DIY: Inexpensive Wall Art!

As I've mentioned before, I've really been enjoying decorating. Here is an inexpensive wall art project that I did a few weeks ago but I'm just now sharing because:

Today is Do It Yourself day over at A Soft Place to Land.



My poor neglected basement was in need of something large scaled for the wall by our new TV. I've been looking and looking but everything was just too expensive.

I finally decided that I should just make something myself.

I went to a local thrift store and purchased this lovely piece of art for $7. Pretty sure my grandparents had something like this in their home. I just love the chunkiness of the frame.


You should have seen the looks I got as I hauled it up to the front of the store. It was a little awkward trying to carry it with one hand while pushing Kaitlyn in the cart with the other hand and yelling out to Carson to stop running off.

I don't have pictures of the process from when I made this because I've discovered I'm horribly impatient once I decide to work on something. And the batteries were dead on my camera and I wasn't about to wait for them to recharge. Sorry.

I took the picture out of the frame and set it aside.

I then carried the frame outside and spray painted primer on it ($1ish at Walmart).

At Lowes, I had purchased one of those little sample cans of paint in black. They're normally only $3 but this was in the oops area (although never opened) and so I got it for $1.50. I also painted two other frames and ended up only using 1/2 of the little can and that's with two coats, each. Woo hoo!

Next, I laid out enough batting so that there was two layers worth and cut it out to match the size of my art. The entire package was $4ish and I used around half.

Again, because I'm inpatient and had no other ideas how to do this, I just hot glued the edges of the batting onto the art. Seriously.

Then, I laid out my lovely stretch fabric ($4ish for a yard)onto the floor (design side down) and then placed the art onto it, batting side down.

I then used my glue gun to firmly secure the fabric onto the back of the art. I did the top and bottom first and then the sides.

I heart my glue gun. Even better, I didn't burn myself!

I popped my fabric covered art back into the frame and made sure it was secure in there with the little nails that were already there.

And ta-da: my lovely creation!

The batting helped push the fabric out so it really looks pretty cool.

I like that it takes up a large amount of space and looks nice but when the TV is on, it's not distracting at all. And hmmm... the picture makes it look a little off centered.. but really, it's perfect. Trust me.

FYI: our TV is on top of our old entertainment center because I don't want the little kids to have any sort of access to it. You know about their track record and our nice things.... our couches are on the taller end so it isn't uncomfortable to watch a movie or play Rock Band (the reason for the fan- you should see Drew play the drums!!).

What I'm also happy about is I think it would be easy to rip the fabric/glue off of the the back of the 'art' if I ever decide I want to change the pattern out.

Not bad for under $20, right????? :-D

And here's one quick other project.

Also in our family room is two of our desktop computers. Again, nothing was on the walls in that area (I told you it's been neglected!!).

I had a cork bulletin board that was from my Grandma's house. I also had a bunch of pictures I wanted to put somewhere.. they're kind of the 'out takes' from the photo session I had done of my kids a few weeks ago. LOVE THEM. But I wasn't really sure how to display them.

So.... I used the same primer/paint as above and painted the edges.

I tore up some fun remnant fabric (under $2) so that it would have the harsher edges and glued those on.. and then pinned up my pictures. It needed a little extra oomph so I added some coordinating $1 chipboard cutout things that I found at Michaels.

I'll show you close ups of the picture later on since I know you're dying to see what my flash canceled out. You're welcome.

Hope you enjoyed!