Part II: The Guest Room Needs Some Help!

Hello Everyone!

We are going to continue on with decorating the guest bedroom.  In my previous post I had solved the problem for one wall – the wall above the bed – but I had not solved the problem for the wall directly across from the bed.  And I had decided with a travel poster theme for the art so, whatever I did had to stay in that theme.  Again, I had a budget of $0.00 and, again, I went into my craft room to see what scraps and remnants that I could dig up from previous projects.

I'm in love with this travel poster.  Notice the seagull with the wine glass. I also think I want that suit.

 

What I found were the leftover “travel stickers” that I had printed years ago for a hat box project.  I had printed way more of those than I needed.  But the remaining ones were still neat looking and I thought that I might be able to find another hat box and decorate it the same way so I had kept them.  I still have not found a hat box within my budget, but I did still have the “stickers” and I thought that I would use them to come up with an idea for the second wall.  For those of you who do not have stickers already printed, you can buy them.  But you can also get them online for free, if you have access to a color printer.  I just went to Google, Images, and typed in Travel Stickers and a plethora of options came up.  Quite a few of them you do have to pay for, but there are complimentary ones out there, so just keep looking until you find them.

I had the stickers, now I had to figure out how I would use them.  I thought of doing a collage and plastering them all over a large piece of canvas that I had, but that looked too jumbled to me.  So I kept digging.  Eventually, I came up with some foam board that I was planning to use on a project - that ended up not working for that project- that I had stashed way for another day.  I had two un-opened packs of four so I had plenty to use.  I also found 6 small stretched canvases that were about the size of postcards.  It was then that inspiration struck!  I decided that I would make a vintage looking “suitcase” out of the foam board and I would use the canvas as “shadow boxes” for some of the small travel posters that I had printed along with the travel stickers.

How I made a “Vintage Suitcase” out of Foam Board and Scraps

I used these suitcase as my inspiration for my "suitcase".

 

First, I had to decide what I wanted my suitcase to look like, so I did some research online.  I decided that I wanted it to be cream with leather straps.  I had the body of the suitcase – that I was going to make out the foam board – but I had to come up with “leather” corners, straps and hinges.  I still had scraps left over from the wall paper that I had used for the previous project.  (The white wall paper that was embossed to look like a tin ceiling.) To see this project in its entirety go click:  http://frugalfemmecarole.blogspot.com/2016/07/part-i-guest-room-needs-some-help.html

I decide that, if I used the flat side, it would be nice and flexible like leather and I could paint it brown.  I thought about making the straps of the same material, but decided that, to look realistic, I needed something smaller.  So, I had some Christmas wrapping paper from last Christmas that was nice and thick that had foil reindeers on one side but looked like a brown paper back on the other.  I thought this would make perfect straps!  To make the metal grommets that would keep the leather attached to the suitcase I thought of buttons at first.  But then I thought, foam board, use thumb tacks!  And VOILA I now had everything that I needed to make a “vintage suitcase” wall art piece.

 

Materials

Foam board
Wall paper scraps
Wrapping Paper or Brown Paper Bag
20 plain thumb tacks
Cardboard
Brown Paint (I used acrylic in Burnt Umber)
Cream/Tan Paint (I used acrylic and did Metallic taupe)
Scissors
Ruler
Glue  (Spray glue is good but a glue stick or Elmer’s Glue would work)

Duct Tape

Twine

 

Instructions

1.       Glue two of the foam boards together and let dry.  (I used clothes pins on the corners to clamp them together, but you can also put them somewhere flat and put something heavy on them.

I had Elmer's Foam Board Multi-Pack in 14 in. x 11in.  But you can use any size that you would like.

2.  Once the glue is dry, paint the foam boards your primary color.  In my case, this was Metallic Taupe.  I did not have a large enough paintbrush to make the effect that I liked, so I actually applied the paint with a wadded up paper towel.  Let the paint dry enough to handle and paint the sides of the boards.
3.  While your paint is drying, you can make your “leather” corners, straps and hinges.  I made the corners first, but which ones you do first really does not matter.  As I have told you in another post, I do not like to measure things.  So, to make the leather corners, I took a corner of my wallpaper and laid it over the corner of my foam board and eyeballed how much of the corner I wanted to cover.  I then drew a straight line to make a triangle and, using my scissors cut one of my corners.  I then used this triangle as a template for my other three corners. Paint all the corners burnt umber.

 

I used the flat side of the wallpaper.  You can see the shadow of the pattern on the white in the background.

To make the “hinges” I decided to go for an oval shape rather than the slightly figure eight shape you see on some luggage.  To get this shape, I traced around the bottom of my Elmer’s Glue bottle onto another scrap of wallpaper. The bottle was the exact shape and size I wanted.  After tracing, cut them out.  I painted all of my wallpaper triangles and hinges with the burnt umber acrylic paint.

 

I'm lazy when it comes to things like this.  If I can trace, I will. This is a full sized bottle of glue, not a mini size.

 

 

This is what the "hinges looked like before I cut them out and painted them.

For the straps, I laid my “hinges” over my wrapping paper to determine how wide I wanted my straps to be.  Fortunately for me, because it was wrapping paper, the side that I wanted to use had straight lines going down the paper. 

 

Backside of my wrapping paper.

Front Side of wrapping paper.

 

I had trouble seeing the lines when I started cutting the paper, so I traced along the line that I wanted to cut along to make it easier to see.

 

So all I had to determine was how many lines thick I wanted it to be and then cut with my scissors in as straight a line as possible. (I actually have a scrapbooking cutter that does straight lines for you, but, I thought, more people would have scissors and so that is what I used.)  Once the strips are cut, paint them with the brown umber acrylic paint. 

 

My paper strap painted brown to look like a leather strap.

 

(Again, I know I am not giving measurements, but this was not a precise project.  You can make your straps and hinges as big or as little as you want depending on the size of your foam board.)
Allow the paint to dry until you can handle the cut pieces without having paint stick on to your hands.
4.  Once everything is dry, start piecing together your suitcase.  Glue each of the triangles to a corner of the foam board.  Push three thumb tacks into the bottom of the triangle, as If you are pushing in your grommets.  Try to push down so the “leather” kind of dents around the thumbtack.  This will make it look more like leather.  Also, don’t worry if your triangle wrinkles a little.  This also makes it look more real.  Do this step for all of the triangles.

Here you can see how the metallic taupe paint looks on the board.  At this stage, it still looks nothing like a suitcase.

5.  Paint the sides of the corners of the foam board by the corners so that it looks like the “leather” goes over the sides of the “suitcase”.  Let the paint dry enough that you can start handling the board again without getting paint all over yourself.
6.  Glue the back of the “leather” straps and place them on the “suitcase”.  Again, where the straps are placed depends all on the type of vintage suitcase you want to make.  I wanted one where the leather straps go down each side and buckle in the front, but you may have something different in mind.  Make sure the straps are long enough so that that then can go around to the back of the “suitcase”.  This makes the straps look as if they are going over the top of the “suitcase”.   Let the straps dry.  (Spray adhesive is good for this because there is almost no drying time.)

 

I spray glued the strip to hold it to the board. But on the back side of the board, I also used duct tape to secure it.  I did not worry about making the back of the project look pretty.

7.  Once the straps are dry figure out where you want your “hinges” to be.  Again, this is all up to you.  Just make certain that, if there are two straps, the hinges line up with one another.  Glue the hinges on to the case over the straps.

 

It was at this point I thought: "This might not work.  This is still looking a little cheesy and nothing like a vintage suitcase."

8.  Let the glue dry for a few minutes, until it gets tacky and then add a thumbtack on the side of each “hinge”, to the side of the straps.

 

What a difference thumbtacks make!  This looks more like a suitcase.

9.  You should now have something that looks like a vintage suitcase without the handle.  This is where the fun part starts and you can start putting on your vintage travel stickers.  This truly is the most creative part of the project, so it truly is up to what type of stickers you have and where you want them to be.   Glue the stickers on to the “suitcase”.

 

At this point, I am starting to finally like this project and feel that it may turn out alright.

 

                 10.  I looked to see I had any old cabinet handles that I was no longer using that looked
                 like suitcase handles.  I did not.  So I decided to draw the handle onto cardboard.  Any
                 type of card board will do.
                 If you don’t have cardboard, you can use one of the leftover foam boards in your pack
                 of four.  I wanted to save mine for later projects, so I went with cardboard.  Again, the
                 type of handle that is drawn is dependent on the type of suitcase you chose.  Once
                 the handle is drawn, cut around it with scissors and glue to the back of the “suitcase” on
                 the top of “suitcase”.  If you are worried that glue won’t hold, use duct tape.

I used cardboard from an old shoe box. 

 

This is the back of the "suitcase".  I used duct tape to secure anything that I felt my glue might not be powerful enough to hold together.

                 11.  To hang the piece, simply attach string and hang to the wall in your normal fashion.

I cut a piece of twine about six inches long and knotted both ends.  I then put duct tape right over the knots to hold the twine in place.

 
 The final project should look something like this:

You can kind of see it in the picture, but because I used the wallpaper and it was a three dimensional wall paper, it caused my "leather" bits to have depth and make my "suitcase" look more genuine.

The “shadow boxes” with the mini travel posters were much easier.  I just painted the canvas and waited for it to dry.  Then I sprayed some glue on the back of one of the mini posters and centered it onto the canvas.  Done!  Instant art.  You can use Mod-Podge over it if you want to make it last longer, but I thought I might be reusing the canvas so I decided not to seal it.  I will show you those pictures when I show you the final project.
 
Again, I am not going to show the room pictures until after I am done. I still have a few more things up my sleeve to get ready for my guest

Part I: The Guest Room Needs Some Help!

Hello Everyone!
I am so sorry that it has been so long since I have made a post, but life has most definitely gotten in the way.  I was all set to start blogging again in July, after finishing a month long commitment to the theatre where I work, when all the awfulness began to happen in Baton Rouge.  I do not want to get political on my blog, that is not what this blog is for, but I will say that it felt frivolous to post about living a luxury lifestyle on a budget when people around me were violently dying.  Plus, with all the unrest going on around me, literally a block from my house, I didn't FEEL like writing about anything.  But, after weeks of debating with myself, I have decided that people NEED to have something in their lives right now that isn't political and I am back up and ready to blog.

Make yourselves a martini and get ready to live inexpensively yet luxuriously again.

I think, for the rest of this month, I am going to focus on hospitality and the art of graciously hosting a guest.  I will be sharing decorating tips as well as little tricks of the trade that I have learned from working for hotels for over a decade of my life that will make a guest feel as if they are staying in the lap of luxury when visiting your home.

Welcome!

The inspiration for this post began with - I have a house guest coming and staying for the week-end and I realized that the guest room could use a little more attention.  I have clean linens and a private space for her, but the room is rather drab and has very little character.  With only 4 days and no money, literally, I felt the urge to spruce up the guest bedroom. So with NOTHING in the budget to decorate the guest room, I proceeded to dig around the house to see what I had that might be able to be transformed into something else and change my drab guest room to something more appealing.
The first thing I found were four picture frames that had originally held pictures that I had up in the guest room in the apartment we lived in before my husband and I bought our house.  (The one that we bought two years ago and are still renovating.) The pictures were nice, but they no longer matched the decorating feel that I wanted to have in the guest room.  (If you don't have frames, these were ones that I purchased at Michael's during their buy one get one, so all four frames cost me about $20.00)

These were the original pictures.  They are nice, but they have a more Asian feel than I wanted this time around in the guest room.

So, as I so often do when I need ideas and stuff, I started cleaning up my craft room.  (Which can very quickly turn into the junk room and becomes the receptacle for all the items we may use again.)  While going through my items of things that I have kept to use for a rainy day, I came across these calendars:

Yes, I admit it.  If I really like a calendar, I will keep it.  But I have used them for decoration more than once, so its not as Hoarders as it sounds.

   

 

 Eureka!  Travel pictures in a guest bedroom seemed pretty darn perfect to me.  Plus, I already had a hat box in the room that holds my vintage hats that I had painted black and then plastered with travel "stamps". 



I did this years ago as, in my mind, I thought that's what a vintage hat box would look like. Now I used it as part of the inspiration to decorate the guest room.

Ah hah!  Now we're getting somewhere.  We're starting to get a theme.
Still having a budget of $0.00, I had to come up with matting for my "art" - because the matting that was good for the original pictures was not going to work for my calendar pictures.  Again I looked around and found the solution. I had some wall paper that I had purchased forever ago that was embossed like a tin ceiling. I had used this to turn glass windows in an entertainment system into tin windows so that we could hide all the unattractive electronics in the cabinet.  After the project, I still had plenty left over. (I found this paper in Lowes many moons ago and it cost me about $5.00 then.) Perfect!  With a ruler and a pair of scissors I could turn this into the perfect "matting". 
I briefly toyed with the thought of painting the"matting" but I soon decided that simpler was better, not to mention faster.
Now having all of my supplies I started to get to work.
First, let me say, I do not like measuring things.  I am the queen of eyeballing - which is why my husband hangs almost everything in our house.  And this project was no different. A good craftsman would have measured everything and then laid them out perfectly.  I am a lazy craftsman and did it this way:
1.  Pull your pages that you wish to use out of the calendar.
2.  Cut around the pictures leaving about one inch around the area of the picture that you wish to have seen.  This inch will hold your art in place.  I will explain more later.
1.  Unroll the wall paper onto a large, flat, clear surface.  For me, this was the floor.
2.  Take the glass and backing out of the frame and line the backing onto the wall paper so that all of your edges are straight.  Using a pencil, trace around the backing.   Then cut along the lines you just drafted with a pair of scissors.  You should now having "matting" that will fit perfectly inside of your frame.
3. Put a piece of tissue paper over the art that you chose.  Using a ruler, trace along the lines of the picture that you want showing from your matte.  In my case, I wanted the poster itself and the outline around the poster.

4.  Cut out the tissue paper.  Place your "measured" tissue paper on the back side of your wall paper.  Line up the edges until everything looks good.  Then, using a ruler, trace around your tissue paper.

5.  Pick up the wall paper and bend it slightly in half.  Using a pair of scissors, snip the middle of the paper and cut in a diagonal until you reach the corner of the inside of your matte.  Continuing cutting the inside of your matte until you have created a "frame" for your art.

6.  Put a piece of tape, sticky side up, on the cut out calendar art.  Carefully place your matte frame over the calendar art and line up.  When everything is lined the way you want it, press down on the tape.  Continue doing this for all four sides.
7. Put your backing and matte into the frame.  Place the glass onto the frame and snap back into place.

I love the texture that I get from using the wall paper.  This is a close up of  the calendar page behind glass.

VOILA! Instant art.

I genuinely love the way that these turned out.  Eventually, I want to get, or create, all original art, but this will do until I have the time or the money to do that.

I am not going to show you how they look in the guest room right now. I am going to wait and do a whole reveal thing near the end of the week.
Tomorrow, we continue preparing for a guest......