me heartache since we bought the house. It's already had a couple transformations and the latest one was, by far, my favorite. Catch up on the transformations here.

I loved how the white wall brightens up the place, but it was a little plain for my tastes. I wanted a big piece of statement art on that wall since the rest of the kitchen is a bit blah...but I don't have the budget to pay a couple hundred dollars for something. PLUS, I wasn't really finding anything that I liked. I'm pretty picky about art. I don't like to just go to Target and pick up some stock art that everyone else and their mother has in their house. I like art/wall decor that has meaning or is unique to us. Anywho, I saw this pin on Pinterest and figured I could give it a whirl.

You can follow the original pin for the step-by-step instructions. I'll just post a few pictures and give you my opinion on how easy the project was.

I knew I wanted to use different colors so I browsed around on seedbed for some color palettes I liked and then went to Home Depot. I chose the turquoise, teal and dark blue from the Behr palettes and had them mix samples for me. They didn't have a metallic gold, so I went and got the Martha Stewart metallic craft paint at Michaels. At Home Depot I also got the 4' x 2' birch plywood that I painted on and some brushes. Everything together was less than $50.

The instructions say to tape off your design and then paint. Seems pretty easy. I will say the taping off part took way longer than I thought it would. For a perfectionist like me, it bothered me that the design wasn't completely symmetrical. But then, I realized the original inspo wasn't either. Eventually I just got over it and tried to make it something I liked.

I wanted it to be a feather/leaf abstract design like the original so I patterned it after that. Again, this came out looking more leafy than feathery...but it's okay. After I taped off the main outline, I started sectioning off the interior part of the leafeather. (leaf-feather)

Then I plotted my colors out. I had 4 colors to work with (dark blue, gold, teal and turquoise) so I wrote a small b, g, t, and u where I would put the respective colors. Think of it like and adult paint by numbers. :) 

Then, get to painting! This is after 1 coat. I ended up doing two coats of the blue/teal/turquoise and 3 coats of the gold. Since the gold was craft paint and not interior paint I did an extra layer to make it as concentrated as the others. After I finished painting I had to wait an hour. The tape says to remove it immediately while the paint is still wet but that made me very nervous so M set a timer for me to wait until it dried. I waited an hour. THIS WAS THE HARDEST PART!

This is after the paint dried and I removed the tape. I like that it's imperfect and weird and a little unusual...like me. :)

After we had a final product we were both flummoxed as to how to hang it. The original pin said to use Command strips (which is part of the reason I went for this art idea is because I didn't want to put nails in the walls). Except Command strips don't work on unpainted/bare wood. Hmmmm....

So after some Googling and planning, M and I bough some plastic trim from the door/trim area at Lowe's and some Gorilla Glue. M cut the trim to fit about the size of the Command strips we also bought. (heavy duty that can hold up to 16lbs) We glued the flat trim to the back of the plywood and let it sit overnight. The next morning we put on the Command strips and hung it! 

Yes, I know it's not centered on the trim work but I don't really care. I love that it brings some visual interest to this otherwise bland area. And all for less than $50!