Thursday, May 28, 2009

Using Ballard Designs as inspiration (part deux)

Here I go again! I tell you what, if you really look through the Ballard Designs catalog, you can find so many items you can make on your own, for a fraction of the price!
I saw this one months ago, and I've had everything for a loooong time to make it on my own. I mean, a LONG time. I kept hesitating because of my new found fear of mod podge.

I'm sceered.

It bubbles up EVERY time I use it. It is driving me batty. I bought a fun new tool to keep it from happening with this project, but in the end, I decided to just go with my trusty spray adhesive and it worked great!

This project is SOOOO easy and will take you about an hour to do. You'll need 12x12 paper -- I got this large book on sale awhile back for $9. But this would be even cheaper if you just bought the paper in singles:
I had a ten foot MDF board cut down into one foot pieces at Lowe's:
And used a brown spray paint to spray the sides and the edges:
Then spray adhesived (my made up word) the crap outta them -- the back of the paper and the front of the board. I let them both set up for about a minute, then just placed the paper on each board:
I decided to do the nine squares like Ballard:
I nailed them right into the wall, instead of putting brackets on the back:
I love it! I bought trim to do the edges like Ballard, but now I don't know if they need it...what do you think?:

I don't know I don't know! Help! I've seen this done all over blogland, and I think most people use canvases. I was being cheap -- I think all the wood for this was less than $10. Total with the wood, paper and spray paint, this cost less than $25. The Ballard version is $200!

Many of you asked about the arch that used to be in this space (a couple posts back). It is uber-cool...I got it from Goodwill years ago for two bucks!!:
I was just reallllly tired of it in that spot, and needed something new. I was going to take it to Goodwill but I think I'm going to use it outside -- fun eh?

To see my other Ballard inspiration project, go here.

 
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