pardon the dust + how to make a street car roll

I've been away, I know.  It's hard to really have an excuse for being post-less for so long other than I've really been trying to chase the "I really miss my hubs" blues by keeping busy.  I've been volunteering at the local military base in their marketing office.  In short, it's been amazing.  I work with a wonderful group of inspiring people who challenge me every day and really encourage me to flex my creative muscles in the world of graphics and design.  Govt cutbacks have made it so that no actual paying position is available for what I do, but I am forever hopeful and I'm expanding my portfolio while I'm at it.  I'm just hoping that the snowy German winters and Bruno's lack of 4x4 capabilities don't force me to hibernate from Dec - March.  I do appreciate you all staying tuned and still reading... this blog has been great to come to when I just need an outlet.

So in an effort to make up for m y lack of blog - presence, I'd figure that I'd share a tutorial on a project that I've had in my mind for about a year and I have FINALLY produced.  I saw a post on Abbey Goes Design Scouting  ages ago and while in NOLA I desperately wanted to make my own street car roll for the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line.  Well, it never happened, mainly because we didn't have any place to put it even if I did make it.  But the idea stuck in my mind because, well, aren't they just fantastic?

I will have a house that looks like this someday -- in my dreams
image via living livelier

Fast forward to Germany and my humongous home full of blank walls.  Needing something to cover a wall in our dining room, I decided it was time for the streetcar roll to finally be made.  So I whipped up a 36" x 60" image on inDesign, exported it as a .pdf and then  went over to rasterbator and uploaded the image.  It broke my image into a number of different pieces of 8.5 x 11 sized pieces of paper

16 pieces of paper (and 2 black ink cartridges) later I had my full image, but what to arrange it on so I could hang it?  Enter number of USPS boxes I had hoarded in my office.

boxes, meet box cutter:

now to assemble my images on the makeshift backing to create a large poster

a roll of double sided tape later and voila! NOLA "street car" roll complete!

I kind of went crazy with this "create a huge poster w/ 8.5x11 sized pieces of paper" method in a number of other places in the house, which I'll share sometime in the future.  Since I have no idea what our next place will be like size-wise, I am refusing to spend a ton of money on decorating, but I hate bare walls. So this is my solution.  So far so good!

Do you have any other simple decorating tips that have helped you outfit your house without busting the bank?