Hallway Photo Gallery

I love taking pictures! And I like to show them off in my house too. My favorite photos to frame are travel photos of scenery and things from places that I have visited. When I first hung 4 frames in my hallway I used photos from my trip to China...a photo of a doorway & large vase, the inside roof of a pergola, a bridge over a pond and large paper lanterns hung over a pond. Loved it and enjoyed them in my hallway for a few years. 

But it was time for a change! 

I had room in the hall for another matching frame and I wanted to switch out the pictures for new ones from my recent trip to several Central American countries. A quick trip to Michael's (with my 40% off coupon in hand!) for another frame and Sam's Club for the photo enlargements and I was almost done with the project! (The hardest part was hanging the new frame level with the old one!)

BEFORE:

AFTER: 

The hallway feels complete now...three horizontal frames on one side and the two vertical frames on the other side on each side of the bathroom doorway. My own little gallery! 

Try this in your house...so easy...inexpensive...and fun to switch out the photos when you want a change! If you aren't into taking pictures you can do this same thing with pictures from calendars or images you print off from online. You can also search around on Flickr and look at other people's photos...many of whom will sell you an image if you want it!

Anything Can Be Art: Magazine Covers

This is such a fun idea that has numerous possibilities...using magazine covers as artwork!

One of my favorite vintage store in downtown Champaign, Carrie's, has recently carried some reproduction magazine covers framed and ready to hang! Very cool! The store has had a good selection of vintage University of Illinois football programs and I picked up a group of 3 to hang in my office...love them and get lots of compliments!

My mom picked up a pair of reproduction and enlargment Harper's Bazaar covers from the 1930's...they are amazing...vibrant colors and modern images! She hung them in a powder bathroom and they add great color and interest to the small space.

Other ideas for magazine covers as art:

Vintage Sports Illustrated covers (or other sports magazines) for a boy's room, bar area, or man cave.

Travel magazine covers...photos of places you've visited or would like to visit!

Fashion magazines...Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, etc.

Saturday Evening Post or The New Yorker

Film or Theatre magazine covers to use in your media room, den or home theater.

Photo of your favorite celebrity icon on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Websites to order magazine cover art:

• Art.com


• Amazon.com

Anything Can Be Art: Old Bicycle Parts

This was a fun & easy project! When I first put up the floating shelves above my TV credenza I only had a concept for one shelf and not the other. One shelf displays 3 turquoise vases from Crate and Barrel. I bought them this past summer when the credenza and shelves were only a vision in my head! I was coming up empty for the second shelf until I found a very cool and inexpensive picture frame at Target. It is gray, yellow and white and has vintage looking bicycles all over it. Thought it was a good way to bring some yellow over to that side of the room. The frame wasn't enough to fill up the shelf, though....so this is when the idea of bicycle parts on the shelf came to me! But not just regular bicycle parts...high gloss yellow and white bicycle parts! Are you still with me!?!?

I picked up these 3 old bike parts at The Bike Project in Urbana. They are a non-profit organization that operates a small shop and is the only place in town I could find that sells individual parts! I think all 3 pieces cost me about $8. It was fun to root around in the boxes and boxes of parts, but I did end up quite greasy!

All three pieces had some grease and dirt on them, but the smaller gear was a mess! First step was to clean and degrease them. I bought a bottle of Purple Power degreaser and it worked great!
After cleaning and drying, I sprayed them with some white primer and then a couple of coats of high-gloss spray paint...two pieces in yellow and one in white.

Final product up on the shelves with the picture frame...

By the way...the image in the picture frame was something I printed off the internet from a Google search of "vintage bicycle"...makes it look more like art instead of sticking a family photo in there...

I like...I like! One of the fun things about shelves like this is that you can change them up from time to time to freshen up your room or use them for seasonal decoration displays...swapping out items on the shelves can give you small little fun projects as well as allow you to rotate your display pieces so that they all get a little time out for others to see...so, I guess we'll see how long the shelves stay looking like this...but for now, I am really happy with the way they look!

Anything Can Be Art: Pet Photos!

Anything can be art! It's true...

I recently assisted my mom with a simple, easy and inexpensive artwork project. She took a few photos of her dogs and then I took the digital files to Sam's Club to get them printed. Sam's Club is great because they have the photo kiosks that are so easy to use to play around with your image until you get it looking exactly how you want. For the look we were after, I zoomed in on the dog's heads and turned the images into black and white using the kiosk. I was able to get the two 11x14 prints for $7...a steal! (Bonus: they were ready in 1 hour!) My mom bought the black frames with the matting for $18 each. Total cost of the project was about $43!

What do you think? Cute, huh!?!? Black and white pet photos could add a little whimsy and fun to almost any room!

Vintage Find: Amazing mid-century artwork!

Let me introduce you to my new amazing vintage artwork! I recently purchased these these 3 pieces at Furniture Lounge in downtown Urbana, IL. I'm not sure about the background or history of these particular pieces, but for some reason I think they are from the 1960's. They are teardrop shaped wooden plaques painted with images of bottles...the turquoise blue on the plaques matches the walls in my dining room PERFECTLY! They were meant to be mine!

I have an awesome black & white photo of my grandparents' old diner in my dining room currently...the wooden plaques add some great color to the space and look amazing flanking the windows in that room! I also love how the natural wood border of the art pieces tie in with the hardwood floors and my kitchen cabinets...perfect!

Round Reflections

Round mirrors...wow...the possibilities are endless! Be creative! I was inspired by the circles on the bedding in my guest room to add round mirrors to the decor. I went with a random pattern and think it turned out awesome!

All of the mirrors came from Target and were very reasonably priced. The large mirror is an 18" beveled mirror and was $19.99. The other 7 mirrors came together in a set also for only $19.99. The large mirror is big enough to actually be functional. I had been challenged with what to put on the walls in this room for a long time and I am very happy with the mirror grouping...gets me a little closer to "finishing" this room!

Other round mirror ideas and inspirations:

• cb2 has a 5 mirror set framed in aluminum...very cool. Check out the room view pictures for some creative ideas. This one is my favorite...so orginal!
• Target also sells a 9 piece mirror set that are all the same size. Very cool look.
• A vertical grouping idea:

Warhol pop art!

You either LOVE Andy Warhol's artwork or you HATE it....well, I am one of those people that LOVE it! The simple images and vibrant colors are what attracts me most to his work. He was able to take many ordinary images and make them look extraordinary....a Campbell's soup can, a Coke bottle, a gun...and photographs of people such as Marilyn Monroe, Jackie O, and himself! You will even notice that I added a Warhol art application to the bottom of this blog...it will rotate different Warhol pieces each time you log on...hope you enjoy it!

I recently saw these mini appetizer plates at cb2 and had to get some! I bought 3 of the 4 colors they make. They are about 5 inches in diameter and made of melamine. The best part is....they are only $1.50 each....that means I got 3 of them for under 5 bucks! Awesome deal! I set them on clear plastic plate stands and created a small display on my dining room built-in hutch along with a white vase. Such a fun little display...and it was cheap enough that I won't be too hearbroken to take it down someday and replace it with something new.

Fun & Cheap Art!

This is one of my favorite art projects! I purchased a duvet cover from IKEA for $15 and used it to create these four art pieces. All we did was cut up the duvet cover into four different pieces and then stapled them to canvases...super easy and fun! The living room had all white walls when I bought the house...after I made these art pieces I knew that they needed to be on a colored wall in order to "pop"...gray was the perfect choice with all the elements in the room...I absolutely love how this turned out! Modern planters can also be hard to find...I found this one at cb2. They come in 3 different sizes and I have one of each size...the one in this picture is the middle sized one.