Vintage Sea-Inspired DIY Wall Art

I know. The title of this post is kind of a mouthful. But that's the best way I can describe this project. And since the last project I blogged about was admittedly kinda lame (albeit functional), I promise this one will make up for it! Consider that your warning for a long post with lots of pictures ahead.  :)

This is one of those things I've had on my to-do list for several weeks now, but I finally had the time, motivation, and materials to get it done over Memorial Day weekend. One of the other reasons it took so long to get started was that I didn't exactly know how to bring my vision to life. I hadn't seen any specific examples of what I wanted to do. But I'm happy to say that it turned out beautifully in the end! And, I have to say right off the bat that the total cost was less than $5!!!

Let me rewind just a bit. It all started when I was thinking about how to decorate our hall bathroom. We have 10-foot ceilings and there was a large expanse of wall above our towel rack just crying out for attention. 

I'm really digging beach/sea-themed decor right now, and after some searching I found these vintage-looking sea printables via Pinterest. I knew they would be perfect, and the colors would look great with our bathroom walls (which are painted Behr Mojito). I printed them out on regular paper on a laserjet printer (*cough cough* at my office). I'm not even sure if the images were high-resolution, but they looked pretty decent to me once printed.

DIY Birthday Reminder

I know there are Smartphone calendars and Facebook to remind us of everything these days, but sometimes it's nice to have a tangible reminder right in front of you. At least, I think so. 

Don't you hate it when someone's birthday sneaks up on you and you're rushing at the last minute to find a card or gift? Or, if you're like me, you married into a big family and have a lot more birthdays to remember! For us, fall especially gets busy and overwhelming. In September and October, there are 10 birthdays. 

While perusing Pinterest, I've come across a couple ideas for cute reminders that aren't in digital form. And after a little shopping trip to Hobby Lobby, I had the materials to make my own:

- Hanging hook wall decor thing-a-ma-bob
- Gold shiny Thickers (I love these things)
- Tiny paper clips

Overall the cost was less than $10. 

I thought it would be kind of quirky to put the word "bday" on the wall decor, instead of spelling the whole thing out. Plus, it was fewer letters to have to line up straight.  

Then, I printed out all of the birth dates of family/friends on cardstock and cut each month out. After punching a hole at the top of each one, I just used a paper clip to hang it on the hook. Instead of hanging it on the wall, I decided to put it on the fridge in our kitchen, so I glued some magnets on the backside. 

Now, we really don't have an excuse to forget anyone's birthday!