fabric frames

what do you do when you have a large space and not a lot of money to decorate with? head to the thrift store! recently, i went to my local thrift store as a woman on a mission . . . find the biggest frames for the cheapest price. as i entered the store i couldn't believe my luck . . . on the sandwich board stating the days deals it said that large frames were 50% off. i quickly made my way to the back of the store to see what i could find.

i already had one frame that i purchased at a garage sale over the summer, so i knew that i needed only four frames for my project. i figured my chances at finding them were pretty good . . . and . . . great success! check out these doozies . . .

good thing i only needed the frames and not the artwork, since most of them look like they were made for a starving artist's sale . . . though i admit that i did kind of dig the deer on the far left . . . but not exactly the look i was going for!

after bringing my new frames home, i again, primed and spray painted them a color that would coordinate with my fabric. (in case you're interested, the exact color is Cobalt by Valspar)

the next part was pretty easy, yet still a pain in the butt. i bought a few pieces of foam board from Michael's (using coupons, of course!) and cut them to the size of the pictures in the frames. that was the easy part. the pain was wrapping the boards with fabric and getting the patterns level. please don't look too closely, as you'll see that i never did get some of them quite right . . . though "good enough for 'gubment' work", as my husband would say!

after completing the framing, it was time to figure the layout. i found that the best way to do this was on the floor. i took pictures of different options so that i could compare and see which one looked best.

this is what i decided was my favorite given the frame sizes and fabric orientation.

when it came to actually hanging them on the wall, i did channel my inner "martha" and actually cut out a template of each frame out of old wrapping paper. to make it easier to figure out the nail holes, i also measured each frame and drew a dot on the template where my nail was to go.

finally, i hammered in my nails and then hung my pictures and leveled them with my cheap-o Dollar Tree level! that's it. easy peasy!

Project Cost Breakdown . . .

frames = $11

fabric = $11

foam board = $2

primer = $0 (left over from another project)

paint = $4

Grand Total = $28! (pretty sure the deer picture cost at least that much at the starving artist's fair!)