#Cricut – Country Design Home

Nov 1, 2019

The Art of the Nursery

As we continued to work on the nursery, my daughter and I looked at several black and white animal prints to use as artwork. She wanted something simple and graphic vs. “cutesy”, yet suitable for a nursery. A quick search online revealed these geometric, yet whimsical designs on Etsy. The company, Paint X Print designs all sorts of graphic prints for downloads-meaning they send you the file to print yourself-in whatever size and medium you choose. The mom-to-be chose three geometric designs in the shape of a pudgy bear,

a maple leaf

and a wolf– to complement our Black & White Woodland Theme.

Since the designs were sent to me in digital form, it was easy enough to copy them onto my Cricut Design Space to cut out. As you can see, the originals on the Etsy website were printed in black on a white background. We could have printed and framed them as is, but these natural wood slices (that were used a few years back for wedding shower décor blackboards and I hung on to for whatever reason…)

Life is Sweet Chalkboard were the perfect “woodsy” theme frame- and a perfect graphic backdrop when re-painted black.
I think I have mentioned in the past that my Cricut machine is so much fun!

Cricut Gold For the average DIY-er it is incredibly versatile-cutting anything from paper to poster board to vinyl-even thin layers of wood! whatever your imagination can dream up, it can cut. In this case, I used a white glossy vinyl, cutting each design to fit the wood slices, then transferring them to the wood. Look how intricate these cuts are-that would have taken me hours by hand! (No, actually, I never would have attempted this by hand…) The wood piece for the bear was an odd shape and didn’t seem complete until we had added an extra star from the moon and the stars decals (on hand from the wall mural).

Bear Graphic on Wood.JPG Once completed, I sealed them all with a satin poly coating.

Animal Graphics on Wood.jpg
They are now hanging on the wall over the rocking chair in the nursery. Another project down, a few more to go (hopefully) before baby Arbra makes his entrance into the world. I’ll be back with more DIY nursery projects shortly! xoxoxo Susan

Filed Under: D.I.M. Do It Myself Because If I Don't Who Will?, The Nana Nursery Diaries, Views From My Back Porch · Tagged: #blackandwhitebabydecor, #blackandwhitenursery, #countrydesignhome, #Cricut, #geometricbearprint, #geometricleafprint, #geometricwolfprint, #nurserydecor, #nurseryprints, #paintxprint, Etsy

Apr 26, 2017

We’ve Moved! (but not far…)

By countrydesignhome · 2 Comments

This past couple of months, Coach and I have been working really hard to create a new fresh look for our space in the Barn at Todd Farm. Well, actually, its my new space…but I didn’t move far- just across the aisle! Our friends and barn co-inhabitants from The Laughing Cottage moved down to the front entrance of the barn, leaving their space available. So, Coach and I decided that because of its size and orientation (it is wide rather than deep) it made sense for me to make the move to give us a lot more wall space to hang our artwork and decorative stuff. We moved into a blank slate, basically plywood walls and floors, and set out to create a warm and welcoming space with a slightly nautical theme. We painted the back chipwood wall, first with an undercoat of white,

and then I dry-brushed over it in shades of grays and blues. (woops, I forgot to take the after picture, but if you look real close behind the whales, you can see the finished wall).

The bookcase wall, which had been covered with rustic shutters, took on a mid-century modern look once I painted random squares with pops of color and stained the rest.

Then, we filled it with all sorts of curated items, hung a ladder and some fish net and patio lights for ambiance. So cute!

Then, the floor! Well, what was once a dusty, plain brown plywood

is now a striped and stenciled masterpiece that continually draws customers’ attention and comments-who just love it!

The painted floor stripes were simple to do-measured, then taped off, followed by painting alternating stripes of General Finishes Milk Paint in Coastal and Federal Blue. You can see in the photo below that I did create more of a paint-washed look rather than a solid color. I wanted it to look old and worn, not shiny and new, so I used a brush rather than a roller- an arduous task, but worthwhile in the end.

By the time I was finished with the stripes, they were already dry and ready for the stencils! I created a large pattern on my handy-dandy Cricut machine and cut it-so large, that I had to piece it together with tape!

Stenciling was done with a large sponge and some random acrylic paint I mixed together in a pale chartreuse.

Spacing was a bit tricky- I started in the middle in front of the beam (which I thought was centered, but not quite) and worked to the left and right. Along the way, I gave up the measuring tape and just eyeballed it to make sure I could fit it all in. As is sometimes the case (but not always), the stenciled design fit perfectly! So now my space is filled with pieces that I have refurbished and lots of cool junk that Coach has picked along the way. Actually, quite a few of these pieces sold on our flea market opening day this past Sunday- but there are plenty more where those came from!

If you haven’t been up in awhile, or have never been to The Barn at Todd Farm, come on up and visit us in our sweet new space.

(and Coach is now in my old space with the rusty bedspring light)- with a new name- American Vintage Goods

So stop on by and say Hi!! And have a wonderful (albeit WET) Wednesday! Susan xoxo

Filed Under: Auctions, Fleas & Fabulous Finds, D.I.M. Do It Myself Because If I Don't Who Will?, The 3 R's Recycle, Re-Furbish, Re-Love, The Barn at Todd Farm · Tagged: #Cricut, Barn at Todd Farm, country decor, country design home, flea market, flea market shop, General Finishes Paint, milk paint, Stenciled Floor

Mar 22, 2017

Hail to the Whale!

By countrydesignhome · 1 Comment

Coach and I, well, we just love whales. I am not certain how it all began, but I can say that one of our very first “all day” dates took place in lovely Mystic Connecticut. In Mystic Seaport, it is all things nautical, and I suspect perhaps that day spent touring the Charles W. Morgan (the last wooden whale ship in the world!)

the Seaport Museum and the Mystic Aquarium, all the while basking in the glow of young love, might have sparked the beginning of a life-long passion for those majestic denizens of the deep. So, I paint a lot of whales…on trunks and planks and tables, pretty much any flat surface.

After all, who can resist a gentle, giant creature with a hint of a smile-especially when decorated with the American flag? Recently, Coach came upon a stack of old cabinet doors (well, it might not have been recently, it’s just what has surfaced in the barn most recently.)

They were simply painted creamy white, or so we thought. Until he started to sand the edges and behold! This amazing teal blue emerged.

Sometimes you have in your mind what color scheme to use on a piece, sometimes the piece dictates the palette. In this case, there was cream and teal and a country red color…perfect for an American Flag Whale! I went with a black background for greater impact and contrast to the flag whale itself. For the flag colors, I mixed paints until I came up with the exact shades of teals and reds that matched the existing colors on the frame. I have, in my workshop, perhaps 50 or so of those little Behr sample paint pots

that you get at Home Depot for a couple of bucks…in a multitude of colors. These are my go-to samples when I am mixing paints-economical and plentiful…and if I mix a color I really love, I just use the color match app to have them mix whatever amount I need! Once I painted the background, it was a pretty simple process-I used a whale stencil

for the overall pattern in cream, then taped off the stripes, and added the red.

Now, I know there aren’t 13 stripes- he was just too narrow and it looked too tight, so I went with a more interpretive look.

After that, I added the star field using a stencil I cut out with my Cricut Air machine.

Do you have one of these?? If not, you need to hustle over to your favorite craft store and buy one, like now! If you do crafts, or scrapbooking, or make signs or stencils or just about anything where you need to apply graphics, this is your go-to machine. See this little square of stars?

By hand, that would have taken me hours to cut…and then a few more in the ER getting stitched up from the X-acto knife thumb slice… With the Cricut, it took maybe ten minutes to design and cut the stencil. Simply incredible!

Once the whale had dried, I added the matching stars in the four corners. Upon close inspection, you can see where I allowed the faint outline of the original hardware to remain.

I think it gives the piece character to leave the blemishes there for everyone to see. After that, it was simply a matter of a topcoat…and I went with my go-to favorite: Flat Out Flat by General Finishes. **As a side-note, when you paint on this topcoat, it initially appears milky white,

which kind of freaked me out the first time I tried it. But, once it dried to a clear, softly glowing finish, I was sold. So, the whale is now finished and ready for his new home.

This is the wall grouping that greets visitors at my back door, but alas, he’s not staying put.

He’s migrating north to the Barn at Todd Farm where he’ll have a whale of a time with some other pieces I have recently completed. Have a “whale-y”great Wednesday, everyone! Susan xoxo