Kerri Bradford Studio: Framed Prints

When Kerri asked us to "think outside the box" for our projects this month, my mind immediately went to wall art. I have quite a few walls that need a little something to complete them, but I decided to focus on the kitchen instead. Well over four years ago, I re-did my kitchen, and I picked out a ton of picture frames to display in the area above my kitchen cabinets. It's taken me forever to actually fill those frames.

In fact, over a year ago, I did a post about the status of those frames, which you can read HERE. It's kind of funny, yet kind of pathetic, that so many of those frames remained totally emtpy for almost four full years. I'm so glad Kerri inspired me to work on getting them all filled up.

I put in a request to Kerri for a kitchen/food themed kit of her fabulous hand written, brush script words, and she came back a few days later with her new Tasty kit. I did come across some other words and phrases in other kits, and even some of her freebies, that would have worked for this project. But I really love the kit Kerri put together, so I stuck with that kit for my word choices.

Because these frames sit high up in the kitchen, I knew that I really didn't need to spend time cutting out the words and piecing paper products together to fill those frames, as no one would be seeing them up close. So I decided to make some digital prints, using the PNG files of her designs.

I love the chalkboard look that is so trendy right now, and knew that I could use the hand drawn brush script words to give that same sort of chalkboard look I was going for. I love adding in black and white prints, canvases, and photos in my home décor, since I have a lot of light oak furniture that I can't do much about right now. Adding in lots of black around my home has helped balance out those lighter items. 

I pulled up two different black digital patterned papers to use as my backgrounds. I actually ended up using the same patterned paper for almost all of my prints, as it just worked really well and had a bit of a distressed look to it.  

I created the "canvases" I'd be working on, depending on the size of the frames. To be honest, I did this step several times, as I looked up at the frames on top of the cabinets and just sort of eye-balled what size they were. And turns out, I eye-balled wrong on a few of them. I ended up with an 8x8" print, a 10x10" print, a 12x12" print, and a 10x13" print. For each of these, I pasted on the digital black patterned paper to fill the canvas.

I then added one of Kerri's overlays from her Magicalness kit to each canvas, placing it over the black digital patterned paper. I did lower the opacity to about 20% to make the overlay a bit more subtle, and so that my word would stand out more. I stuck with the polka dot overlay, the chevron overlay, the diagonal stripe overlay, and the heart overlay.

I then added my word of choice to the center of the canvas, changing the color overlay to white and adding a small drop shadow to the word as well. I sized my words as large as I could to fit the space. Once I was done, I flattened all my layers and uploaded my final prints to Costco and placed my order.

I also put together the "get in ma belly" print, which used the same basic design idea, but has a different look since it's not black. I pulled the yellow damask patterned paper from Kerri's Love: Every Little Thing kit, and added a digital ruled line overlay along with a heart overlay from the Magicalness kit.

I went with a little different look for this frame, which is on a little ledge by my countertop. I loved the "breakfast", "lunch", and "dinner" words from the Tasty kit and wanted to use them all together on a print. Btw, this was the one print that I used the second black digital patterned paper on. It had a bit of a paper bag look to it.

I added the little hand drawn boxes found in Kerri's Design Secrets Class Extras (if you haven't taken this class, you can purchase the kit thru today as part of her birthday celebration sale). I was debating putting something in those boxes, like a check mark or something, but in the end my family thought it looked good as-is. So I left it.

I love how simple and easy these were to complete. Because I stuck to the same basic idea, and used lots of the same elements (the same black digital patterned papers, the overlays, and hand drawn brush script words), I was able to create these in just minutes once I had the idea down.

  

I also created two BIG prints for my family room, using the exact same ideas. I went with two 18x24" prints, and I just love how they turned out. I pulled the "gotta love this" from Kerri's Something To Say kit, and the "be your self" from Kerri's Happy Stuff kit.

Knowing that you can use Kerri's cuts as digital files as well opens up a world of possibilities for creating your own wall art and home décor! I love what these have added to my home.

And don't forget that today is the last day of Kerri's 4th birthday celebration sale. She's offering 30% off the entire store on all orders over $15 - just use coupon code BIRTHDAY4 :)

Comments

[wendy antenucci]

I absolutely love this! Wow!

[Diana Waite]

these are FABULOUS!!

[Stephanie Buice]

Laura these are awesome! You did such a great job and I like that they all tie in together.
I love the pops of color, especially the yellow things here and there in your display.
Way to go!!

[Raiza]

Awesome!

[Amy]

Get in ma belly OMGosh love that one. Totally need to make a few of these.