The hubs and I had a little chat a few weeks ago… we were both pretty sick of having a semi-finished family room. We’ve had bare walls for pretty much ever. I just couldn’t decide what to do… stalking other blogs and design sites had me leaning a different direction every day. Finally, I decided to just do something!
Remember my fingerprint artwork? I still really love it, but decided it needed to be relocated to the other side of the room.
What, you might ask, did I have planned for the striped wall?
Welcome to my Ginormous $4.99 Family Art work
Pin It Right off the bat… YES, I know the picture comes beyond the frame, and I did do it on purpose. My kids have asked me about that about 214754 times in the past two weeks.
Here's how I made a 4x3 Ginormous piece of family art for only $4.99! I headed to the Bucks County Re-Store on Saturday afternoon without anything specific in mind. I just knew I hadn't done a project in forever and I needed some inspiration. I only bought one item, but it was $15 and just what I needed to spark a project idea!
Check out my new $15 mirror and my super-cool dance move! (Yes, I was doing that while taking the picture. Too cool for school, I know…)
This was how it came from ReStore and where my demo needed to begin.
I unscrewed the wooden boards from the back and then took a screwdriver to pry off the wooden backside. I just tapped it in with a hammer and then angled the screwdriver. I did this all around the edges until it came free.
I was left with a big mirror (still plotting what to do with it), the frame I needed, and a piece of wood that headed to the trash.
I primed the mirror first… do you know how rare it is that I take the time to prime? I was proud. After the primer I gave it two coats of Valspar's Navy spray paint.
Remember the awesome family pictures that the fabulous Stacy Salvatori took back in the fall? Well, I knew I was ready to have one blown up really, really big, but I didn't want to pay big bucks for a massive print. Thankfully, Staples will print huge black and white pictures. Just ask for an engineering print. They can go over 3 feet wide and really long. I just brought the jpeg on a flash drive and they uploaded and printed in about 5 minutes. The best part… It cost me $4.99!!
Do you recognize that black paper behind the photo? It's the infamous Nate Show Tar Paper! I was wicked excited to use it for another project!
I got out my trusty yet my nemesis spray adhesive and got to work sticking the pic to the tar paper.
The engineer prints aren't on heavy paper, they're on average copy weight paper, so I wanted to give it a bit more stability with the tar paper.
I adhered it, trimmed the edges with a utility knife and then got out my favorite new tool… my grommeter! I only had gold grommets, so I spray painted them a hammered metal first. I put one grommet on each side.
I had two copies of this framed print laying around back from my old homestaging days. I decided to ditch the boat and use the frames.
I also had about five of these frames laying around in my basement and decided to have them join the navy spray paint club as well.
Here's the arrangement as it looks now. I added gold chain to the grommets and I'm in search for the perfect doorknob to hang it from in the middle. I might need to head over to Architectural Antiques this weekend. I'm also going to add sketched artwork to the 4 empty frames.
All-in-all, I'm thrilled with how this completely inexpensive family artwork turned out. I love having my family's faces right in our main living space, and I love that it's a little quirky and unique.
Don't worry, I'll share the true finished product once I get a knob and artwork added. I was just too impatient not to share the family pic right away!
So, how many of you are running to Staples to BLOW-UP some Ginormous pics?