Wall Art to Make with Paint Chips

Make something unique on the cheap with paint chips! I have to wonder how many paint chips are walking away from home improvement stores these days to be used for crafty projects and not for paint sampling ? :)

Clockwise from top left:

Geometric Wall Art from Angelina La Dawn via Iamalongfortheride

My personal favorite paint chip art from the 3 Rs blog. Check out the other color schemes!

Circular paint chip art from the 3 Rs blog.

Letterpress Paint Chip art by Paper Stories found via Not Beige

Wall paper paint chips via Pageslap

DIY: Not So Boring Magnet Board

Ok, this is not rocket science, but it is a cheap an easy way to turn a run of the mill magnet board into a functional piece of art for as low as 16 bucks. Get yourself a metal magnet board (Ikea has them in several fun colors) and then find a vinyl sticker that speaks to you (Etsy has a TON of them) and voila! you have a magnet board that can hold lots of useful notes and look good while doing it!

Below are mock-ups of the two I made (stickers not necessarily to scale) for my home office using vinyl stickers from Byrdie Graphics ($3) and Vinyl Fruit ($17, but I could not resist the kleptomaniac sasquatch!).

Stacey Winter's Woodland Critters

I had the pleasure of meeting photographer, and fellow San Diegan, Stacey Winters at the Queen Bee Market back in May where I discovered and purchased some her wonderful photos. Stacey's shop is filled with colorful items brimming with whimsy and nostalgia including shots of vintage items collected by her mom. My favorites are definitely these tiny woodland critters in teacups. Can you help but smile when you look at the image above? Stop by Stacey's shop and online journal to say hi.

Featured Artist: Kristine Mays

I recently came across the wonderfully talented Northern California artist, Kristine Mays, while putting together a treasury on etsy. Kristin transforms plain old wire into 3 dimensional sculptures, but it is her ability to capture the life and movement of the human form which is truly amazing. Just look at the dress below (recently on display in San Francisco)! Wow!

Check out more of Kristine's work on her blog, artist website, and in her etsy shop.

Another Recent Etsy Purchase

I purchased this lovely little watercolor print from Karen Faulkner as a gift for someone recently. I, and the recipient, love the print! Another satisfied customer of hand-made!

Holiday Gift Guide: For the Art Lover

I LOVE the colors and combination of colors in this painting by etsy seller johnniebelinda. Painted with copper and rust oxide, it would make a unique addition to any room. Which is your favorite painting in johnniebelinda's shop?

Affordable Wall Art

Check out this nice little piece of art created by Leslie over at Color Me Pretty for Decor8. Leslie made hers with square cutouts of her own artwork, but you can easily create something similar with pieces of coordinating wrapping or scrapbook paper. I know I am feeling inspired!

Gerrit Greve Painting

I saw this painting at a local boutique here in San Diego probably well over a year ago and it really struck me. I liked it so much, I wrote a note to myself in my phone. Well it popped in my head yesterday when I was reminded it was the closing day of the horse races (a big San Diego event, held every summer at the world famous Del Mar Racetrack). Gerrit Greve did an amazing job of capturing movement in this painting title "Speed". Photo from Amazon.com

Affordable (Original) Art: U Gallery

U Gallery is a wonderful website that sells select works of art from very talented art students. The site is very user friendly and allows you to search by school, genre, medium, artist, size, price, and color. Great for selecting that perfect piece to coordinate with a room in your house! But the really great part? You can now afford to own high quality ORIGINAL art!

("Suburbia" by Allison Kennedy. Oil on Canvas. Image courtesy of U Gallery)

You can even try any piece of art you see in the gallery and return it within seven days with free return shipping. Love it!

Bicycles as Art

I fell in love with my new road bike the minute I saw it. It's a beatiful black and white machine. Of course I didn't buy it for it's looks, but it didn't hurt :)

The art form of the bike is making a big come back with recent fixie (fixed gear) popularity. With their single gear and lack of derailleurs, they really are simply beautiful. Free Standing Fixie, a photo group on flickr, has some artistic shots of these beautiful bikes.

Affordable Art: Framed Postcards

You can fill your walls with beautiful artwork even while tightening your budget. Framing postcards is one simple idea I've used for creating affordable art. Fortunately there's a plethora of great postcards out there (and I'm not talking about cheesy postcards at tourist traps). Many bookstores and art museums sell postcards with famous and not so famous works of art. We picked up these great Picasso postcards at a museum in Europe, but you can surely find artsy cards like this in The States:

And we picked up this one in our bathroom at a stationary store:

Isn't it cute? Both very affordable art prints that only cost a few bucks! (Some postcards, like the one above, are even printed on textured paper for a higher quality appearance). Then all you need is a frame and matte board (optional) which you can find just about anywhere these days.

Got another idea for affordable art? Please share it with me!

Cool Stuff: Art.com Framing Tool

When I bought my husband a map for his office from Art.com, I was pleasently surprised by their online framing tool. You can preview what the artwork looks like with each of their variety of frames. You can even add matte boards in different colors and sizes and view on various wall paint colors! How cool is that? Just click on the "custom frame it" button after you select your artwork. Now if it only had a way to upload it into a picture of our office, I would've realized it was way to big and over powering. Sorry hon, but it looks great over our couch! :)

Beautiful Bicycle Art

What a strange coincidence. Friday I was thinking about a bicycle painting I recently discovered while visiting a supplier for work. It was used for the 2005 RAAM (Race Across America) event poster. Then Friday night I saw a RAAM support vehicle while driving through Carlsbad. Turns out the race just started in Oceanide on Saturday! Weird. Anyway, I love this painting. (It's the one on the lower right). I guess it particulary struck me because I recently got into cycling myself and even completed my first century.

Other really great bicycle paintings can be found at bicyclepaintings.com. Artist Taliah Lempert does some wonderful work. I especially love her screen prints. I bought one for my brother for Christmas and am trying to think of a reason to justify buying one for myself :) She sells t-shirts and other fun bicycle stuff on etsy too!