I have dreams of a beautiful gallery wall in our upstairs office/guest room. The room itself has slanted ceilings which is a bit of a decorating dilemma to begin with - but then you add in where I want the room to go and those ceilings don't matter one bit! Part of my Home To Do List included finishing up the gallery wall, which is just what I attempted to do the other day.
It was one of the easiest projects I've done in this house and I love the color it brings to the area! With gray walls, and all white frames, it was just screaming for a splash of color!
I've been collecting the frames on the wall since before we moved. I visit a thrift store that's next to a local grocery store when I see that their frames are 50% off and I snatch up whatever I think would look good size and shape wise. Then I bring them home and spray paint them Krylon's Bright White in a satin finish (I find my spray paint at WalMart) so they all match. I've been tossing them up on the wall until I find inspiration to fill them - and recently I found just that.
It was simple. It took 30 minutes, tops. I used a couple frames I already had (one was marked $1.50, the other was $0.50 - so with the 50% sales I shop, I'm pretty sure I paid a whole dollar for these two frames), and two magazines that I was about to toss. I also gathered a sheet of white scrapbook paper, ModPodge, a paintbrush, a glue pen, scissors, and glass cleaner.
I started by cleaning the glass for the frames to get all the fingerprints off. Then I ripped into the magazines looking for any bright colors or neat patterns. When I found something I liked, I traced a raindrop shape and cut it out. I repeated that over and over until I had about 30 raindrops to choose from. From there, I just arranged them on the pre-cut white scrapbook paper that fit in the frame. It took a little bit to find an arrangement I liked, but eventually I was ready to start gluing.
You can choose to use ModPodge or a glue pen - I started with ModPodge but switched to the glue pen just because it was faster and less messy. Anyway, you'll want to glue/ModPodge your raindrops to the paper and let them dry.
Once dry, you can choose to put another coat of ModPodge on top, or just pop them in frames to hang on the wall!
Wham, bam, done!
Cost breakdown:
Frames - $1 from a local thrift store during a 50% sale (you could always hit up the Dollar Tree for two frames for $2)
Scrapbook paper - already had, just took out of my stash
ModPodge - already had, just took out of my stash
Magazines - already had, thank you Ladies Home Journal for the free subscription!
Glue pen - already had, from DIY our wedding invites years ago
Glass cleaner - already had
Total cost: $1 for me, but if you needed a couple other supplies (glue pen, scrapbook paper, frames) it could cost around $3-$7 for two completed pieces of art. What a steal!
And of course, you can do this same project with any shape. I was going to circles (and use a scrapbook punch, which would have been even easier and quicker) and then I wanted to do snowflakes and
then I settled on raindrops. Mix it up and try a different shape, if you want! I bet a polka dotted version would be super cute!
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