Ever since I decorated our apartment, there’s been something that was nagging at me. It was in our bathroom where I’d created a small little gallery-style wall of blue-and-green-hued artwork. The thing that nagged me about it was that it was visually uneven; the left side was begging for something more. (Click here to see a "Before" picture from the apartment tour I featured when we first moved in.)
But I’m not one to jump into decorating distress and just throw any old thing up there. I’d prefer to take my time and find the right thing for the right place. I’ve found that kind of patience and intentionality makes me enjoy whatever I do select that much more.
It’s been about six months that we’ve been living in this little apartment of ours. And an idea finally came to me about how to properly fill this space. If I can, I love to make my own artwork (as evidenced by my travel map that’s in our bedroom and the framed robin’s egg nest that sits on the mantle in our current living room).
So it was only natural that for this project, I turned on my laptop, opened up my favorite photo editing program, and starting getting creative.
First up was typing up a favorite Bible verse. (When in doubt, I think Scripture always makes for beautiful artwork.) Our bathroom linens are a variety of blues, greens, and whites, which is just a result of my husband and I cobbling our collections together when we got married. I wanted to make this spectrum of colors seem more intentional, so I’ve been using blue-and-green artwork to ground the palette. I felt like it needed some more greens, so I filled the background of this piece with an olive green.
Then I got the idea to play with clip art. With an avian theme already evident in the existing artwork, I decided to play off that. I downloaded a free clip art picture of a bird’s feather, pulled it into my editing program and added a deeper green background, which I made ooze over some of the feather lines to give it more of a rough-around-the-edges look.
Pop them into frames that I already had on-hand, and there you have it. A collection complete!
Related Posts
My decorating dilemma: The search for the perfect artwork
Creating the Artwork for Our Living Room
Great idea! That's a wonderful way to make use of what you already have, instead of going and getting new things.
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I also had a mash-up of styles when we first got married.
I just began reading your blog a few days ago btw and I really enjoy your posts. It's nice to find someone around the blogoshpere that seems to be in the same place in their life as I am right now. I'm a Christian woman, married 4 years, no kids (just cats), my husband don't have much and live in a very small space...Your blog is a real encouragement.
Thank you =)
Thanks so much for the kind words, Jackie! I'm so glad to hear you've been enjoying my posts and that you can relate to so many of them! I think it's so important to show life as it really is, embrace the imperfections (whether it's in our home decorations or in our walk with Christ!) and be honest about them. That's what I'm trying to do here, and so your comment is very encouraging because of that!
ReplyDeleteLove the crafty ideas! I hope to be as creative when I have my own place :). Just wondering, what photo editing program do you use? Photoshop?
ReplyDeleteI love your artwork and especially the framed scripture - how creative! I am with Ames, what photo editing program do you use?
ReplyDeleteAmes and Stacee, thanks so much for the compliments! I actually do not use Photoshop; I use Corel Paint Shop Pro which is WAY more affordable. This is the version I have, which is only $15. There's a newer version I saw, but it doesn't have as good of reviews and I can't vouch for it. But every image I edit/use on my blog is done through Corel PSP. You certainly can do more with Photoshop, but its capabilities are sufficient for my uses!
ReplyDeleteLovely! I used PSP for a long time before I got Photoshop. It's a great program and I love what you do with it. :) I'm going to be working on redecorating my room in the next couple of months and I may just have to make some prints of my own for it. :)
ReplyDelete