➷ Restoration Hardware Decoupage Map ▫Knock Off▫ ➹

 You guys know I'm a fan of Restoration Hardware's Map Art- remember these knock offs from a few months ago ?

Well, I was brainstorming a way to get bigger version of this MAP art- but also trying to figure a way to keep costs low. I figured I could use the same tutorial- {which explains on how to blow up a jpeg image of a map and keep the high resolution.}

But also- I could print off INDIVIDUAL color pages and pay per page rather then paying 60+ bucks for one giant color print off.

 

Which reminded me of this super-sized map art, Decoupage Paris Map, at Restoration Hardware.

They sell a decoupaged reproduction map of Paris for a couple thousand bucks! Crazy!

 Well- if they can mod podge- then so can I.

Here's what you need to recreate the look.

 1] Get your Image: Use this tutorial to get your jpeg images of your map- or whatever else you're blowing up

2] Print'em off: I prefer to print mine off with a laser printer when I'm going to decoupage them. So off to Staples I went. I had them do a couple test sizes- trying to determine how large I could get my map before it got too pixelated- and finally settled on the largest image I could get. 

But you could also go in with specific measurement in mind and that would be easy too.

3] Cut Wood or Canvas: Once I knew how large I could get my map, I had a piece of mdf cut to size.

4]Get you Images Ready: Use a paper cutter to cut off all the excess white boarders on each page

5] Deoupage: Use Mod Podge to decoupage each piece of your map puzzle together. I started in the top corner and worked one at a time. 

Brush mod podge onto your surface, then onto the back of the paper and adhere. Burnish the front of the map- making sure to work out any bubbles.

6] Edges: Either: Wrap the Map around the edges and Mod Podge them down, see where my white arrows are in the above image? That was my overhang.

 or- If your map is too small to do that, you can paint the edges a matching color.

 7] Seal you Map: Use a final coat of Mod Podge to cover the front and seal the work together.

My map ended up being about 3 1/2 feet by 4 1/2 feet- perfect for over the guest bed. Like I mentioned- I wanted it as big as I could get it- without having losing detail via pixelation.

 The placement had me thinking of these pics I had pinned on Pinterest. 

I believe all of these, mine included, are maps of Paris.

The Cost: 

Color Copies: $12

Mdf: $10 {I purchased a small piece to save money}

Hanging Hardware: $6

I already had: Brush, Mod Podge, Paper Cutter, Paint

 RH sells theirs for $1,700 to $2,450. Super rad savings, right?

 

But I did go out and buy a special cleat that allows me to hang heavy art on the wall. I don't need this thing falling on my Grandma when she comes for a visit! ;-) I also used the same type of cleat to hang my headboard in this post- in case you'd like to see what it looks like and how it works. Oh yeah- it cost 10 bucks but you can buy it at Hobby Lobby with a coupon and save 40%.

For any of my more nosey readers- I've mentioned a million times how this room has to "do it all" as a sparebedroom/craft room/ office/storage room. Here you can see how close the desk is. Just keeping it real, folks!

-xoxo-

Looking for places to link up your projects? Check out my Party page.

I'm also linked up here.

✥ Easy Restoration Hardware Subway Sign "95th" Knock Off ✥

Life has been kinda busy- you know, with having to read the whole Hunger Games series on top of real life commitments! So this week will be an easy peasy little project! Good news is- it will be easy peasy for you guys too, if you plan to make your own!!

Back when Z had a real office, ahem- before the living in the condo-ness- I had a bunch of black frames up in there. Since then, they've lived in a box in storage. When I saw this subway art on the Restoration Hardware site I knew my frame was a dead ringer for theirs! Perfect! 

Well, almost perfect, see theirs is ginormous. Like 8 feet tall or something. So, I guess mine is the "mini-me" version of their awesomeness! 

Buuut, mine was almost free since I had the frame on-hand. Even new it was less than 10 bucks at Walmart {of all places} The subway art print cost me 10 cents {seriously, 10 cents!} to print up at Staples. Just tell'em you want an engineering print. They can print just about any size you'd like! 

HOW TO: I used the background for my one of my other knock offs, for Z Gallerie subway art. In that post you can see how, using Microsoft Publisher, I make the background look like it has some dimension. Then you pick a few fonts and add the names. E. Z.

I made mine an homage to Boston. I grew up in the suburbs there, and I'll always love that area! This one took almost no time at all- super doable project. By using a little creativity with Word you could make an exact duplicate- if you wanted to!

What do you guys think? Not too shabby for a 10 minute project, no? Beside, I hadn't made myself any "art" in awhile- and it felt good to get back in the saddle. Thanks for reading!

Looking for places to link up your projects? Check out my Party page.

I'm also linked up here.

3 Chalkboard Projects {DIY Chalkboard Paint Recipe, too}

Holy chalkboards, Batman! These are all projects I did in a mad rush to get my guest room and bathroom ready for my super rad Grandma to visit. Cause, heaven forbid, she sleep in my hoarders paradise I mean project storage room/slash spare bedroom without a major overhaul! ;-)

Chalkboards aren't anything new in blog world- so I bundled a few of them in this post. They're all chalkboard projects, but they're all different!

First up- I had this a wood frame, but no backing. I thought it would make a great chalkboard for my bathroom. Cause every great bathroom design includes a chalkboard!? lol   I cut a piece of hardboard/masonite to fit the back of the frame and used E600 glue to affix it to the back. 

I wanted a place to keep the chalk so I cut the hardboard the size of the whole frame- NOT the frame's inset opening where the picture would go. That way there's a little ledge to keep chalk! See {^}?    

I wanted a chalkboard paint that matched the gray on the room, so I made my own. I used the same flat paint base color {Blind Date by Allen + Roth for Valspar} that I used on my DIY chalk paint headboard. I looked up recipes for chalkboard paint- and they all looked super easy...

But I already had Plaster of Paris from the headboard, and I didn't have unsanded tile grout- which the recipe called for. Soooo, I winged it and MADE MY OWN RECIPE!

But it turned out great, like, it's a chalkboard- so here's my recipe! 

You need 1 cup flat latex paint, 2 tbsp Plaster of Paris- and a few drops of water- only if paint is too thick. I painted several thin coats, maybe 5-6 of them. It only took about 10 minutes to dry in between coats, if that.

Next one- I got this frame many moons ago at the same yard sale that I got the headboard and the materials for my framed faux grain sack bulletin board and the painting I used for my over-the-couch ombre art and a bunch of other crap amazing finds! The frame was ridiculously bad! It had a cheetah print, with a cheetah print mat and the FRAME had little cheetah holes in it! Like holes all over the frame! I got it for free so I figured they might be fill-able and brought it home. In the end, and I do mean in the end cause I tried to painstakingly fill them with wall Spackle first, the electric sander, thankfully, took care of it.

I used DIY chalk paint to paint the frame- then waxed the heck out of it with Johnson's furniture wax. Remember you need ventilation with that stuff cause it smells fierce!

There was still a bit of texture left over from the cheetah spots- but I think it just looks vintagey-old, so whatevs at this point. I never want to see cheetah spots again. Ever.

 

I used the chalkboard spray paint for this one. I did several light coats of spray paint, building slowly- probably 5-6 total. I sprayed right on top of the glass. I love how you can do that cause otherwise it would have been cost me 15 bucks to have a large piece of masonite cut down to size. The glass also provides a perfectly smooth surface.

Lastly-I  had these {^} two frames hanging in the guest bathroom before I did my little makeover.  

The frames had gold speckles on them {I know what you're thinking, but I promise they were in style when I bought them!} and the mats were tan and beige.

This last project was sort of a throw away. Meaning, if it didn't work I would have thrown it away! ;-)
When all this chalkboard painting madness was happening I threw the frames AND the MATS in the pile and painted them too. 

{PS. Pics in these frames are by my super, duper talented friend, Emilie Johnson- check her out!}

Surprisingly, the mats weren't ruined! Crazy, right? I had to do SUPER light coats of spray paint to make sure the paint couldn't puddle on the porous paper. I think it adds a little bit of punch to an otherwise very calm guest space. So now you {and I} know, you can paint outdated or not your style picture mats! Yay!

These were my first chalkboard paint projects ever. I pretty much dove in head first!! I loved the DIY version- it's pretty fantastic to be able to make your own chalkboard paint in any color.
Have you guys tried it already? Do you have any tips for me?


Looking for places to link up your projects? Check out my Party page.

I'm also linked up here.

✥ RH Oversized Map Art Knock Off [tutorial}✥

He-llo friends! I have another knock off for you guys today. Are you sick of them yet? I mean, you can tell me if you are...I really tried to have a different type of project ready for this week but the darn materials {I'm being sneaky and not telling you what materials} took sooo long to dry. I mean, grr! 

So instead I hope you guys will be head over heels for my new maps- cuz I know I am!

 On one of my most favorite blogs ever, The Painted Hive, Kristine made a super amazing map and used it as her headboard. I totally love her map and her use of it AND she added an excellent tutorial if you want to make your own over size map!! It's pretty sweet, right?

 I have 16"x20" frames flanking our sliding glass windows that have been crying out for some real art and I have been dying over Restoration Hardware's map art for ages!! So, I knew the second I saw Kristine's post that I would be making my own version of the art ASAP.

There are tons on Restoration Hardware's site to chose from for inspiration. Here's couple I used to help me look. I love the vintage feel of this "old" Paris map.The Graphics Fairy actually has an old vintage Paris map {it's linked up below too.}

I used this LA map as for inspiration for the maps I chose. I wanted maps with subtle colors but that wouldn't demand a lot of attention.

I scoured the Internet for ages, seriously- for days and days, trying to find the best map options out there. If you're looking for maps you want to search for public domain maps, open source maps or public library maps.  I collected quite the collection of awesomeness here in case you want to make your own!!

In Kristin's tutorial she says to find a zoomable map- but then again she was making an image 47"x23"! I only needed a 16x 20, remember? I still followed her tutorial- just to be certain I didn't have any mishaps, but I think I could've gotten away with printing some of them.

. 

It's not hard at all to make these {you know, after you spend days looking for just the right ones!} To make oversized art, especially if it's huge like Kristine's, you want a "zoomable map."

1]  Just zoom into your map and take screen shots for each little section allowing for overlap until you've copied the entire map. 

2] Then use Word to overlap all the images into one complete pic.

Since I was copying Restoration Hardware's map art, I also changed the names for some of the maps I found so the towns would match up with the RH pieces. 

3] In order to match the color of the different RH maps I converted my files from Word to jpeg. Then I was able to upload them into photo editing software {now I use Pixlr instead of Picnik.} I could then change the colors of the maps to better mimic the inspiration pieces.

4] Once the images are jpegs you can also change the dimensions of the pic so it will fit the frame you have.

5] I went to Staples and printed out my maps in color. It turned out to be a little less than 10 bucks each and the quality of the each copy was near that of a photograph!.

Although I usually do things a little thriftier than $10 each I was still pretty pleased with the price. Any prints I could have purchased would have been more than $10- and they wouldn't have been exactly what I was looking for. That is unless I bought it from restoration Hardware and then it would have gotten exactly what I wanted but also would have paid around $1400 a piece!!!

That makes a savings of nearly $5600- yup, that's my best saving for a knock off yet!!

Here's a shot of the before:

And how it looks now. I tried to get a pic at the same angle, but thought I'd avoid the glare on my frames this time.

Don't forget to check out the other maps I'm crushin on right now. I've included several favorites for you guys! Some of them are linked to sites that have tons of options- like the NY public library's selection. I can't guarantee that each map I chose is big enough to blow up- but included the ones I loved anyhow!

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What have you guys been making with maps? I can think of a ton of ways to use the maps I linked up- what about you guys?

Looking for places to link up your projects? Check out my Party page.

I'm also linked up here.