DIY: Painting on a Denim jacket with acrylic

I’m going to be honest, I’ve been slow to jump back on the denim / jean jacket bandwagon. Is it possibly because a gang of highschoolers made fun of my jean jacket ten years ago (Jess! Shhh!!) but denim jackets are back and I couldn’t help but be won over when I saw the idea that you could paint beautiful things on jean jackets. I know that it’s been POSSIBLE since before the bedazzled was a thing, but I’d never seen something that made me ITCH to do it until this year.

So I thought I’d take on something completely different and give it a shot.

I’m not making you wait — here’s the end result!

My base jean jacket was found on sale at the Gap for $20. Remember, this is an experiment and if it was expensive I never would have built up the nerve to paint on it.

Why this one? I liked that it had blossoms embroidered in the sleeves. It had a happy face on it that I didn’t really love and, once it arrived, I hate that the smiley goes through each side thereby rendering the pocket useless.

What have a learned? That there are tips and rules, and for every rule there’s a person out there who says that rule doesn’t matter, so take everything on here with a grain of salt.

TIPS:

• Make sure your jean jacket is solid and not the stretchy kind

• Paint layers thinly and allow them to dry. I used the same kind of acrylic paint that I use for making canvas paintings.

• If you’re paranoid like me / want to help make sure it doesn’t crack or look like crap, maybe it’s a good idea to get clothing medium (Golden GAC 900) to mix into your paint to help it bend. I used about 1 part medium to 2 parts paint. I am a heathen who likes to add water to paint generally, but absolutely try to only add minimal water to your paint! In lieu of excessive water, the medium helped a lot.

• Heat set your jean jacket after it’s all done. I tried to do this with an iron — I think (?) successfully? Full disclosure, I have not tried to wash my denim jacket yet, as I generally try to wash denim as little as possible unless you fall in mud or something. Other people use their clothing dryer to set by running it for 30 mins.

How did it turn out?

Well this jean jacket survived a month in Australia with me wearing it once in a while and tolerated me bending it to try to cram it into a carry-on suitcase several times. It has not cracked!!

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BUILDING CAT STAIRS PT 1 & 2

I love my little studio cats Mina & Coco. They’re growing fast and it’s been hard trying to keep them indoors. They are very curious, whiley cats. Mina has already taught herself to push down on door knobs. They want out, but I’m trying to keep them safe. We have future plans to build them a catio. But in the meantime, I thought why don’t we take advantage of the vertical space we have in the house and build them some cat stairs to use and hang out on?

I’ve always admired how cute cat stairs are. However they’re also super expensive to buy — I just can’t justify $100 per piece of a cat shelf / stairs setup. So why not try building my own? At this step Pinterest was my best friend. There were so many cute ideas online, though some of them were really unclear in terms of how they were properly supporting a cat’s weight. So take that as my advice to only use ideas online (including mine!) as a base idea, but it’s up to you to make sure that a structure is strong and that it is supported by studs in your walls.

My fave example, from Homedit.com

Normally I find sketching building ideas to be quite easy, however the space I had in mind had a few new challenges. First, getting the heights over widths correct — I wanted stairs that would both meet the second floor beam, and reach the second floor high window. (Note, the cats were already debating about jumping from this beam TO the high window, so these stairs would be a way to keep them safer than if they were attempting this Darwan-award level jump.)

The second challenge was that I wanted to use the corner area, which would also help is solidifying the whole thing. But drawing across three dimensions in this way was unique for me. It’s not like building a deck, where I can just focus on one plane at a time.

After a lot of research and a lot of sketching I found something I thought could work and we got to building! You should customize your design to your own space. Things to keep in mind: cats feel more comfortable climbing steps that are not too high or to smooshed, and this will change as they grow up, if they are currently young cats. We may end up changing the distance of the stairs if our cats get very large.

Materials we used: Screws Wood 1” x 8”  , 1”x 12”, 1”x1”s , Saw, Drill, shelf supports ours were extras from Home Hardware, Scrap carpet pieces, or something you can use as grips for the tops of the wood so that it is less slippery for kitty feet.

DIY Home Design: Etched Arcadia Mural 4 Years Later + How it's Held up Over the Years

Hey guys,

I tend to get a lot of questions about my bedroom mural and so here’s my follow up post. Here are some current pics I took this morning (these photos aren’t staged/cleaned), you can see my little Covid gym at the side, a blue blanket for my big dog* and a princess pillow for my lovely cat.*

TLDR: It’s held up perfectly! No change at all. Don't regret at all. Generally, I really love that wallpaper & wallpaper murals are now less messy, cheaper and more accessible to everyone thanks in part to the internet. Read below for details about delivery, design choices and downsides.

Here was my original post & installation.

You can find this mural here (no this post isn’t sponsored!)

I like my gym space corner to look classy apparently. Complete with olympic weight bars, foam roller, neck stretch pillow, marble rolling pin that I use for sore quads, and a very special wooden pole from my suspended camera set up DIY that DID NOT FIT so now I use it for stretching and things, and generally being prepared for night intruders.

Getting this thing:

I eyed this mural for a LONG time. YEARS. One, it was $$$. How do I justify that to a partner? Two, a wallpaper mural can feel like a huge commitment — what if I didn’t like it after a few months? So I thought about it for a LONNG time. Then one Black Friday it was on sale for 30% off, and I decided to take the plunge. Great right? Not so fast.

The most complicated aspect of this mural was actually getting it, as Anthropologie wouldn’t deliver it here. They kept cancelling my order without details and I kept trying to figure things out with them because I was really adamant about trying to score the more affordable price. Despite their website saying it could come to Canada, something on their end wasn’t allowing it. So eventually I gave in and had to figure out an alternate way, so I had to deliver it to a relative in the US and beg my relative bring it up the traditional way.

In terms of installation, it was pretty easy going up if you prep. And once it’s up, the seems are VERY hard to spot unless you’re purposely looking for them. (See below.)

Design:

What I love about this style in particular is it’s both whimsical and grown up, it feels like sleeping in a fairy tale book, like old etching illustrations. It’s sort of neutral in a masculine way, but the trees have a slight romantic vibe. In terms of murals, the more up close pixelated style is very forgiving if you’re the type of person who wants to put up photos or otherwise cause holes.

I’ve thought about getting other wallpapers for other areas in my house and some of them are also this style, though I debate whether it’s overkill. Here’s some of the others I’ve thought about for the kitchen or living spaces, in this style. Mostly clouds and birds. The ombre is appealing to me because I know how hard that would be recreate by hand / paint.

As I mentioned above, wallpaper is so much easier to get now. My jaw dropped this year when I saw the Scalamandre Zebra wallpaper available on Anthropologie (best known by me from Wes Anderson’s film The Royal Tenenbaums.) I love that wallpaper and couldn’t afford it nor was I fancy enough to have a personal interior design connection, it so I decided to HAND DRAW my version (white tigers) on the walls of a small room, with black artist pens. I learned very quickly things take a lot longer to draw than you think they will. Take how long you think and multiply by ten. Tigers have a lot of stripes, guys. You’ll understand why I reduced my ambitions very quickly. Now they are great wallpaper sites like Rifle Paper Co, etc, as well. You can even easily access photographic murals as well.

Downsides:

Though this design is forgiving, and I actually kept extra scraps to patch up anywhere as needed, my husband is incredibly against me putting up any picture frames, bed frames or causing any kind of holes. He was, after all, the one that helped do most of the work in terms of putting it up so I get it. That limits my ability to be creative a little though, for sure a downside.

Another downside is that sometimes having a mural can be limiting in terms of what you do in a space. You can’t really move it unless you’ve installed it on panels (something I thought about doing!) So if I decide I want my bed on that wall, I can do it, but there are limits. This may or may not be an issue for you depending on if you like to figure out one layout and stick to it. I tend to like to move things around a lot, but I also feel like sometimes being held down by a choice is good for me.

Color wise, this is a mostly neutral mural, but at the same time I felt like it did limit my color choices a little. For example, I didn’t like my ochre yellow chair with that mural. You can do it, some people pair yellow and gray/black, but its a CHOICE. It’s not subtle. Also orange was out, because Halloween. Again, you can do it, but it’s a choice. “Why did orange even come up?” you might think, well it’s because I was looking at orange and vermillion side tables and looking at layering warmth into my bedroom space, which has grown more feminine over time, more eclectic, a little warmer.

Recently I’ve had some sinus issues and have wondered if I’m allergic to dust mites, and have been taking out any clutter or fabrics I can from my bedroom, and I have to say I’m really grateful that my mural is an art element I can keep in there without worrying about dust mites.

Note: This post and the last one would make it seem that this couch has been living in my bedroom this whole time and it has not. It was usually downstairs. I’ve had my bed against this mural with a metal bed frame, I’ve had a mattress right on the floor and it still looked cool. I had a rowing machine in front of it and it looked cool, desk, etc. This room just happened to have looped in terms of design over 4 years.

Conclusion:

This mural was a great investment while I’m living in this house (and it’s been 5 years here.) I hate that I waited so long to get it. If I ever need to move, I can either keep it up, I think it’s neutral enough, or it is designed to come down easily. If that ever happens I’ll give you an update!

*Where’s the cat tax and dog tax Jess?! you’re saying, I get it! I’m working on it.

DIY: How to make an Overhead Camera Rig for filming Art Process videos for $150. DIY Rig for Canon M50

This is my DIY process video for making an overhead filming rig for filming overhead art videos. This video was filmed over several weeks.

I use a mirrorless Canon M50.

Links to some of the items I used (I'm not sponsored!):

Kupo Max Arm with Hand Wheel https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...

Impact Super Clamp with Ratchet Handle https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc... (Rest Coming Soon) This might also work as an adaptor: Impact 3/8"-16 and 1/4"-20 Adapter Spigot https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...

DIY Mini Studio Makeover! Phase 1!

We put a little elbow grease into our garage art studio this summer and here's the result! It's not perfect but it's 100% cosier, cleaner, eclectic and fun. We even painted in the awkward corners.

Notes:
-This is a garage floor with some pretty permanent stains short of power washing
-I use the desk spaces for watercolour, gouache, acrylic and editing, and I tend to use the couch space for digital drawing and watching tv/movies.
-Let me know below if you want to learn more about the partition. I couldn't remove the stamp stains with sanding, unfortunately. So short of painting it, which I might, I'm out of luck with those and I tend to just put pictures on top.
-I forgot my iPad on the couch in the final after shots. You're welcome :0)
Nothing in this video is sponsored. Kitchenette is from ikea Swing is from Etsy Paper curtain is Tord Boontje Rug is from Wayfair Map hanging is from Urban Outfitters but you might be able to find it in other places.