As you may know, I’m in the middle of making over my living room. I want to have new art work to go with my new living room. In order to have new art work, I need to be thrifty. I made some DIY wall art. It is so adorable! You can make something like this for your home as well. It was a fairly easy project and I’ve got a tutorial to guide you through.

A few months ago, I saw Pick Your Plum(affiliate link) had these state cut outs for sale. I quickly snapped them up for all the states in which we have lived. I knew I wanted to add them to my living room when I got to changing out the art work.

You can follow Pick Your Plum, they may have something like this again. You could also watch the craft stores, sometimes they have paper mache items like this or even wood cut outs like this. You could also make your own if you are good with a jig saw.

Anyway, my states sat in a box in the office for quite a while….waiting. Finally I got to the fireplace makeover and taking down the chair rail. I knew it was time. Making these was a fun and easy project. I ♥Love♥ how they turned out. I can’t wait to show you them up on the walls….when I get the walls done. 🙂 In the meantime, you ready to make some DIY wall art? Let’s get rocking and rolling then.

Supplies:

• State Cut out
• Paint
• Paint Brush
• Primer
• Heart shaped adhesive gem

Alright, so as with most DIY projects, this project had some twists and turns. I was originally going to paint the edges and Mod Podge a map of the city or state in which we lived onto the state cut out. It turns out printing a map the size that I needed with the color tone that I wanted was more difficult than I thought it would be. Either that or I lacked the patience for figuring it out. Maybe both.

You will want to prime your piece before you paint. If you plan to paint the entire cut out like I did, prime the entire surface. As you can see above, I initially primed only the edges. I had to go back and prime the rest later when I figured out the map idea wasn’t going to work for me.

After priming, paint the entire cut out with at least two coats of paint.

I used the same color that I painted my fireplace. That way it would bring a little touch more of that color into my living room.

Use a fine point and stiff bristle brush to add the ‘stitching’ around the edge of the cut out. Pick a contrasting color for the most visual bang for your buck. Don’t worry about it being perfect. It will look good in the end. You can see that mine is not perfect or all the exact same sized ‘stitches’. I think the end result is perfect!

I used the same paint color as the color of our living room walls….well at least the first time we painted them. Oh boy you guys…the walls have been a bit of a pain. Which would be why I haven’t shown them to you yet. Hopefully soon, it will be done and my living room will be put back together with cute art work on the walls.

Lastly, add the adhesive red heart gem to your state. You can add the gem to the state capital or to the city in which you live(d).

We have lived in four states, so I got to make four state cut outs for my DIY wall art. I don’t know what we will do if we move to a new state because I have no idea if Pick Your Plum will sell these again. Oh well, I will have to worry about that if it happens…not now.

I could not be more happy with how these turned out. They look so cute and just like I envisioned. A little bit of our history right there on the wall as art. ♥

What do you think? Like or love (we won’t make dislike an option because really, could you not like these? Humph!) Would you make wall art for your home that show some of your history? Do tell. Please leave a comment below.

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