DIY living room art project.

With our 2.5-year-old in nursery school five days a week for three hours each day, Mama Saigh has a little more time on her hands. I do freelance writing here in Singapore, and don't have a "helper" (this is a topic that's in a league all its own, so I'll write about that later), so I do have to do all the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc., myself. BUT, I do have time for myself, which is nice. We've been looking around Singapore and during our recent travels for some art to hang our very white walls, but nothing has really jumped out at us, and/or it's extremely expensive. SO, I decided to make a visit to Art Friend (Singapore's version of Minnesota's Michaels or Hobby Lobby), to buy a blank wall canvas and some paint, and create some art of my own... art that has some meaning behind it.

I found the inspiration/idea for this easy-peasy art project from Alisa Burke's blog, after simply Googling "black and white DIY wall canvas". She's brilliant. I took a 15-minute bus ride up to Art Friend at Clementi Central with Linna one morning, bought a blank wall canvas for about $20, some black paint for about $4, decided on some meaningful words to put on the canvas ("Faithfully" by Journey was the first song we danced to as a married couple at our wedding, and a Journey concert in Minneapolis, MN was our first "real" date), and I just went to town!

This "art" requires literally no artistic talent (I'm speaking from personal experience), and took me about an hour to complete. So simple. I kind of wish I would have gotten a bigger canvas, but there's always the next project, right?! Plus, I only spent like $25. Score one for thrifty mama!

Speaking of being thrifty, I found all of the furniture for our living room (photo above) on second-hand websites in Singapore (my favs are Singapore Expat Wives Classifieds on Facebook, Singapore Sell Your Used Stuff on Facebook, Singapore Freecycle on Facebook, and Singapore's Gumtree and Craigslist websites). We hate our Ikea rug, but it was basically free. The coffee table we bought second-hand from a couple in Singapore that purchased it in Vietnam. It's SOLID wood, and we got it for $40! The couch and white side tables are from Ikea, and we got them second-hand for like $100, and the throw-pillows we purchased second hand from a couple in Singapore for like $20. We have actually gotten almost everything for our condo in Singapore second-hand, except our beds/mattresses. I'm addicted to buying used ("pre-loved") shiz:)

Photo on the left is Papa Saigh and I at a Journey concert back in 2008, and the
photo on the right is us dancing to Journey's "Faithfully" at our wedding in 2010.