A blank wall is one of the most exciting opportunities to me. Dare I say that it is a blank canvas? No? Too cliché or pun-derful?! But it is. It is just a wall waiting to get color, pattern, and texture splashed all over it in the form of artwork. I’ve done quite a bit of artwork here on the blog, whether buying it or making it. Both have their place. Like when I bought this map for a steal, made this large scale fabric artwork, created art from magazines, got custom framing done, or did it myself with a floating frame, to just name a few. Recently I needed quite a bit more artwork and got down to making some of my own, no painting or real artistic skills needed.
When my mom and I went to Ikea, we found some great frames that were just dying to be filled. Here is what I did with the oh-so colorful frames.
1. The obvious one – print out your own pictures. Nothing will make you happier or seem more special than pictures from your own collection. I decided to take a wedding picture and two from my travels. One is, obviously, the Eiffel Tower and the other is the south of France. They all three make me relive some of my favorite memories.
2. My sister sent me the more adorable card a while back. It was too fun to throw away or put in a memory box. It needed to be displayed, so into a frame it went!
3. Google. Seriously a great tool for grabbing artwork. I found some free printables that were beautiful and inspiring to me. Just print out to the size you need and wa-la. Art work! Get this Coco Chanel printable here.
4. Grab some collectibles from places you have been or projects you have done. When I was in China we took a few classes writing characters in Chinese. Hardest. class. ever. I took one of my tissue paper like scripts, wrapped it around the cardstock that came in the frame, and memorialized one of my own Chinese. Now, I’m pretty sure no Chinese person could actually read what I wrote (it’s all in the wrist and is very difficult to pick up on the small little flicks of the wrist needed to write Chinese) but it makes me happy, reminding me of the hours we spent trying to master it. Lots of laughs ensued from those lessons.
5. The other day I bought a neon green mirror for a buck. It was fun and why not? It had been sitting around waiting for something to happen to it. I finally had a brainstorm. As I was searching for printables online, I came across one that had the exact same shade of green. I decided to print it out and mount it to the mirror as its mat and frame. Then I thought it needed a little something else so I took out my washi tape and framed out the quote with the tape. Loved it! It gives it a little more dimension. Perfect! Get the printable here.
So there are some ideas on making inexpensive, fun, and personalized artwork! Stay tuned for the reveal of where they ended up!
Cute!! Love the bright pops of color.
Thanks Rachel! I love to bring bright colors into our house in any way possible!
[…] might have guessed in this artwork post that I had something up my sleeve, er rather up my wall. I was up to mischief in my favorite room of […]