Thanks so much for having me here at Bear Rabbit Bear Crafts, Melanie! If you’ve never heard of us, The Better Half is a new sister site to One Project Closer (OPC). OPC has been around almost 5 years now and is for the hard-core home improvement lovers. Our men follow contractors around and teach you how to do-it-yourself like the pros. While we are the sister site, don’t worry, we’re not sister wives. lol! Kim and I (Jocie) are the wives of Fred and Ethan (respectively) and we run The Better Half, dedicated to the finer things, like DIY home decor, crafts, and sometimes kid-friendly stuff too. I write a lot of the crafty, decor posts, while Kim focuses on gardening and constantly updating our Home Depot coupons and Lowe’s coupons pages.
My Button Love
One of my favorite projects recently was the remodel of our bedroom. When we first bought our home 7 years ago, I was crazy for color and went a little off the deep end, painting the walls mustard gold with one very large eggplant purple accent wall. I jokingly thought to myself at the time “I feel sorry for the suckers who have to paint over this!” Turns out, I’m the sucker. lol! This is the “old” bedroom, when we came home from our honeymoon to find our home pranked by our friends! Sorry, I couldn’t find any other pix.
In keeping with the white wash color trend going on right now, the new bedroom is light gray with lots of white and kelly green accents. Okay, so it’s not completely white washed, but I really love kelly green and I couldn’t stop myself.
Once the basics of the room were done, I began designed and creating the wall art and decor for the room, including a painted tree on the wall, a DIY lampshade with fabric flowers, his and hers canvas with letters, and finally, my favorite, a button heart canvas. Turns out, while the button heart canvas is my favorite element of the room, it was one of the quickest and easiest projects. (btw, the painted tree was the cheapest, but longest, taking me about a week to paint). I ended up using WAY more button than I ever thought I would need but it turned out beautiful.
I repurposed an old Goodwill canvas, painted it white and then painted gray stripes using the wall color and good old Scotch Blue.
Then I cut out a paper heart and glued a single layer of buttons onto it. Fabric would also look neat instead of the paper, but I was anxious to get it done with out making a trip to Joann’s, so paper worked great. Once set, I added more buttons on top to cover any white space and give a more three-dimensional look.
Once everything was dry, I glued the button heart to the canvas. Viola!
The Button Craze Continues
Its been a few months now and I really love my button heart canvas. So, when I needed a gift for my sister-in-law, I decided to extend the same concept to a smaller frame. I grabbed one of those old frames I keep lying around with no real purpose and took out the existing picture. Then I printed out a sweet Bible verse that I thought my sister-in-law would like. You could really put anything love related into the frame, or even a name, birthdate, anniversary date…the possibilities are endless! Then I cut out an asymmetrical paper heart to fit in the open space. Instead of just buttons, I decided to cut out small paper circles for the bottom layer, using lots of different patterned scrapbook paper. After gluing the paper circles to the heart, I then used hot glue to affix buttons on top. When it was all dry, I mounted the verse and button to another piece of scrapbook paper and put it in the frame.
It turned out so personal and pretty, I looked like I had spent a lot of time and money, turns out I didn’t do either! haha I spent about 20 minutes making it and used only supplies I had on hand. Any ideas for fun button crafts? Now I’m itching to do more! Thanks again, Melanie for letting me share my button love on your awesome site. For more fun projects and crafts, visit me at The Better Half! You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Hope to see you soon!
So pretty! I love your new room and the button art goes great with it all.:)
Thanks so much, Kadie!
HI: I love what you have done here, especially the white tree on the grey wall. I have been trying to decide what to do with some very old furniture (including a chest my grandfather built over 100 years ago). The chest has the original paint my grandfather used but, in this case, it is beginning to look really funky. I think the combination of the two colors you used will be perfect for me. So calming. And if I do the other items with the same complementary colors you used, I think it will bring an awesome addition to my room. Thank you for your ideas and finally giving me some.
That’s adorable! I love the colors you used.
So fun! i love crafts with buttons! My mother used to have a button jar when I was younger just for crafts.
I love this post! Everything from the post-it prank (hilarious!) to the new room decor and the button art. I’m working on decorating my daughter’s room, and I’m pretty sure a button heart is now a must 🙂
Thanks for the inspiration!
Bethany
http://www.happyhomemaker.me
Fun to meet the Better Half! What a great makeover I love the white tree… did you use a stencil, and the before picture of the bedroom is pretty classic!
Carlee
Love the new bedroom design!
Oh I love this little heart. Super super cute. I need to start collecting some buttons!
It’s really a great DIY canvas project with button heart, thanks for sharing this great post.