I had a piece of wooden décor hanging in my laundry room for many years before the humidity caused the paper to start peeling.  I took it off the wall, intending to throw it away, when I realized it looked very similar to artwork and projects that I have been seeing which are made from pallets.  So, I did a little crafty recycling and created this fun wall hanging.

First, I removed the peeling paper.  It didn’t all want to come off easily and I was in a hurry to get to the fun part of my project, so I decided a little extra texture from the remaining pieces of paper would be fine!  This is how I put the rest of the project together:

Step 1:  I used two colors of acrylic paint – white and turquoise blue.  First I painted the entire board with my white paint, using a large paint brush and making sure to leave lots of vertical brush marks.  After this first coat of paint dried, I applied a coat of turquoise blue to the top half of my board.  I made sure to apply this second coat sparingly enough so that the first coat of white showed through.   Again, I left brush marks, this time in a more random pattern going diagonally across the board.  I am not a painter, but the brush marks in random patterns conveyed a sense of movement to me.  When I was finished, my board looked like this:

Step 2:  Once my paint was completely dry, I used a pencil to lightly sketch my design directly onto the painted surface.  If you make a mistake or change your mind (as I did), the pencil marks can easily be covered up with a tiny bit of paint.  I do not draw well at all, so my sketch was very basic.

Step 3: Once my sketch was complete, the next thing to do was to fill in the sketched areas with my Pretty Little Studio papers.  I started with my sun that I had first outlined.  I didn’t have a piece of yellow paper large enough to cover the entire body of the sun (I only had odd shaped scraps left over from previous projects), but by tearing what I had into several pieces, I was able to fill in the entire area giving my sun a mosaic-like effect.  At this point, my board looked like this:

Step 4:  I used a 3D Silhouette balloon found here:  http://www.silhouetteonlinestore.com/?page=view-shape&id=37445.  However, you can make your own 3D object by using any diecut that has the same shape on both sides.   You simply make three cuts of your object and fold each cut in half.  Place them in a row so that they look like this:

Glue the back right half of Diecut A to the back left half of Diecut B so that the folds and edges are lined up.  Then glue the back left half of Diecut C to the back right half of Diecut B, again so that the folds and edges are lined up.

I made a second balloon that was slightly smaller so that it would look further away.  I sewed the edges of my balloons and left enough excess thread on my first balloon to create the long “tail” of my streamer, which I glued my flag and garland pieces to.

Step 5:  Once you have filled in all of your outlined shapes with your papers, it’s time to decorate.  I added fabric trim, brads, and buttons; and I fussy cut clouds and arrows from my Pretty Little Studio papers.

Step 6: The last thing I did was to coat everything with Mod Podge.  This hardens and seals everything, making it more durable.

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