Sage – Author at Plaster & Disaster

March 21, 2016 | By Sage |

Some Really Really Impressive DIY Art (not made by me)

One of my favorite pieces of art in our house was made by Sam’s grandmother:

As you might guess, it was a wedding gift for us, and it’s hard to believe she did this by hand! She’s created many beautiful pieces like this over the years, and today I wanted to share a bit more about this style of art, which is known as “fraktur” (frakˈto͝or/).

Fraktur is a folk art and specific lettering style created by the Pennsylvania Dutch (the lettering originated in Germany), which uses ink and watercolors to create elaborate scenes. What I particularly love is how the art form brings color and beauty to documents that typically feel very utilitarian but actually have significant sentimental value, like marriage and birth certificates. Our City Hall-issued marriage certificate is something I would never frame and put on our wall because it’s pretty darn unattractive, but our fraktur marriage certificate is not only beautiful but it’s a constant reminder of the love and care Sam’s grandmother put into it as well as his heritage.

For Sam’s dad’s wedding a few years ago, his grandmother made lovely invitations:

The middle is just blank because I blurred out the details for privacy purposes

The tulip is a very common theme in fraktur, as are birds (so the Pennsylvania Dutch are the original hipster decorators, apparently).

I had a lot of fun looking through fraktur art online and picking out some I especially like:

Birth and baptismal certificate, attributed to Christian Mertel (1739 – 1802), from the Philadelphia Museum of Art Joan and Victor Johnson Collection

Wythe County, Virginia folk art watercolor and ink on paper fraktur birth and baptismal record (c. 1819) attributed to the Wild Turkey artist, from a Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates auction

Fraktur by Johann Heinrich Otto (ca. 1733 – ca. 1800), from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

But lucky me, Sam’s grandmother’s work is my favorite by far. Thank you Roma for allowing us to enjoy your amazing talents every day!

March 16, 2016 | By Sage |

30-Minute Wall Tapestry For the Win

The title of this post might undermine your belief that it is a serious project. But let me assure you, there’s nothing more serious than this wall hanging that I made in 30-minutes out of a table runner while I was waiting for Naomi to show up at my house to hang out on Saturday.

Okay so maybe there are more serious things, like the kitchen renovation. But sometimes when you’re neck deep in a long and serious project, all you want is a fast, satisfying, pretty, and cheap project for a quick win. This tapestry is just that. If you’re in the market for something similar, here’s how to make your very own:

Step 1: Buy a table runner. I bought mine at Target for $17.99.

Step 2: Cut your table runner in half length-wise.

Step 3: Hem the raw ends you just cut to prevent any unraveling (not strictly necessary, but I figured why not).

Step 4: Build the hanger out of a long thin piece of wood. I had one in my scrap pile that was perfect, I just needed to cut it down the right length on my tablesaw. I made it 1″ longer than the width of my two runner pieces side-by-side.

Step 5: Stain your hanger whatever color you want. I used Minwax “espresso” that I already had.

Step 6: After waiting impatiently for 10 minutes for the stain to basically be dry, use a staple gun to staple the top edge of the two runner pieces along the length of the hanger.

Step 7: To hang the tapestry on the wall, use a piece of yarn knotted on both ends and staple each end to the back of the hanger. I doubled my yarn over for additional strength.

Step 8: Put a nail in your wall where you want the tapestry to hang (in my case the hardest part because it was high up in the stairwell), then step back and admire your handiwork. (This space is a little hard to photograph because it doesn’t get a lot of even light, sorry!)