14 Ways to Add More Art to Your Home on a Budget

Hi Everyone,

 I thought it would be fun to show a bunch of ways you can add more 'ART' to your home with out breaking the bank. What is art?  Websters description below defines it as "something that is created with imagination and skill that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings'. That sums it up nicely, except sometimes art can be so simple yet beautiful and may not require any great skill. 

1.Follow your heart to find art.  I like to have things in my home that make me happy and one of my favorite quotes is by designer William Morris who's motto was “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful"- 1834”.  You may find art in a design you love in a dish or on a T-shirt, it  doesn't have to be limited to traditional applications. This is an obscure record album cover from the 70's my husband Scott loved so I framed it about 35 years ago and it still makes us happy.  

2. Get your favorite art on canvas. One of our favorite artists over the years has been Micheal Sowa who often paints quirky animals like this bunny getting dressed. Scott bought this poster for me as a gift about 25 years ago and we had transferred to canvas which transformed it into a piece of art!   

It looks like Allposters.com sells a 20" x 28" poster for $26.99, or as a canvas print for $155.99 but you should always search for coupons from any major retailers first on a site like retailmenot.com as they have 25% to 30% OFF coupons  for Allposters.com.

3. You don't need to frame canvas prints. We recycled a frame for the bunny print above but you don't have to frame canvas prints. You can have the print wrapped around the wood stretcher frame (you will loose some of the image) or the sides are often left white or painted black. Below is Sowa 'poster on canvas' unframed that I had on my 'want' list for ages. Every time I look at this little pig diving I am reminded to take a leap and go for it!

4. Print our vintage illustrations yourself. It isn't hard and you can print on canvas and watercolor sheets with a ink jet or laser printer. DT Member Vicki Chrisman used CD 2, Creating With Vintage Illustrations to create this wall art below  and printed it on canvas.

5. Save money on printer ink. We have been using quality non generic ink from the Ink  Farm for 3 years, have saved a bundle!  Plus, you can use our Ink Farm Discount Code: craftyink and save 15% and get FREE Shipping Forever - every time you order!

6. Print photos on canvas. Here's a photo Scott took of me on Isla Mujeres that I printed on canvas and used our stamps to stamp the red designs. Our Flourishes Stamp Set is digital now so to get the same effect; you can paste them digitally on the photo in red before printing on canvas. Then I used my staple gun to mount it on a wood frame from the dollar store. 

You can also upload photos and artwork to have printed. Costco offers Gallery wrapped canvas starting at $28.99 for 12" x 16" or 14" x 14".

7. Play and create an altered art board! You can get really creative and add plaster with stencils, stamps, paints, ephemera, photos and all sorts of mixed media to a canvas. Vicki used our Digital Bird Note Stamp Set on left side and layered it with laces, twigs and a nest.  The Bird  on the right is from our Altered Fairy Scraps.

8. Recycle junk into artistic functional pieces.  With a little imagination you can transform old tins, boxes, drawers, suitcases, furniture and more into functional and artistic pieces using copies of your favorite images with Mod Podge or a medium like Golden Acrylic Gel.  If you have an ink jet printer you just need to give your printed paper a spray of Krylon Sealer before you wet it with liquid.  Vicki sprayed papers from CD 3 with Krylon Sealer before decoupaging them on these old drawers someone tossed out and she turned into shelves.

Old drawers can be made into wall shadowboxes or end tables to display a collection, storage shelves, dog beds, a jewelry holder, window boxes, bulletin boards and more.  

 9. Little by little improve your collection. I grew up going to rummage sales and thrift stores with my mom (we still go) and learned early if I saw something better or prettier than what I owned I would buy it if I could sell mine for as much or close to. I've been doing this for so many years with everything from small appliances to dishware, furniture to art everything we own has improved.  I bought this beautiful frame at a garage sale a few years ago and still haven't found the right piece for it so I just display art inside it like these tiles I distressed. I do need to practice the Get Rid of Unloved Stuff Rule more!

10. Display your kid's or friend's art.  You can often find ornate frames at thrift stores with cheap tacky art and the frame can be painted and you can add cork board or chalk paint to the backing board, or pull it out and add chicken wire or string a 'clothes line' to display your children's artwork or show off cards or artwork a friend has made.

11. Get your favorite photos enlarged and framed. You can find inexpensive used frames to begin a eclectic mix of framed photos on a wall or visit a store like Ikea. I had these photos enlarged a few years ago at Costco and was amazed at how inexpensive it was and the perfect photos for our upstairs bathroom.

12. Create lanterns, shades and candle wraps by re-printing layouts and designs at a smaller size on thin copy paper or vellum like the Thanksgiving layout I added to the lantern below or images to create a Halloween lantern next to it.  You can wrap around glass jars and tie with raffia or add a little adhesive. The flowers are cut from paper on CD 3 and glued to a branch.

13.  Add art to fabric and pillows using images from our CD's and Digital Downloads. We have 7 CD's now and each one is packed full of designs and papers you can create with using iron-on transfer paper or transfer pens.

14. Create some fridge art.  Clean up the mess on your fridge and create Art Frame Magnets to organize schedules, shopping lists, display children's art work, family photos with style. All of the frames I used here are from our CD #1 Creating With Vintage Patterns.

I used Photoshop Elements to make the samples above and you can resize the frames and even squeeze or stretch them to change the shape to be more rectangle or square. 
 

You can also easily adjust the color of the frames. You just need to go under Enhance, Adjust Color and Color Variations and the next window will pop up that you see below.

You can see the original frame on the far left side and I clicked on 'Increase Blue' and you can see the result on the right side and a preview of other color variations. Just be sure to save any new colors with a new name to keep your original.

 I hope you enjoyed these ideas.

We just changed web host servers and our email were messed up but fixed now! Email  again if you didn't hear from me sandy@craftysecrets.com 


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Thanks so much for your support and feedback, it's truly appreciated!
 
Sandy Redburn
Crafty Secrets

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