Vintage Thingie Thursday: Wall Art Using Vintage Doilies and Vintage Buttons

Welcome everyone to Vintage Thingies Thursday

If you have a love for vintage things, well....you have come to the right place. We have a really good time each and every week!!!
If you are new to this party, please take the time to read and follow the instructions for participating in Vintage Thingies Thursday, click HERE. I try and keep things fairly simple, so please make sure you follow the instructions. Please only ONE link per week. Lastly, if you link in, LINK back to my blog, so everyone can see all of the vintage goodies on display that day. If you don't link back here, they won't know who to visit......thanks so much. Lastly, try to make an effort to visit the other participants. I know myself, I get so behind and busy, but this year, I am going to do my best to visit each week. 

I have posted this week about some of the projects I have been working on for my daughter.  While putting together some wall art for her, I looked and looked for feminine things that was not too overpowering on the walls. I came across this photo on Pinterest. The original link is here.

I decided that surely, I could figure out how to do this myself. I knew I had doilies in all of my collections....the only question was, where??? I looked and looked and as luck would have it, I could not find a single one of the crochet doilies I KNOW I have. I had to visit a couple of thrift stores and a favorite antique store. I know I would be able to locate what I needed and thank goodness, I was able to find them quickly.

Here is a glimpse of my version of the original design I found on Pinterest. If I do say so myself, I simply adore this and absolutely love how it turned out. My daughter loves it too and it is perfect for her new decor in her bedroom.

So if you have a stack, drawer full, closet full of these, get them out and use them. Add them to wall art, pillows, frames, lamp shades....just get them out and use them.

Here is how I did this project.

I found a large piece of wood in our shed. I wanted this to be a large piece to fit over a king size bed. My board measured roughly 4 ft. by 3 ft. and it fits wonderfully over her king size bed.

I very lightly sanded the edges of the board. I then added a couple of coats of the same chalk paint I used when I painted the headboard. I used the darker of the gray paints to paint the board. I let it dry overnight.

I washed the doilies, and pressed the wrinkles out of them and pressed them as flat as they would go.

After laying plastic down on my work surface, the fun part began. I started by laying out the design of the doilies on the board. Once I had the design I liked, I adhered the doilies to the board. I used my Loctite Spray Adhesive for doing that.

I started at one corner, spraying the board and pressing the doilies, one by one down onto the board. This took a little bit of time, but go slow, it works very well. I ran the edges off of the board and did not put any adhesive on the edges. Once the front dried and set up after about 48 hours, I flipped the whole thing over and using a hot glue gun, glued the edges of all the doilies to the back of the board.

I am going to be honest here. I tried, and tried to make flowers like in the original photo off of Pinterest. Mine looked horrible, like big old globs of fabric. I was really frustrated with myself, but gave up after several attempts.  So I had to resort to the fabric flowers I have made before. I just made smaller ones and then used some small doilies to shape and stitch so they looked like flowers. The flowers and buttons were attached using hot glue. They stuck very well with no problems to the doilies.

I added vintage buttons for the centers of the flowers and as embellishments around the flower designs. This really turned out better than I could have hoped for. It is super feminine and looks amazing.

I think this is a super way to get what you love out of storage and use them in everyday things where you can enjoy them.

Here is one last look, in this picture, it gives you a better idea on the scale of this wall art. It is big, but that is what makes a statement when you walk into the room. (you can click any of the photos for a more close up look at this project)

I hope you have a great Vintage Thingie Thursday!! I hope you enjoyed this short tutorial on how I made this for my daughter. It was easy, and fun and the final product is just fantastic!! What do you think? Do you love doilies as much as I do?? Don't be afraid to use them, just enjoy them!