Crazy Art-Decked Out College Dorm Room: Paper art for artists who want (to be cheap) murals



Color Meets Me

   I have never lived in a place that I couldn't put my own touch in. My room is a homage to National Geographic's expensive cameras and adventurous photographers splashed all across my walls. My living room, hallways, basement, bathroom, kitchen, TV room, you get the picture, are all covered in art work. It is a must for me to not have white walls surrounding my lounging time. Doing your own home interior design makes your place just that much more you, your style, your likes, represented and there for everyone to see.

This room you see above I lived in for a year and decked it out to the nines with pirate ships, cutouts of dudes, my painting class mess-ups, painted turtles and my favorite was the Tazo Tea bag tags that I use everywhere (paper art or recycled art is like a mantra for me). Clearly, based on the picture above some minimalism could of been exercised but, who cares, it was my college dorm room. That coffee table is made out of the box that the futon couch came in. My roommate and I decided because we bought the couch from an unmentionable store.......We could do penance by making craft projects and really just everything out of cardboard. And so I made a full-on coffee table that housed all our booze in the day and became the world's best can-last-only-two-years coffee table.

If you are in a college dorm right now, have nothing on the walls, or in an apartment, a temporary space, go crazy, because you only live once, why not make your time in one space memorable through the way you transform the space you live in. If you need ideas for how to projects in recycling just google search it and you can find so many ideas. Cut out newspaper images, embellish them, do not buy posters, or if you do, cut them up, make your room a colorful and interesting place to let your eye wander around.

Crack Meets Ashley's Room

Want to turn your room into something like this? A cool modern interior design that screams crazy??!

How to Interior Design: Feng Shui your face......./room

Interior design done Lee style

Circles give off the best kind of relaxation. For me I find the circular shape a meditative one, even though you will never find me

I used the old hold-a-pencil-piece-of-string trick where you have a pencil on one end of a string and the other end is your center of your circle. Just decide the size of your circles and trace away.

 meditating physically, or is it mentally? Well, I meditate while watching TV or people. So that must count for something. But, back to the point. Designing always involves a personal touch of whoever is making the intended atmosphere around the artwork. For me this was a must when I moved into my new apartment. I wanted a circle design along the wall because the layout had this section that stuck out already and so emphasizing this jutting wall with a softer touch was my first objective.

Bedroom Decor

World's oldest perfect circle maker

I used the old hold-a-pencil-piece-of-string trick where you have a pencil on one end of a string and the other end is your center of your circle. Just decide the size of your circles and trace away.

FOUND objects turned into sweet artwork or Don't throw that away! Upcycle!

My toilet paper roll mounted window frame

Home interior design inspiration for the pack rat:

Every home is full of junk laying around, stuff that is broken, things that take up space but your mother/husband/sister's fiance's aunt/you think you might need it someday. What to do....where is the stuff going to go??? Don't throw it away, turn it into art by recycling/upcycling the hell out of everything.

It can stay right in your home, granted putting it on the wall or putting it to use to decorate something doesnt take up even more space. Recycle Recycle Recycle. Everyone should rethink the items in their homes and figure out what it could be used as. Re-use old chairs, tables, keep the pieces and turn them into something new.Yes, throwing out things is good for space, and what-not, but, how about instead of buying furniture or design books, just do your own home interior design with your own stuff. Make a craft project out of an old chair, table, microwave, tub, (maybe not the microwave because of electrical crap) etc...you get the picture. Getting ideas for how to projects is easy once you find something and then just google it. I usually Stumble upon whatever idea I want to try next. Many people put up pictures of their found art turned interior design inspiration and masterpiece.

Today's post is about finding broken items and turning them into art installations inside your home. Up close your friends might see that you turned a shopping cart into an awesome chair or that your coffee table is entirely made of cardboard, but does it matter? You got free stuff and these days your friends will commend you for finding a new use for something that could of been thrown into a land fill. 

Broken window screen, what to do with it.....

trace the correct size

Used this appetizing sandwich pic

                                                     I had this window screen thingy laying around behind my fridge and decided to do something with it one day. Turning old things into art is easy when you only have so much. Because I do not want to pay for any decorations I j

How to Design a Stencil: College poor-student style

Flying Fish Mural: Cost = $0

How to Design STENCILS: Make Sweet Rad and Handy stencils out of magazines to create DIY art murals. This is an easy step-by-step way to interior design a living room. 

Inspiration

1. Pick out your tracing design. Choose anything from just simple shapes, like bikes, food, buildings, trees, words, wine glasses, men in suits, girls in bikinis, whatever you want. I chose Koi fish because I just went to a park that had huge ponds with Koi fish everywhere and decided to make an art mural. 

Trace or draw the main stencil

2. To make it easy for yourself, take a design from a magazine, or print a shape out and use that as your main stencil. I free-handed three different fish from pictures I took from the pond.

Cut out stencil

3. Pick out whatever color paper you want to use. If you use magazine paper you can take it off the wall easier than newspaper if you use stick glue to apply.

Make different styles

                               
                                 4. Make as many as you want. Stack the paper on top for an easy multiple-at-one-time cuttings of each stencil. I just use a variety of paper that looks cool when turned into a stencil. For the fish

How to Decorate with Recycled Materials Part 1: Murals

Chinese Garden design with Landscape Made with Magazines and Glue

For the bored, artsy, DIY-ers, recyclers, freegan-decoraters and anyone who enjoys making an unused space into artwork that is completely free!

Why buy posters? Why buy frames for pictures? Make them! Create your own in-home art murals with nothing more than magazines and stick glue. This first installation of DIY decorating will cover how to make homemade murals for your living space.

Pick a theme or design to work with

1. Come up with an idea of what you want as a mural. Think about the size. If you have a large space than consider doing a large landscape, or large animal mural. If it is a small space think about what kinds of things you are interested in or want to walk by everyday and see. For me I picked an outdoor scene on my living room wall to make the space more colorful and open than a plain white wall. Look up an image for what you are going to immulate onto your wall or work from scratch. I like to look at ideas online to think about what kind of a plan to follow.

Magazine paper is best for easy removal

2. Gather together old magazines (National Geographic works the best because of all the full color pages). Cut out the pages with large blocks of one color. Start compiling piles of pages and cut outs that are made up of one color (i.e. Green, Red, Orange, Yellow,etc...).                              

                                                                                                       3. Cut out multiple pieces of paper according to the kind of image you are going to make. This shape I use almost all the time as