Easy wall art: Framed vintage animal puzzle

Some months ago, my husband brought home this animal puzzle from his parents' house in a box of things from his youth. The box also included a bunch of (worthless) baseball cards and a collection of "cassingles" from the early 90s. This puzzle was undoubtedly the best thing in the box.

It's so weird. None of the animals are to scale and about half of them are just heads. I put it together, and it took me a long long time. Seriously, like over an hour. It's crazy hard!

There is no hope for any child ever being able to put it together, so framing it for display seemed to be the best way to enjoy it.

I grabbed a thrift store frame from my stash that seemed to fit the proportions best. Then I went hunting for a suitable background. The frame is about 14 inches wide which ruled out a lot of the patterned papers I had on hand. I ended up painting a piece of brown kraft paper with some watered down craft paint just to give it a bit of color. I think the washed watercolor look gives it some extra interest.

It took some fancy maneuvering and a few tries, but I was able to sandwich it between the backing and the glass without using any glue or adhesive. Easy disassembly should we ever want to just play with the puzzle again.

My two favorite moments in this crazy scene are the whale and frightened green octopus (in the above photo) and the dove's head in the wolf's mouth (below). Cuckoo, right?

Kid's room: Double E monogram wall art

I never thought I would be one of those people who names their kids all with the same first initial, let alone the same first and middle initial for both kids, but here I am! Elise Elliott and Etta Emily. It's kind of fun. And not many people have the same initial for their first and middle name. (That was something I really wanted to repeat whether we chose an E name or not for baby #2.)

Anyhow, as soon as we settled on Etta Emily, I knew I wanted to incorporate the double Es somewhere in their shared room. Last summer, I found two E's at an antique mall for $1.25 each. They are made of some type of plastic and are fairly heavy. I don't always have an immediate plan for the things I buy, but if they are cheap enough, I buy them anyway, and they usually become useful later.

I painted the E's a bright pink with craft paint, and then set out to find something to mount them to. I came up short at home, but found this "stunning" piece of "art" in the clearance aisle at Home Goods for $4.50. It's no 

70 cents, but it was the right size (12" x 16") and sturdy enough to hold the weight of the Es on it. A simple piece of lumber would have also worked, but this was halfway finished already.

When I got it home, I realized that the backside was even more perfect than the front. I could make sort of an open shadow box. (And I wouldn't even have to mar the true love print.)

It did have a few staples into the backside of the frame where the joints came together. I used wood filler to smooth those out, then sanded and repainted the entire frame with a couple of coats of white paint. I made sure to tape off the inside of the frame because I didn't want random paint splotches showing through the fabric on my final product.

After not finding anything that would work in my fabric stash, I found this pink scale cotton print at Hancock Fabrics. I bought a half yard, but only ended up using about a fat quarter. The piece I had cut was about $2. Cheaper than paper.

After ironing all the wrinkles out, I used Mod Podge to adhere it to the back of the frame. (For those unfamiliar with how to decoupage with fabric, this post explains how. Don't be intimidated. It's one of my favorite things to do.) After the Mod Podge was completely dry, I used hot glue to stick on the Es. Quick finish!

And it's just the hit of pink we needed on the wall above the crib!

Thrift store makeover: Nautical print

Wow, I totally did not intend to blow off last week, but a bad cold knocked me down for a few days. I hate that helpless feeling of having a thousand things to do and no energy to do them.

Anyhow, I'm back today to show you a small painting project. Let's get to it.

I found this nautical boat print at the Goodwill Outlet last month. I liked the print, but the orangey oak frame did not complement it at all. Nothing a little paint can't fix.

The frame is very sturdy (it hasn't pulled apart), but there were wide cracks in the corners. I filled them with a tiny bit of painter's caulk and let it dry.

A couple of coats of craft paint, and the oaky color was no more. Now you can actually see the print instead of the frame!

Frame that kid artwork!

I have to confess that I have been lazy about art/craft time with Elise. She begs to "actibitees," but most days, I can't be bothered to drag out the mess of paints. Bad mom. Especially bad mom who loves to paint herself and wants to raise a creative child. Bad mom.

But thanks to a recent trip to a local children's museum (St. Louis' Magic House), Elise made a painting, and I was reminded why I should make the effort for more art time at home.

I love her paintings. I don't even think she likes them as much as I do. This one is just tempera on paper. I know every mom probably loves their own kid's artwork, but I just want to gush about her expressive brushstrokes and how she doesn't overwork the paint. When finished, she shouts "done!" and puts down the paintbrush like a timer went off.

I was going to put it in the artwork frame in our dining room, but I still love that painting too much to cover it up, so I folded it and put it in a different frame.

I was searching our living space, looking for a place to put it, when I realized the best spot would be in Elise's bedroom. I put it on a high shelf so she can see her painting while she's falling asleep at night.

Her room still kind of a disaster because I painted her closets and then started working on the adjoining stairway (think, stacks of paint cans and furniture pushed aside), so no whole-room photos right now. But the space is calling for a few more of her paintings and I've got some blank canvasses. Maybe it's finally time for mama/daughter studio hours.

Artwork switcheroos

The artwork in this house is in flux again. I guess that's what happens when you bring new things in; some old things have to rotate out.

I took down my paint chip artwork. I was getting pretty tired of it, but the people on Pinterest never seem to get tired of it.

I added a couple of recent thrifty purchases (dogs & whale) and my framed psychic postcard. In fact, I'm noticing now that four of the pieces are from antique malls and the other one is a found object in a thrift store frame.

Let's move to the hallway where I had a similar arrangement of frames going on. Some things had been moved over the course of a few months, so the before photo isn't 100% accurate. But more or less, this was how it looked.

And now, not a whole lot different. The addition of a few recent thrifty finds. It's not a major change, mainly because I didn't feel like hammering in a bunch of new nails. In fact, I only moved one nail. 

I removed the whole bottom row of frames. They kept getting knocked off the wall. I should show you the baseboard underneath them. Totally chipped up and gross.

Honestly, one of the big reasons I'm even showing this minor change-up is so you can see I do actually hang up my thrift finds... eventually. Like the Disneyland plate above and the ski photo below.

Like many spaces in my house, this is a horrible spot to take a photo. The hallway's only 2-something feet wide, and I can't get any distance on the wall. Plus, it's dark and gloomy, so this was the best photo I could get on the whole arrangement. Sorry for the glare!

Framing found object: Psychic ad postcard

Years ago, I was kind of obsessed with "finding things" (a la Found Magazine). Basically, I would pick up every random piece of paper on the ground, hoping it would be something funny or interesting. Mostly, what I found was completely ordinary and uninteresting.

So when this postcard appeared on the sidewalk in front of me while walking out of work one day, I felt like I had finally won the lottery. I stopped and looked around to see if someone might have dropped it, but it was apparent it had appeared out of nowhere. I like to think the wind blew it out of the walls of an old building being rehabbed across the street.

I'm not really into the psychic thing (though I did have my palm read once upon a time in New Orleans), but stylistically, this is right up my alley. I love how the $1 price is scratched out (on the left), the kooky layout and all the old school fonts. It's almost like someone put this card out just for me to find.

Recently, I ran across it again going through some papers, and I knew I had to give it a proper display. I grabbed a picture frame from last month's trip to the Goodwill Outlet and introduced the strawberry print to the recycle bin.

I was going to paint the frame black, but something about the wood tone coordinated with the aging paper of the postcard. I decided to leave it as is. The backing pattern is a piece of scrapbook paper, and I just sandwiched it all together. My favorite way to frame! No adhesive!

From the archive: 6 creative framing tricks

Trim out a canvas or a wood panel using yard sticks

Shrink a mat opening with ribbon

Hang an empty frame around an odd shaped object 
and also here

Paint a fancy "frame" on the back side of the glass
and also here

Enlarge and elevate tiny artwork with a shadowbox

Mount items inside a shadowbox damage free with Command strips!

Bedroom family photo gallery wall

For whatever reason, we don't have a ton of personal photos displayed around the house. I guess I'd just rather decorate with art and other things. But for a long time, I've wanted to turn this wall in our bedroom into a family gallery wall. There were already a few photos there, and in my Photo A Day project last year, I took so many great photos I wanted to display.

The thought of doing all black and white photos briefly crossed my mind, but with the cool colors of the room, it might of looked too monochromatic and dull. In with the bright color!

I scoured the house for empty frames, painting some, finding glass for others. By a quick count, around half were new, bought specifically for this wall, but most were $3 to 5 a piece.

First, I hung the largest pieces and then filled in around them with smaller ones. I didn't have a complete plan when I started; I hung a few frames at a time, paying careful attention not to box myself in too much. And I tried really hard not to line anything up (though honestly, that really wasn't that difficult to accomplish).

I made sure to hang photos with small details in the range of eye level (between about four and six feet off the floor) and larger "closeup" photos above and below.

I wanted to hang photos all the way down to the baseboard, but I ran out of frames (and photos), so this will  likely be an on-going project. I'm sure there will be some minor rearranging in the near future, and as time goes on, I hope to swap out some of the photos with those yet to be taken.

While they are all photos of just our little family, they aren't all portraits. Some of my favorites are anything but. It's been really nice to lay in bed and stare at all the photos I love. I really underestimated how much I would enjoy that.

Framing trick: Shrink a mat opening with ribbon

I've been framing gobs and gobs of things for our bedroom gallery wall. (More on that soon!) I'm trying my best to keep the cost down, and that means framing some photos I already have. 

This was a photo card Elise and I gave Dan last Father's Day. It supposedly was 5"x7", but once I got it behind the 5"x5" mat opening, it was a smidge too small. Not small enough to drop it down a frame size, though. Time to do some doctoring.

I found a piece of black grosgrain ribbon in my ribbon scrap box. It was about two inches wide, so I sliced it up the middle. This wasn't necessary, but I'm thrifty even with my scraps, and this allowed me to use half as much ribbon.

I flipped the mat over and taped the ribbon to the back side around the opening, leaving about half an inch showing through the window. (Yes, it looks a little ragged, but no one is going to see the back of the mat.)

When I was doing my corners, I folded the ribbon in a way that shows a mitered corner on the front side. I promise you this is super easy to do, but a wordy explanation is going to make it sound harder than it is. So I'll try to show you with photos. This is a recreation sans mat because I didn't think to take photos of this process before I taped everything down.

1. Lay the ribbon vertically.
2. Fold the ribbon 90 degrees to the right, creating a 45 degree angle.
3. Fold the ribbon back over to the left, but keep a straight edge.
4. Done!

Obviously, if you need to create a corner in the opposite direction, you just reverse the left and right in the directions. And tape it down to the mat as you go so you don't have ribbon flopping everywhere.

Even if you don't need to alter the mat size, this is a cute way to customize a frame without spending much (if anything). And a use for all those ribbon scraps!