Bringing The Outdoors In...On Your Wall

I have yet to post a complete picture of my living room.  I thought that I would post about the individual projects first and then do a post about everything collectively.  So you've seen my yellow {end table} and my black and grey {wall} and my {chair}.  My inspiration for this room are these beautiful trees.

I love Quakies.  They remind my of my childhood at our cabin.  So this is what I based my colors on,  Yellow, Black, White and Grey.

The wall behind my couch is ginorm.  I have 12 ft ceilings and I have had the hardest time finding some kind of artwork that is cheap and huge.  (Not a very friendly combo).  In june I was at our family reunion in Cedar City, UT.  My uncle lives in the middle of nowhere out there and every time we would drive past his house I would see these trees,  so on our way home the last day I stopped on the side of the road and gathered some cut branches.  I had no idea yet what I was going to do with them but I knew it would be cheap and cool.  This is what I came up with...

I got 2 pieces of 4x4 subflooring wood from Homie Depots and had them cut each in half.

Cost:   $6.00 a Piece ($12.00) but I only used 3 so I guess $9.00.

 Then I mixed grey oops paint with water.  After doing one board I hated it.  It was to grey.  So I added a bunch more water and some black tole paint swirled in to give it a little bit of dimension.    I started out with a brush but gave up and used a sponge and covered each piece of wood.

Then I took one of my favorite products in the world Ralph Lauren Faux Glaze in Black Silk and brushed it on just the outer parts.

 Then I rubbed rubbed rubbed.  I did this twice to get the color level that I wanted.

This is what they looked like in the morning after they dried.

I took my Quakie branches and tried to Gorilla Epoxy them on.  It didn't work so I just ended up using finishing nails.  That's also how I mounted it to my wall.

See how much dimension they have?  LOVE it!

I love how they are so organic looking.

Total Cost Of This Treasure:

Wood:$9.00

Everything else I had on hand

I just love being cheap!