DIY’s are my jam. I get a kick out of doing something myself that I never thought I could do. I also have some projects that I know right off the bat that I could do and this was one of them. In my DIY world, I’ve had a lot of light bulb moments where I’ve taken nothing and made it into art, but I think this is my favorite one so far.

I was helping my friend with her renovation of a house she was going to flip. She’s a mortgage broker but occasionally buys property as an investment. She was in the thick of things with shipping delays, contractor mistakes and all of the usual mishaps in a renovation so she asked me to come help her do some small projects. We started off with cutting and installing baseboard trim then cutting and installing the ¼” trim. We ended up with all of these little off cuts on the floor and that’s when the lightbulb went off. I could do something with these!  Needless to say, she looked at me like I was crazy. 

I scooped these up in my bag and put them in my house, only to promptly forget about it. About a month later I found them in the corner of my closet and the lightbulb started blinking brighter and brighter. I put on my thinking cap, looked at a bunch of Pinterest photos and came up with a plan.

I bought a black poster board and marked out a rectangle, leaving a border that looked good. No science behind this, but I wanted to leave enough space to make the “design” pop. I then placed the pieces in the rectangle until I found a design that was pleasing. It took a while, but I finally landed on something that I liked. I took a picture of it in case I dropped the pieces or some other catastrophe happened and then glued the pieces down. Here is what it looked like at this point.

Originally I wanted the art piece to be stained wood with a black background, but since the pieces of wood were primed in white, I chose all black. I mixed black acrylic paint with some baking powder to give it a little texture. I painted the whole piece, including the poster board even though it was black already, because I wanted the texture everywhere. After 3 coats of paint, because it sucked it up pretty quickly, I set it aside and let it dry. This is what it looked like.

Now it was time for the frame. The only way to go for me was to make it myself so off I go to Pinterest and Youtube to find out how to do it. I bought 1×2, 6’ foot pieces of wood from Home Depot, 4 corner clamps and a hand miter saw. The hardest part was actually putting the miter saw together. I swear, somebody needs to start a business writing instruction manuals that actually instruct. I don’t know why they’re usually so bad. Whew!

I measured the wood pieces and then I cut them on the miter saw which was pretty easy to do. The key is to keep sawing and don’t stop or the teeth will get caught up in the wood. Trust me, it’s a problem if that happens. So after that I glued the pieces with E6000 which by the way did not work. I had to come back with some wood glue which worked a lot better. Not sure why I chose E6000 first, but that’s part of the trial and error with DIY.

After re-gluing the frame with wood glue, I let it dry and then took off the clamps. I sanded the frame down and wiped on a Golden Oak stain from Minwax with a rag. 

After that dried, it was time to place the art in the picture and voila. I think it came out just as it was in my head and I’m so pleased. I think I’m going to give it to my friend as a memento of us having many laughs working on her house. For now, I hung it up in my house so I could photograph it.

I’ve gotta say, this was difficult but I know the places I made the wrong choices so I think the next one will go much smoother. 

So, what do you think? Would you DIY a wood art piece? It’s so much fun and I think art, after paint, is the thing that makes a house look finished. Off I go to make another piece of art. I think I’m obsessed. Let me know in the comments if you’ve made any art.