Turning Photos into Artwork

Make beautiful pieces of watercolor artwork from your favorite photos!

Last week, I saw my friend Kelly’s post over onThe Tattered Pew. She was turning photos into artwork with an app called Waterlogue. I was so inspired to see what photos I could turn into beautiful works of art too!

Photos into Artwork

I easily downloaded the app on my phone. The app quickly uploaded the photo and I was able to save it to my camera roll and send it straight to my printer. I just used white cardstock to print on. The process took only minutes! Right now, Waterlouge is only available for the iPhone. It will soon be available on Mac.

The first project that came to mind for making watercolor artwork was to do one of each of the homes we have lived in. Each one has been so special. Brian and I moved into each house thinking it would be our forever home. And each home we moved out of, we still love and cherish the memories made there! The title of this post really should be Homes of My Heart, but it’s not as google friendly. 🙂

The Cabin

We bought our cabin in 2013 as a vacation home. Along the shores of a lake in The Northwoods of Wisconsin, this full log became a retreat we never wanted to leave each weekend we visited. Six years ago, we started tossing around the idea of moving to the lake full time. The kids were on board with the idea so Up North we moved. Read more about our decision in this post I wrote soon after moving here and starting my blog.

Our Colonial Home

Brian and I met in college in Iowa and then lived there for seven years after graduation. We got married, started our careers and had our first two children in Cedar Rapids. After the birth of our second child we decided to move back to Brian’s hometown in Wisconsin to be near family.

As the smart young adults we were, we planned to move when our son was a month old! Nothing like having everything happen at once! We were making progress though. We moved from our first house in Iowa the day I came home from the hospital with our first child! That worked well for me, I only had to sit in a chair and cuddle my new daughter. Poor Brian, and the family that came to help, had to do all the work.

When we got to Wisconsin, we didn’t even have a house to move into. For months we had been looking, but hadn’t found anything. So we moved in with my in-laws for six months. I adore them, so it all went well and they loved having the kids around.

Our search for our own home continued. Believe it or not, we even sent out letters to homes we loved that weren’t for sale in the neighborhood we wanted to live in. There was a white brick colonial that we really liked, but we knew the family that lived there had recently bought it, They were doing a lot of renovations, so we didn’t send them the letter. We hadn’t known their plan was to flip the house and it soon came on the market!

I loved this house for so many reasons! It was such a fun time with our two children starting preschool, entering kindergarten and those early school years. As a stay at home home during this time, I relished building memories with them. And then our third child came into the world while living here. What a blessing!

I loved the home’s colonial style and it’s white exterior and green shutters. See that sunroom on the front? That was one of the projects we did. We took out a little front porch and added this pretty space and patio to give even more charm and curb appeal. One of my other favorite things was all the leaves that fell in the fall, it was magical! I always felt like I was living on a movie set.

Our Tudor Home

One year I volunteered for the local Historical Society to be a docent in a beautiful Tudor for their annual Tour of Homes. I had no idea that two years later, it would become our home. When it came on the market, I told Brian we should take a look because it was truly a work of art.

Built in 1931, Hans and Anna Kraut, German immigrants, brought their European touches to this unique home. There are Terazzo marble floors, French tiled bathrooms, decorative plaster ceilings and stained glass windows throughout. The Krauts did not miss a detail. To go back in time and be see the process would be amazing!

The stained glass windows in the Rathskeller (basement) have people dancing in traditional German clothing holding steins alongside dachshunds with sausages and the saying “Eat, Drink and Be Merry” in German. The paneled library has stained glass books and ink wells. One bathroom has fish, another dragonflies and another frogs.

Amazing memories continued to accumulate here. We added a fourth child to our family and hosted many extended family gatherings. Among my favorites were Halloween Trick or Treating, Easter Egg Hunts and Thanksgiving. The top of the stairs to the sunken living room made a perfect stage where our kids performed for us constantly. We never tired of backyard baseball games and tossing the football. The kids learned to ride bikes going around the big block.

Displaying the Artwork

As soon as I find photos of the exteriors of our Iowa home, I plan to frame these photos, now art, in a gallery wall. Back when we first got married and bought our first home, we didn’t take photos like we do now. And they aren’t digital, so I have a little digging to do.

I’m so excited about this project and grateful for the inspiration from Kelly! I hope it inspires you too! I’d love to hear about how you turn photos into artwork!

Another Cabin View

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