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.

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.

What to Do When You're Bored

There's really no way around it-- having a husband in Dental School can leave you with a lot of spare time on your hands. Here's my super creative list of things you can do if you are feeling bored:

1) Exercise-- go for a walk, go for a bike ride, take a group fitness class, go swimming, pull up a workout video on youtube (or buy a fitness DVD) and follow along in your living room, look up equipment-free exercises on Pinterest and create your own workout routine. 

2) Get a job (or volunteer) somewhere-- you don't have to make it your career, but it's just something to get you out of the house and interacting with people (I think this one is more important if you are an extrovert. Me? I like having all my quiet alone time).

3) Explore the city where you live-- visit a zoo or museum or garden or sculpture park; I especially like to try out new places in my city using Groupon.com.

4) Go to Barnes and Noble and read a book or magazine.

5) Keep a journal or blog--about being the wife of a Dental Student, about crafts, about recipes you like, about cats wearing funny hats, whatever you want. Sometimes it can be so therapeutic to just put your thoughts down on a page. It's also amazing to look back at the things you've experienced.

It's a blog within a blog... Have you seen the movie Inception?

6) Go to SuperTarget-- I can seriously kill so much time at Super Target without buying a single thing. I just like looking at stuff!
 
7) Clean-- it may just be me, but I feel like there is always something in my home that could be cleaned whether it's laundry, the bathtub, the kitchen, the cat litterbox, the windows, etc. My favorite thing to do is pull up Pandora on my phone. start my Hillsong United station, and place my phone in a bowl to amplify the music while I clean. I have had some of the most wonderful times of worship while doing the dishes.

I found this trick on Pinterest. It really works at amplifying the sound!

8) Join a Bible study (or invite other women over to your house for one!)-- my friend and I have been doing the Esther Study by Beth Moore and it's been such a great time! We split the cost of downloading the videos for the weekly sessions and meet up once a week to watch them together. Then during the week there are 5 days of personal study at home that take maybe 20-30 minutes each day.

9) Hang out with other Dental School wives-- if they have kids, offer to babysit for them so they can have a break. Their husbands are just as busy as yours so they know what you're going through!

We are awesome Dental School wives

10) Go to Hobby Lobby-- not only is there a lot of fun stuff to look at, but they also offer craft classes. I am thinking about taking a Bob Ross painting class at Hobby Lobby. I'll let you know how it goes!

11) Write a letter-- to a grandparent, to an old friend you haven't seen in awhile, to your husband to tell him how much you appreciate him. Who doesn't like receiving letters?

12) De-clutter/Organize your home-- go through your clothes and pull out items to donate; go through your makeup (or lotion or hair products, etc) and toss anything you haven't used in the last couple months; Pinterest has tons of pins on how to organize your home on the cheap

13) Pinterest.com-- do I really need to explain this one? :)

14) Visit thrift stores and garage sales-- I haven't done this yet, but I think it would be fun. Especially if you were just looking at Pinterest and got a great idea but didn't want to spend a ton of money to accomplish it.

15) Try out a new recipe-- Robbie particularly appreciates when I make him gluten free baked goods as a surprise for when he comes home from school.

16) Wimp.com-- this is a site that picks 5 fun and interesting videos each day that are family friendly. Topics range from funny animals, to science, to funny pranks, to sports, etc.

Pinterest

Can I just say that I absolutely love Pinterest!? I have found innumerable good ideas on that site over the past year from recipes to crafts to decorating tips to just plain humorous pictures. I love organization and categorizing things so Pinterest and I were a match made in heaven.

I also have a love of internet memes (which are abundant on Pinterest). If you aren't sure what a meme is, google defines it as "An image, video, etc. that is passed electronically from one Internet user to another." It's usually an image that is instantly recognizable and people often put their own funny caption on it. Here are some examples:

1) Grumpy Cat

2) Condescending Willy Wonka

 
3) And of course... the Overworked Dental Student meme!

Here's a link to my dental humor board that I keep for Robbie. It has a lot of the Overworked Dental Student meme on there.