Paper, paper, get your paper!

Paper is super cheap and there are endless things you can do with it.  These are pictures I hang in my sons room.  I took an old map and crumpled it up a couple of times and then took 2 canvases and modpodged the map(1 map cut into 2) onto the canvas.  Then I took some watered down acrylic paint and rubbed it over the map making it darker in some places than others.  I put one more final coat of modpodge on.  It has a really old look almost like leather.  It looks great in his travel theme room.

This is the kids bathroom.  This is kind of a funny angle, you are seeing the reflection in the mirror.  This is just tissue paper.  I used wallpaper paste to make it stay on and put a sealer coat over that.  I have had it in there for about 5 years and it has held up. I painted blue lines in the shape of a square as well. Below you can see where I got my inspiration. It sure wakes you up in the morn!  I'm actually ready for something a little more subdued.

You can find inspiration anywhere.  I was walking down the isle one day at Walmart and saw this bag and fell in love with it and immediately knew where I wanted to duplicate it.

This is a picture I made on the opposite wall, simple... made with scrapbook paper.

Another simple idea, cups I found for a dollar and covered with paper.  This gives me an opportunity to see the papers I love more often.

Nothing original here. I like to make cards with paper, but I had to show how I display them, and old shutter works perfectly!

I am making this for my church.  These are just wooden letters that I have modpodge with tissue.  Great idea for a kids room, you can do all kinds of things like this an old ginger jar lamp, letter's to their name, this method works on anything!!!

I got this at Marshall's, it's a tic tac toe board.  It suggest you put pictures in it but I wanted to use scrapbook papers, yet another opportunity to get to look at my favorite papers.  If you can't find one of these I think the same thing could be done with a big picture frame.  For the x & o's you could use buttons, or probably find wooden x & o's at the store. This sits on my coffee table, just adds a bit of whimsy to my room.

This is fruit I have had for a long time.  (Don't those nutty bars make you hungry?) I forgot to take a picture of what it looked like at first, just regular old fruit, nothing special. I wanted to make it look different so I thought I would crackle paint it, first I spray painted it with ORB and then put the crackle on and then off white acrylic.  I wasn't that excited about it and the sponge I used kinda fell apart as I was using it, so it really looked bad.  Luckily I was able to wash it off. As I was washing it, I dropped the apple and now it has a nice crack in it!  But no worries cover it up with paper!  I took a lunch sack and crumpled it up and tore pieces and started modpodging it all over the fruit, overlapping it and slathering  it with more modge podge.  I love the look of this, so cheap and now it looks like leather.  I wrote the french word for the piece of fruit on it and stuck it on top these cute little containers I got from the dollar store, wrapped a black and white checkered ribbon around it and wa~la there you have something for nothing!  Side note... I got this topiary at a garage sale last weekend for $2.00, so cheap, but fabulous!!!

Here is the final vignette.  I thought I was giving these away, but I might need to keep them for myself!

Up close and personal...

Come a little closer... actually I don't care for my handwriting but no worries when I go to my niece's house she has one of those new fancy machines that cuts out lettering so I'll just cover up what I have done and add her fancy letters! So find something in your house that needs a little papering, (besides the cat box)and show me what you come up with!

~toodles~ Laura