diy / affordable art

I've blogged in the past about my gallery wall and wanted to share the latest addition. As much as I would love to go out and spend thousands of dollars on prints and original art, it's not always in the cards so I've DIYed a few of the frames. (If anyone is interested in more detail, I wrote a bit about it here.)

I am very excited about the most recent addition (on the far left). I was a Brownie Girl Scout for a year (Troop 007!) but my badges never were ironed onto my vest. I cut a piece of brown kraft paper, stuck some sticky mounting squares, and stuck those merit badges in the frame. 

I had all the materials and BOOM! All it cost me was a frame. 

DIY anything fun for the apartment lately?

decorate / affordable art

{source}

Happy Weekend!

I’ve been coveting this Chad Wys print since I first discovered his work on Pinterest and couldn’t trace it to the name of the artist. Then it reappeared on a blog I follow and I found out that not only can you buy prints, but they’re from the affordable Society 6. This beauty was ordered this morning and will soon be hanging in my entry. Can’t wait! (AND this helps me get closer to crossing #54 off my 101 in 1001 list.)

decorate / my gallery wall

You may recall that my living room gallery wall currently looks like this:

Most of the “art” is temporary as I just wanted to get the frames on the wall. Everything except the two dog note cards and the “Ellie” frame is intended to be temporary. I actually ended up really liking everything and plan to expand the wall instead of replacing the Julia Child quote, JCrew model, etc. 

However, my geometric kindergarten style painting is just not cutting it at all. I’ve been itching to replace it and finally ordered this baby:

{Michelle Aramas via Etsy}

I CAN’T WAIT for it to arrive in the mail! 

decorate / my gallery wall

A little while back I posted about affordable art and shared some art prints I had my eye on. Well friends, I bought a stack of Ribba frames from Ikea about six weeks ago and they finally made it to my living room wall. Only a couple prints are permanent (the rest are probably placeholders until I can buy all the prints), and I’ll be buying prints as my budget allows.

Behold:

Clockwise from top left:

1. grey dog in boots—This is a card my mom sent me (the set of note cards is from Rifle Paper Co.)

2. diy quote—I love this Julia Child quote and created this with glitter stickers and paper from Paper Source. This one is a keeper, I think!

3. calligraphy “Ellie”—This was my place card at a friend’s wedding last October. The calligraphy is so beautiful and I simply mounted it over this Paper Source paper.

4. “i believe in…”—Inspired by Cupcakes and Cashmere, I wrote my own manifesto and typed it up! I think this will eventually be layered over the zebra paper. See Emily’s here.

5. Let’s just pretend I’m not sharing my terrible art non-skills with everyone. This is just something I painted last week. My first print purchase will be for this frame. 

6. a page from the J. Crew style guide

7. zebra print paper from Paper Source

8. another dog note card from my mom

You can’t tell from this picture but that wall is about 11 ft long and 10 ft high. Now that everything is hung up, I’m thinking that I might add frames moving forward which would accommodate both the prints I have picked out and the filler art that I really like.

For more focal wall ideas, check out this great video from Emily Henderson!