Nautical Bathroom Redecorating: Compass Rose

I'm currently in the process of redecorating my bathroom. There's nothing wrong with it, I suppose, but nothing really matched too well. I wanted a green and brown sort of color scheme, so I had put brown and green things for the bathroom on my wedding registry. My mother-in-law bought us the floor mat, shower curtain, and one set of towels, and that suited us for a long time. However, I wanted to put some actual decor in the bathroom. Maybe on the walls, on the counter, on the wall behind the toilet, anywhere to make it more "homey." Anyway, nothing I could find that was green and/or brown really tickled my fancy. I tried to paint some jars brown and green, but it only brought so much to the table.

It was time for a change.

Nautical stuff is apparently trending, and for some reason I'm really into it. Lots of stores, including my lovely craft stores, carry (carried) nautical decor, but the prices were a bit out of my budget. For the most part, I just waited until they had it on clearance. If you're lucky, the store will slowly mark everything down to the point of almost free, you just have to wait a while. The "paintings" I wanted (they weren't actual paintings, just prints on canvas) were still more than I wanted to spend, so instead I decided to paint some canvas myself since I'm not too bad in the art department.

I want two paintings for my wall: one of a compass rose, and one of the ocean, maybe with some boats. Here's the inspiration picture for the first painting:

I wasn't going to paint every part of this because there's a lot of stuff, but the most important parts, obviously.

I painted the background a light-ish blue, and then used a ruler and pencil for the compass parts. I painted it at an angle for a more abstract feel. After I got done outlining everything in pencil, I proceeded to paint. Oh, and I used a canvas size 8x10 inches.

Price of the canvas: $9 x 40% off coupon/sale = $5.40

Price of paint, blue and black (if you don't have any): $2

Total: $7.40

Compare to the original price of any 8x10 canvas print at the craft store: $19.99.

Yay savings!