Hi! Glad you’re here! It’s September first, which naturally means it’s unofficially fall. Pumpkin spice, hats, scarves, boots, baking, hay rides, bring it on! Just kidding. It is still in the upper nineties where we live in Texas, so none of those things are in our immediate future, but we can still pretend, right?
I don’t really decorate much any more for fall (I save my energy for Christmas), but I did get curious today about looking through some free public domain art to download. It’s easy to print for at home use, stick it in a frame, and call it fall decor. It’s fall decorating for the non decorators.
I found six prints that I would put in my home, and figured I’d share them with you guys. God bless museums that offer free public domain art online, amirite? It takes some digging to find good ones, so I did that work for ya. Click through some of the following links to download your own art for free. You’re welcome.
These are a few of my favorites I found while browsing. You can easily print them at home, or send them in to your local drugstore that does photo printing. Easiest decor ever! That’s all for today, have a fabulous day!
They say that to make a house feel more homey, it needs art. Well, I agree, but what I know about art is that it’s expensive. And if I go to a big box store and buy something off the shelf, chances are someone I know has the same one in their house. And that doesn’t make my house feel special or unique. Today I wanted to share with you a few ideas for finding art for free or inexpensively that are unique and make your home feel special!
First, let’s talk free. It’s my favorite word.
This is a view of the art ledge in our living room. Our living room is a work in progress. Let’s look beyond that. A couple of things I have here are some literal weeds that I cut from my yard and pressed under some magazines. I stuck them in some thrifted frames I had on hand, and boom. Done. I also have a framed scrap of wallpaper that we found while tearing out a wall in our house. It’s probably close to 100 years old. Now, you may not have 100 year old wallpaper you want to frame, but you might have something personally special to you like a handwritten recipe card from your grandmother, or a silk scarf that your mom used to wear. Frame it, and it’s personal and unique and free art!
You can also paint your own abstract art. I would consider myself “creative,” but not “artistic” if that makes sense. But anyone can paint some circles or blobs on a piece of paper and call it art, right? (Also, check out this sneak peek of my bathroom refresh! I’m waiting on a few things to be delivered before I share more, but it’s coming! And it’s green!)
And while you’re browsing your favorite magazine, be on the lookout for pages that appeal to you. You can always cut pictures from books and magazines and frame those too!
Now let’s move to the “low cost” category.
Not quite as good, but still pretty cheap, so listen up.
These large frames in our living room are prints of Sanborn Maps. These are map views of our neighborhood from the early 20th century that I had printed. They are available for free on the library of congress website, but I’m including them in the “low cost” category because I had to pay a few dollars to have them printed in large format at my local office supply store. You may not live in an old house and so these may not be relevant to you, but I wanted to share with you my favorite and new found obsession for amazing prints.
The Smithsonian has thousands of archived digital files available to download right on their website for free. Can you even believe that?! Through Smithsonian Open Access, you can browse tons of actual paintings and photographs that you can legally download at a great resolution. These are free to download, but I’m including them in the “low cost” category as well, because I print them as posters or large scale photographs at my local drugstore. This ballerina print in the nursery was one that I downloaded from their website.
And lastly, you know I’m going to tell you to thrift. This original mini oil painting was $4 including the frame. No one else has one, and it helps the room feel unique. Thrift stores, flea markets, and estate sales are filled with framed art for just a few dollars. Sure, you have to look beyond the 90’s prints of flying ducks or the “live, laugh, love” posters, but there are some real gems to be found.
You can fill your home with pieces that not everyone has on a budget! You can fill your walls with art and special things without spending a ton of money. That’s all for today, friends! Have a fabulous day!
Hi guys! Glad you’re here! I wanted to share with you a project that was a big undertaking in our master bedroom. If you remember a couple of months ago, we were working on getting one of the upstairs rooms livable to move our master upstairs. You can read all about that here . Over the last weeks, I kept some of the progress live on Instagram, when we revealed the paint color, and the new rug.
If you remember, this room has six doors in it, leading to various places, meaning that there was no good spot to put a bed. We ended up putting the bed in front of a door, and I started coming up with some ideas on how to cover that door or make it less obvious. I thought about painting the door and door trim the same color as the wall, or putting a privacy screen behind the bed, or even making some kind of false wall contraption that would rest behind the headboard. Then I stumbled upon this on Pinterest from Design Sponge, and I knew this was what I was going to do.
She had a great tutorial that I used, but because I was trying to cover a door behind the wall, I needed it to be wider than the bed itself. It ended up being a 10 foot width that I needed to cover, by 15 foot length. Trying to find fabric of that size was a nightmare. I first tried a large dropcloth and dying it the color I wanted, but that ended up being a massive fail because the fabric was so large and it didn’t fit in my bathtub where I was trying to dye it.
So I ended up buying a bolt of 60″ wide fabric (ten whole yards), cutting it in half, and sewing the two pieces together so that I had one 10x15ft piece of material. The only problem was that now there was a seam down the middle of where it would be hanging on the wall, so I decided to add an accent material up the center of the canopy to cover the seam.
The accent fabric was a nightmare. I ordered from one place, only for it to be out of stock. I ordered the same fabric from another location, only for that one to be out of stock. I finally just walked in to Hobby Lobby and found this fabric. It’s no longer listed on their website, so I think it might be discontinued, but I liked that it had blues and greens in it, and would probably work well in the room.
I used my accent fabric just in the middle of the canopy, and then hung it up. One rod is mounted on the wall, and the other from the ceiling. Hanging was also a nightmare, because this canopy was super heavy, and these are tall ceilings. I used a dab of hot glue once we had it in place to prevent it from shifting.
I also used hot glue (because hot glue can do all things) to add the greek key ribbon trim. Before the ribbon was added, I wasn’t too sure about it overall, but I do think the trim polished the whole thing off and made it look more finished.
The goal here was to cover that unsightly and unused door, and I think that this definitely fits the bill. And the best part is that the door is still totally accessible so the next time we need to move furniture upstairs, we can open the door! I’m really loving the way this project turned out, and it’s true what they say: necessity really is the mother of invention. What do you think?
And just for fun…take a look at the original mood board for the space! It’s so fun to see it coming together!
The rest of this room is evolving slowly, and I have some continued plans for the space, but all in due time. That’s all for today, friends, have a fabulous day!
