Category: Upcycling

When painting a mural, you’re always looking to make an impression. The location, shape, and size of the facade are almost equally as important as the painting that we create upon it.

If you have an art-loving family that welcomes your creations all around the home, then one place that might be begging to be the focus of your next creative masterpiece might be your garage door. Think about it, it’s large, it’s flat, and in most cases it’s already painted white. It’s essentially a component of your household that is just begging for a creative injection. If you decide to face this undertaking head on, there are a few things you might want to consider on your journey.

Preparing the Work Surface

As mentioned before, the great thing about a garage door is that it is probably already painted white. This means you won’t need any sort of priming before you start your artwork. However, if it’s not painted white you’ll want to give it a thorough coat of primer after you’ve completed these preparation steps.

To prepare your garage door for painting you’ll want to put painters tape over all of the windows, any metal fixtures, and any of the components of the tracks. You’ll want to tape off the trim of the garage as well, and make sure that any of the surfaces that you want to leave untouched are properly protected. Once all of that is complete, you’ll want to make sure the garage door is clean and ready to accept paint. At a minimum you’ll want to wipe it down with a damp cloth, and in some cases it might need a good scrub with soap and water. Just make sure to rinse thoroughly when you’re done.

Consider the Functionality

One thing to keep in mind as you get started in the creative process is that the place you’ve chosen to paint is mobile. The garage door will be able to open or close at any given time. If it doesn’t you’ll probably want to replace the garage door opener. You can even find a smart garage door opener that will function with other smart devices, perhaps this is something you can integrate with your creative piece.

You may want to take advantage of the fact that the garage door opens and closes. An obvious application would be to paint a picture of a mouth so your cars will get “eaten” every time you park. You’re creative though, so I’m sure you can come up with something a bit more clever.

With all of that out of the way, get on with painting your masterpiece. When you’re done you’ll want to take some efforts to preserve your work.

Preserving Your Masterpiece

Once you’ve finished your ambitiously creative mural on your garage door, you’ll want to take some measures to ensure that it lasts. As we mentioned earlier garage doors do move quite frequently. They’re also exposed to the elements, so without a little extra protection the colors will be inclined to fade and even worse, you can see chipping away of the paint over time.

To prevent this, you’ll want to make sure to apply a thorough coat of clear coat once your finished. Of course, you’ll want to make sure that the paint you used for your mural is compatible with the clear coat, so that’s another thing to keep in mind. You might be best off using all exterior paint, though you may be somewhat limited in the colors. You could of course add some pigments of your own.

Let us know how your garage door mural goes if you decide to give it a shot. We’d love to see how it comes out!

These days, people are upcycling like crazy. You can pretty much take any piece of trash and turn it into your next masterpiece. Upcycling was definitely a big trend in 2017, and we anticipate that it will be more prevalent throughout 2018 and beyond. Environmental preservation is a huge social movement, and as long as people are reducing, reusing, and recycling, art is a great venue to show your support for the cause.

Before you have your mattress ready for the garbage man to pick up, stop and think of what it means to you. It could be that you are about to waste the most artistic piece in your home. There’s a lot of compartments to a mattress, but if you’re not thinking about how valuable your mattress really is you could be wasting your talent.

The parts of a mattress seem to be complex, but in fact, they are amazingly simple to use. Before diving in and taking this mattress apart, brainstorm about the way you can use it. To come up with a contemporary sculpture, your strategy should be written down so you will know for yourself exactly what it is that you’re inventing. The springs are a great place to start. Make sure to set aside 15 for the parts that you have to do later. Have a hammer and wrench handy in case you need them, the sculpture itself will takes some hard work but it will be a lot of fun to make.

Twist and connect each spring piece to form a circle. Then as you think about what to do with the cotton, you are layering the cotton onto the springs and wrapping it around them like a ribbon. It may be easier to rub the cotton back and forth in your hands as if you’re trying to cause friction. This will help the cotton mimic the ribbon. Cut the wood that was in the mattress in half. After you’re finished with all of that, take the magnets and glue some to the wood and the rest to the sculpture. Make sure the wood is surrounding as much of the springs as possible.

After that is complete, you take a saw and go down the front of the sculpture to form a u-shape on one side of the sculpture. It should look like it has a dip in the front. Take those pieces of wood that were cut and glue them to the back of the sculpture toward the highest part of it. Place cotton in the middle of the sculpture but hold it in place with glue.

Take the springs that you did not use and overlap them. You want them to look like you’re weaving a basket. Stuff the holes with memory foam as needed for aesthetic purposes – the best memory foam mattress toppers are extremely pliable and will fit anywhere you need to fill the void. You want to find memory foam that is designed to hold up to the test of time, as many lower-quality memory foams will lose their resilience. This, over time, would lead to drooping and won’t give your structure the support that it needs.

Before adding the springs to the bottom of your sculpture, measure the circumference of it. You want the bottom piece to fit in the bottom like a lid. After you finished working on your art, you realized that you made a steel bongo. Be sure to have enough cotton around the top to make sure you don’t hurt your hands. You never thought you would be able to come up with something like this. Your sleep has helped you become an artist.