DIY Wall Art from a Box!

This past week one of my roommates has been working on rearranging/re-doing her room. This consisted of moving a big bulletin board from the living room wall, and getting a new bed frame delivered to the house. You’re probably wondering what the significance in those two things is. Let me break it down for you.

1. Blank wall
2. Big cardboard box.

If there’s one thing that I can’t stand, it’s a blank wall. They drive me crazy (others might call me crazy because I have close to no blank space left on my own walls…this is why my art projects are invading the rest of the house). Just as my roommate was getting ready to lug the bulky bed frame box down two flights of stairs in the snow, I decided I’d be a good friend and take them for her. Well, more from her. Clearly I haven’t changed much since grade school and still get equally as excited for cardboard boxes. 

What I did was super simple, and I guarantee anyone can do it no matter their artistic ability (or lack of). Seriously. SO EASY. All I used was a big box as my surface and some 69 cent craft paints at Joanne's. I didn't even use a paint brush (I can hear all the true artists cringing). I simply plopped paint around in different sections of the "canvas" and used a scrap piece of cardboard to drag the paint across. I ended up doing several layers and alternated dragging the paint horizontally and vertically, but it would look great if you just stuck to one direction too! It's also fun to experiment different ways of laying the paint down. I tried doing circles of different colors before dragging, letting it dry a bit before dragging--there are tons of different effects to try out! My only recommendation would be to wait a bit in between switching directions, otherwise it ends up looking a little too messy/blended (for my tastes). 

Materials used: Repurposed cardboard box (left), and craft paints (right). Over excited cat not necessary.

I didn’t really know what I was doing when I took the boxes, nor did I really know what I was doing when I decided to paint them. But what I do know is that for about $5 worth of paint and an hour of my time, I successfully conquered the blank wall and have gotten a lot of complements since. I know it’s not a masterpiece—in fact, it kind of reminds me of those ugly abstract paintings you see in big fancy art museums. You know, the ones you walk by and think “Really? I could do that”. But personally I feel you can’t justify saying that until you’ve actually done it. So I made ugly abstract art myself (and can officially criticize “those” types of paintings wherever I go from here on out).

I truly believe the secret to this project was the box. Had I spent money on a canvas that size, which I’m guessing would cost upwards of $50, I would have been too nervous to start painting and it would have collected dust for the next year while I thought about something great to do with it. The beauty in using a box was that it cost $0, so I really had nothing to loose if I didn’t like it in the end (plus the box had another half, so I got two tries!). The biggest cost was buying the 69 cent bottles of paint from Joanne’s. 

If you have an old box or canvas lying around, I'd encourage you to try creating your own wall art! Even if it doesn't end up "wall worthy" in your eyes, creating it is half the fun!