'Nailed It' - State of Mind Artwork

Okay, so I have no doubt that most of you fellow Pinterest addicts have seen 'state art' floating around on the boards. I love the idea, but there are just soooo many ways to do this. 

Little P's State of Mind Artwork

There's the string and nail version.

The fabric cut out version.

Ones painted on canvas.

Ones painted on pallets.

Ones in picture frames and others directly painted onto walls.

Ones cut out from actual maps.....

 
The list goes on and on. 

You Google 'diy state art work' and you get 28,600,000 results. Now, I know a good portion of these aren't going to be actual state art work, and that some of them will be things that are listed on sites like Etsy for sale, but you get a pretty good idea of what's out there.

I was digging on the whole triple state idea - where we met, where we married and where Little P was born kind of deal - but then I wondered, 'just how many people would get what the state of Victoria (Australia) looks like?' I know if we were back in Oz it wouldn't be a stretch, but since we are in the US it's kind of an interesting dilemma.

So, as I was pondering this quandary (over a glass of wine, naturally), I happened to look over to one of Little P's latest artistic creations and I had a 'light bulb' moment. What if I make it so it's a piece of art for her room, and just do the state of Nevada? But instead of scrapbook paper or even an actual map of Nevada, what if I use one of her paintings and cut out the shape, put it in a frame and BINGO! instant piece of art (from her own artwork) for her room.

So, as I naturally had a ton of her paintings just sort of hanging around (as kid's artwork tends to do) it was simply a matter of working out which one I wanted to use. As it turns out, Little P had her own ideas about which paintings Mommy could have (surprise, surprise) and she handed me two that she had deemed fit.

Little P's masterpieces

I decided to go with the one light pink one as it wasn't quite as 'busy', plus I liked the simplicity of it. I located a template of Nevada at this wonderful little site call Apples4Teacher that has all the states (including coloring pages of each state for the kidlets – super cool).

Here's what I used:

• Artwork graciously donated by Little P
• Template from Apples4Teacher
• Pencil to trace the shape onto the artwork
• Scissors or Exacto knife to cut out the shape (I used scissors but for those states with lots of fiddly bits, I'd go with an Exacto knife)
• Frame to put it all in at the end

Tracing an outline on the back of the painting, so, you know, if my cutting skills weren’t that fantastic, I wouldn’t have to worry about rubbing out any erroneous lines (praise the gods that Nevada doesn’t have a lot of squiggly bits).

Once I had it cut out, I was left with trying to decide if I wanted to put it in the frame on a white background (which seemed kind of 'blah' to me), use colored paper or find something fun to use as the background.

Decisions, decisions.

Eventually I went with a grey chevron print (cause who doesn't like a chevron pattern?).

Not bad, huh?

I like the contrast between the pink and the grey, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

What says you, oh wonderful people? Did I ‘nail it’?

Till next time…

K