Herringbone Painting

I have a deep, dark secret to share. I love chevron pattern. Chevron is that zigzag pattern that is literally EVERYWHERE right now. Clothes. Wallpaper. People's fingernails. Rugs. Bedding. Lamps. Furniture. It's out of control, people. This bugs me so bad because I hate it when something I like becomes crazy popular because then people think I just like it because it's trendy. 

"I swear I liked it before it was cool." -Every Hipster, Ever.

You thought I was kidding about the fingernails.

You can imagine my delight, then, when I discovered Herringbone. It's like chevron's awesome cousin who is ten times cooler because it's not all caught up in the high school popularity contest. There even seems to be quite a bit of confusion online where people call something herringbone when it is actually just chevron. That's just how cool herringbone is. Chevron wishes it was herringbone.

Chevron on the left, herringbone on the right. Chevron=zigzag, herringbone=interlocking

The point of all this is that I had been looking all over the place for a painting to go on our mantel but wasn't having much luck. I just couldn't find something that was big enough for a decent price that also had the colors I wanted. I started scouring Pinterest to see if there were any easy DIY artwork ideas I could use and stumbled upon this one. Here is my finished work:

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

• 1 canvas: Mine was 30x40. I got it from Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon so it cost $26. You could obviously go smaller or larger depending on where you want to put your painting.
• Painters tape in desired width: I used 2 inch wide, light adhesion painters tape and it ended up coming off in places. I recommend getting medium-adhesion so you don't run into the same problem.
• Acrylic paints for base colors: This is the fun part--pick whatever colors you want! I used 6 colors in total, plus 2 bottles of gold acrylic for the herringbone.

  

  DecoArt Metallics Splendid Gold, Sea Breeze, Midnite Blue, Coral Blush, Indian Turquoise, Peony Pink, and Desert Turquoise

• 1 can of spray paint for herringbone pattern: This is my hindsight advice. I wish I had chosen to just get a can of gold spray paint instead of painstakingly putting on coat after coat for the herringbone pattern with acrylic paint. If you don't have an area you could spray paint, then use the acrylic paint.
• Paint brushes: Don't go crazy here. Just use whatever paintbrushes you have on hand. If you are using acrylic for the herringbone pattern, I do recommend using a sponge brush.

STEPS:

1. Begin painting your colors onto your canvas. This can be as random as you like. I chose to use up and down streaks but you could do swirls or whatever you want. Every once in awhile I would step back to see if any one color needed a little more representation on the canvas. If you are using contrasting colors (like orange and blue or red and green) make sure to give them some time to dry in between so they don't blend into a brown. The nice thing about acrylics is that they dry really quickly so if you don't like what you did in one spot, just let it dry and paint right over it.

   

   Part way through painting

2. Once you are done painting, give it at least an hour to just sit and really dry. In the meantime, start cutting your painters tape into strips. I made all of mine 5.5 inches long. They don't have to be perfect, but they do need to be pretty darn close to all the same length, otherwise your herringbone pattern will look sloppy.
3. Once your painting is completely dry, you can start placing your tape on the canvas. I started at one corner and placed the first strip as close to a 45 degree angle as I could get just by eyeballing it.

   

   Here's a drawing on paper to help you visualize it since I didn't take a photo after each piece of tape.

4. Place your second strip perpendicular to the first so that the side edge is in line with the end of the first. I left about 1/4 of an inch gap in between the pieces of tape because I wanted a nice bold herringbone pattern. You can place them really close together if you want it to be more subtle.
   
5. Place your third strip next to your second and line the end up with the edge of the first. Continue following this pattern all the way across.
   
   
6. Continue your herringbone pattern until your canvas is completely covered. I had to stop several times to cut more strips of tape. When you get to the edge of the canvas just take your tape right over the edge.
   
   
   
   
   
   
7.  Once your tape is all in place, start filling in the gaps with your selected herringbone paint color. If you are using acrylic, I recommend at least 3 coats with 10 minutes to dry in between coats. If you are spray painting, I recommend at least 2 coats.
   
8. Once your herringbone paint is dry, begin to gently peel off the tape. Because I used a low-adhesion painters tape, some of it was already starting to peel back and I had several spots that I had to touch up with my base colors.

Highlights from Year 2, Semester 3

I'm really enjoying my new built-in desk and decided to take advantage of this lovely Sunday evening by writing another catch-up post. Here are the highlights from summer semester of year 2 of Dental School.

1) CLOSING ON OUR HOUSE
After months of house hunting and paperwork, we finally closed on our first home in early June. Over the summer, we've worked on little projects here and there, slowly getting it decorated how we want it. There's still plenty of work to be done!

Move In day

Hanging some curtain rods. I love power tools.

Riesy loves her perch above the staircase

These are pull out drawers that have a base you screw into the cabinet. We found them at Wal-Mart and they made the narrow pantry so much more functional!

2) BEING AN AUNTIE
All three of my older sisters are now mommies which makes me super-Auntie. I can't get enough of those squishy little faces and every time we go up to visit Fort Collins, I'm shocked at how fast my niece and nephews are growing.

Went to the park with Ariane and Deborah

The niece and nephews with Altair and my mom

Holding my two squishy nephews

Grabbing breakfast with Deborah and Henry

3) COMIC CON
If you didn't already know Robbie and I were huge nerds, this will probably convince you. I had been to Star Cons as a kid (yup, I admit it publicly) but never a Comic Con. As this year marked the 75th anniversary of Batman, we decided we just had to go! My sister, Deborah, came with us along with my adorable nephew, Henry. Deborah dressed as Ripley from the Alien movies and made a sweet costume for Henry to match. Robbie and I ended up running out of time to make costumes so we decided to just sport some nerdy shirts and enjoy observing everyone else. We even almost got run over by Adam West in a golf cart! True story.

The cutest Xenomorph I've ever seen!

Robbie hanging out by the Batmobile

Me hanging out with Zangief from Mortal Kombat

A life-size functioning R2D2

I don't know which is better... the awesomeness of the Star Wars set or the fact that we got photobombed by Deadpool

4) NITROUS CLINIC
Robbie's class got to be in my clinic when they had their lab for administering nitrous oxide (aka. laughing gas). Everyone was laughing and saying silly things. It was probably my favorite day at work ever. Here's Robbie enjoying his turn:

5) CRAWDAD FISHING
Robbie's sister, her husband, and their two boys recently moved out of state. As part of their going away party, we had an epic water balloon fight followed by some crawdad fishing in the creek. I had never been crawdad fishing before, but it was ridiculously easy. All you do is tie a piece of hot dog to a string then throw the hot dog in the water and wait for the crawdads to bite. It doesn't take long before you feel a little tug on your string so someone gets ready with a bucket and you gently tug the hot dog upwards. The crawdad doesn't want to let go of it's prized hot dog so it lifts right out of the water with the hot dog! After playing a bit with the crawdads, we released them back in the creek.

6) ROBBIE SEEING PATIENTS
This by far is the most mind-blowing highlight of Year 2, Semester 3. Robbie has been doing fillings on real live patients! This part of school felt so far away when we first began the whole process but it has arrived in the blink of an eye. It's unfortunate that I don't have a picture to share (for the obvious reason of patient privacy rights) but he has already done 6 fillings and a crown! Hygienists can clean teeth and even Dental Assistants can place fillings, but only Dentists are allowed to drill teeth. He's officially Dentisting and I couldn't be more proud of all the hard work he put in to get here.

Guest Room Remodel

As you may know, Robbie and I purchased our first home a few months ago and it was... a bit of a fixer-upper. Prior to moving in, we were able to request a few improvements be made to the home such as having all new carpet and windows installed (the carpet was filthy and smelled horrible and the original windows were single-pane); however, there were still many projects left for us to complete ourselves.

By far the room that needed the most help was the guest bedroom and was the first project zone for me to tackle. Here is a before picture to show you just how terrible it was:

I don't know which is worse... the shamrock green, the Pepto-Bismol pink or the horrendous paint splatters that covered everything including the closet doors and window sill.

STEP 1: New Paint
In choosing the paint color, I was trying to keep in mind that this room will eventually be used as a baby room and I don't want to have to repaint. I chose a cheery green paint called "Rejuvenate" by Behr for the main walls and inside the closet I used a blue-green paint called "Aspen Aura." Here's the painting in-progress:

The green looks way more bright in this picture than it is in person.

STEP 2: REMOVE CLOSET DOORS AND REPLACE
The closet doors were beyond help so we decided to remove them completely and hang curtains with a tension rod in front of the closet. (see picture for next step to see a picture of the curtains)

STEP 3: WALL ART
I got the idea off Pinterest to hang a group of framed scrapbook papers as a cheap wall art. I chose to do a blue, green, and orangy-pink grouping. I love how it turned out! The frames were $2 each at Wal-Mart and I probably spent $3 total on the scrapbook paper for a total of $21. Another bonus is that I can change out the paper if I ever get tired of it!

STEP 4: BUILT-IN DESK
I've hated not having a desktop computer to use for the last several months, but Robbie and I couldn't decide what kind of desk to get for the Guest Room/Office. The day we took down the closet doors, I was struck with the idea of using half the closet as a desk space. I started planning out how I could build it, gathered my supplies from Home Depot, and went to work.

You can just barely see the edge of the 2x4 I used to support the front left corner of the desk

We used three shelf brackets to give additional support to the middle of the desk.

The final product

Here's the BEFORE/AFTER of the room as a whole:

That's all I have time for today. My next post will be about updating the guest bathroom.