Apart{ment} of my heart v.1

{When you are both on a budget and trying to redecorate, a good rule to live by is use what you have. I painted this giant canvas with birds on it when I was a senior in high school, and its been living with me ever since. Recently I have been feeling like my style and taste have totally changed and I just didn't really like it anymore. I needed new art for the apartment and had something in mind. So I went looking for inspiration and found this...

..on Apartment Therapy. It was perfect! One of the goals I have in redoing our apartment is to incorporate more color. Previously I had collected a lot of dark wood furniture and liked a lot of grey, tan, black, and other boring neutral colors. Now since we have a baby on the way, I really want to liven things up I am switching over to a white palette with pops of color! So much more fun! I ended up creating this piece but in a lovely shade of green!}

{It was actually a bit harder than it looks! For this project you need lots of patience and some time.

Gather your supplies...
+white paint (I used acrylic craft paint)
+other colored paint of your choosing
+brushes
+masking or painters tape
+a ruler or measuring tape (I use a flexible sewing tape measure)
+pencil

{Start by painting over your previous design with your white paint if need be. It may take a few coats. It is helpful to start by painting over only the darkest areas the first one or two times you coat. Then once completely dry and covered, measure your canvas' height and width. Here's where you have to do a little math...divide up your canvas to see how many lines you want to have and how thick they will end up being. ex: I ended up doing eight 4" stripes. I figured out I would have 5 peaks going across, and measured in 4" increments up and down each side of my canvas. I hope this makes some kind of sense, its really hard for me to explain. Basically just measure out your pattern however you want it :)
Next you want to tape off your lines so that they are nice and clean. Keep all the tap inside the stripes that are to remain white, so that you are free to paint inside the green spaces. After the paint have fully dried, gently and slowly peel off the paint. I accidentally pulled off some paint and had to do a few little touch ups! And that's about it!

I'm really excited to hang this piece over our bed after I redo our room! Sidenote: One reason I have not posted a project in awhile is because my pictures have been (in my opinion) poor quality, due to terrible lighting in our apartment! I used to have amazing natural light in my house but now that we have moved, our apartment has only one window and it's in the bedroom, and we have two huge skylight sin the living room but then I only get light from directly above! Anyway, it makes for bad pictures and I wondered if any of you photographers out there had any advice for little ol' me?
Thanks guys!

.::ali::.