Tuesday, March 1, 2011

DIY Affordable Wall Art

I've been wanting a gallery wall for a long time, and I plan on rearranging the art in our living room and hallway after I've painted (still waiting for my Valspar sample in the mail!).  But, I've found a great, affordable way to add some more art into the mix: WALL CALENDARS!

Every year I buy a calendar at Barnes and Noble right after Christmas when they're all 50% off.  After Christmas 2009, I bought this 2010 Edward Hopper wall calendar for my desk at work:

 And at the end of the year, I used an exacto knife and ruler to cut out all the images from the calendar. They're high resolution and good size and MUCH cheaper than buying prints.  I layed them all out on the bed this weekend to decide which ones I wanted to use for our walls:




Since I know I want to paint the walls a soft gray, I wanted to come up with an overall color scheme for the room and decided on a palette of soft grays and blues, crisp whites, and pops of gold and red. Here are the four images I chose:

And wouldn't you know it?  Not a few minutes after I decided on this color scheme, I went over to Design*Sponge and saw a very similiar color scheme was featured.  I guess I am on the right track!

Image Via Design*Sponge
Wall calendars are a great way to buy affordable high quality prints - and no one will ever know your dentist appointments and dinner dates are on the back of the images.  The frames were bought from Target this weekend, and were on sale for $6 each - for a new frame with a matte!  I originally wanted the white frames, but couldn't get them off the hook they were hanging on - do you ever let a stupid thing like that affect your decisions?  I do.  But I actually ended up liking the pop of the black better than the white.

So for $24 for the frames and about $7 for a high quality wall calendar with large images, I get four matted and framed art prints for my wall.  What are some of the ways you have incorporated affordable art into your home?  I'd love to hear your ideas!

2 comments:

Jenn said...

What a great deal on frames ... wow! And, those pictures are amazing. Whenever I buy a calendar, which isn't every year, I always make sure I'll be able to use the pictures later. Just makes sense, right? :)

Amanda said...

Exactly - I'm already planning ahead and bought a 2011 calendar with vintage Vogue covers!