I mentioned last week how I wanted to make something for this season’s Pinterest Challenge with Sherry at Young House Love, Katie at Bower Power, Ana at Ana White and Erin from House of Earnest. I just wasn’t sure what to make! One of the projects I’ve been wanting to make was this washer monogram, but Michelle from Decor and the Dog tackled it during the last challenge…

(from Decor and the Dog)

So I looked through all of the things I’ve pinned the past few months to come up with something I could tackle in a few hours. I stumbled upon this pencil-eraser-used-as-stamp art from Li’l Magoolie…

(from Li’l Magoolie via Pinterest)

And I had a light bulb moment… why don’t I make a monogram using pencil erasers as stamps? That way it’s entirely different, but bringing together two Pinterest projects! So that’s what I decided to do 🙂

I decided to stick with the color scheme of our house… various grays/greiges/blues.

I picked up a couple of extra bottles of 89 cent craft paint just to make my life easier. I basically bought all of the shades of gray they make and I already had the blue.

The rest of my materials were 100% free! I used some cardstock I already had, pencils that were laying around and a frame I already purchased. To get the monogram, I printed out our last initial, an S, in a very fancy font called… Times New Roman. I printed it in bold to give me thicker lines to follow. I eyeballed the size in print preview and figured it would look decent on a 5×7 piece of paper. I then traced my printed S onto my cardstock by holding it up against my sliding glass door.

I traced it ever so lightly, then also erased what I had just traced. Sounds crazy, but it left me with the most faint line ever so that it wouldn’t be noticeable under the paint but I could still follow it.

Then it was time for paint! I didn’t use stamps like the pinned image did, so I squirted a little of each paint onto a paper plate, then dipped some sponge brushes I already had in each color…

Then I dapped my pencil erasers on the sponge brush, not the paint itself. If I dapped too much I could use a cleaner part of the sponge to remove some. I had a pencil for each color (digging out a 4th one required some office scouring!)

I did some test dabs on a piece of scrap paper before starting. Then I just followed the lines and alternated colors along my S and tada! All done!

It took me about an hour or so, which was honestly longer than expected, but well worth it. I had to decide where to put my new work of art so I decided on the entryway table, which was filled with pumpkins and Halloween candy today.

The candy will be leaving tonight, so I just put my art in a matted frame and leaned my frame over by one of my beloved deer bookends. Ps- I’ve been searching for a white lampshade to replace that gray one for months.

I’m not sure if my monogram will be staying here, since we’re planning on adding a whole gallery wall(s) up and down our staircase. Ideally, I’d like to eventually hang it, especially since the frame I had on hand is meant for hanging 🙂

I strangely love that the mat that came with the frame is a little off-white. Since the chair rail, deer and cardstock are bright white, it mixes it up a bit. Maybe even a fun colored mat will look good until I hang it?

I’m very happy that I chose to do another art piece for this Pinterest challenge. I love making things for our house but I often don’t have the time to dedicate to making things anymore. Spending an hour making this completely made my day and I wish I had more creative time these days. I am also proud of myself for scaling down my always overambitious projects. I originally planned to do this monogram, plus two 8×10 more abstract pieces. Once I started eraser stamping I realized how time consuming it was and that an even larger piece of paper would take even longer! Maybe I’ll make them another day (since they were pretty cool ideas, I must say), but for now I am perfectly happy with my monogram 🙂