Artwork on the Cheap
Years ago DH and I visited his oldest sister and her family. I believe that I was pregnant with Alex at the time, but I'm not sure. Anyway, She, like me, is was a stay at home mom and living off of 1 income seriously limits your budget. She had some large, stunning, pictures up in her family room and in the kids' rooms. They were glued together puzzles. "What a great idea!" I exclaimed. That same day, we all went out and picked out about 4 puzzles and some huge bottles of plain old Elmer's glue. We even completed 2 of said puzzles while still on vacation. Each puzzle cost only a few dollars and then a poster frame was maybe $10 more. At the height of our puzzle making career, DH and I constantly had puzzles going. In fact, we even put together and framed puzzles for our friends for Christmas. This all stopped not long after our kids were seriously moving about. Little fingers and puzzle pieces don't mix very well. Several of our artwork on the cheap languished in the back of our closet because they lacked a frame, or space to hang it.
Enter the new house. We have finally reached the stage where we are hanging art on the walls. The long forgotten puzzles from the back of our closet got pulled out and added to the ones that had previously been hanging on the walls. We have 3 more rooms to decorate now! A few still need frames, but all of them will get to see the light of day hanging on a wall like they were meant to. Come take a tour of our art gallery!
This is a picture by one of my all time favorite artists Greg Olsen. He makes absolutely stunning paintings of Christ and children and other religious themes. In fact, we have a print about this size hanging in our living room that was given to us one year. I remember seeing it on the wall at the store for well over $100. This picture is called "Bon Voyage"
This one of my favorite puzzles that we have done. I love the happy warm yellow in it. It's going to hang in my kitchen so I can look at it every day.
This is my second favorite picture. I'm afraid that I don't even remember who painted it, but I have a feeling that it might be Greg Olsen as well. I have a strong fascination with trees, and if you look closely at this picture, you'll notice that there is a whole world of tiny houses and stair cases in this tree for tiny little people to live in.
This picture previously hung in the kids room and now resides right over Shaya's bed in what we refer to as the "girl room".
This wonderful picture is called "Lords of the Moon" by Lynn Lupetti. It hangs right next to the tree in Shaya's room. I love how the block castle turns into a real castle and how the whole court of characters comes out of the moonbeam as the little boy is sleeping. Can you see a theme? I really like these little whimsies.
On the opposite wall hangs this fantastic fairy. She is part of our "Glow in the dark" puzzle period. These puzzles have larger pieces and the whole glow in the dark thing is just too cool. My only complaint is that the printer must have been off just a touch and the glow in the dark part doesn't quite match up with the actual picture, so it all looks a little fuzzy.
Next, we have my favorite picture in the "Glow in the Dark" series. DH and I actually put together 2 of these wonderful wizards. 1 for our friends, and then one for us. I believe that this picture hangs in both our little boys' room as well as our friend's little boy's room. Isn't the combination of deep blues, purples and golden yellow stunning?!
This is the final piece in our "Glow in the Dark" collection. It also hangs in the boys' room. All of the glow in the dark puzzles had sat in the back of our closet and now get to see the light of day with expanded wall space. This hangs next to the wizard, and will some day be joined by our friendly dragon shown below.
This is the friendly Dragon, and neither DH or I actually put it together. One year for Christmas, we sent this puzzle to the SIL mentioned at the beginning of the post and she put it together for us and sent it back. Apparently she really didn't like the picture so it took her a while.
The friendly dragon needs to be repaired (1 corner broke off) and needs a custom frame job. It is too big for a standard poster frame. Someday, hopefully he'll join the others in the boys' room.
Which brings us to my latest insanity. You'd think that after putting together 7 different poster sized puzzles, DH and I would be done, but we realized that we still had puzzles in the closet and wall space to fill, so last night we pulled out a puzzle that we had previously started and then packed away. This will also go in Shaya's room when it's done.
It's another Lynn Lupetti picture, here's a close up.
Maybe sometime I'll show you all the wolf stuff that DH brought to the marriage. We have 2 large, stunning wolf pictures in our family room.
So now here's your challenge... What do you have hanging on your walls?
Enter the new house. We have finally reached the stage where we are hanging art on the walls. The long forgotten puzzles from the back of our closet got pulled out and added to the ones that had previously been hanging on the walls. We have 3 more rooms to decorate now! A few still need frames, but all of them will get to see the light of day hanging on a wall like they were meant to. Come take a tour of our art gallery!
This is a picture by one of my all time favorite artists Greg Olsen. He makes absolutely stunning paintings of Christ and children and other religious themes. In fact, we have a print about this size hanging in our living room that was given to us one year. I remember seeing it on the wall at the store for well over $100. This picture is called "Bon Voyage"This one of my favorite puzzles that we have done. I love the happy warm yellow in it. It's going to hang in my kitchen so I can look at it every day.
This is my second favorite picture. I'm afraid that I don't even remember who painted it, but I have a feeling that it might be Greg Olsen as well. I have a strong fascination with trees, and if you look closely at this picture, you'll notice that there is a whole world of tiny houses and stair cases in this tree for tiny little people to live in.This picture previously hung in the kids room and now resides right over Shaya's bed in what we refer to as the "girl room".
This wonderful picture is called "Lords of the Moon" by Lynn Lupetti. It hangs right next to the tree in Shaya's room. I love how the block castle turns into a real castle and how the whole court of characters comes out of the moonbeam as the little boy is sleeping. Can you see a theme? I really like these little whimsies.
On the opposite wall hangs this fantastic fairy. She is part of our "Glow in the dark" puzzle period. These puzzles have larger pieces and the whole glow in the dark thing is just too cool. My only complaint is that the printer must have been off just a touch and the glow in the dark part doesn't quite match up with the actual picture, so it all looks a little fuzzy.
Next, we have my favorite picture in the "Glow in the Dark" series. DH and I actually put together 2 of these wonderful wizards. 1 for our friends, and then one for us. I believe that this picture hangs in both our little boys' room as well as our friend's little boy's room. Isn't the combination of deep blues, purples and golden yellow stunning?!
This is the final piece in our "Glow in the Dark" collection. It also hangs in the boys' room. All of the glow in the dark puzzles had sat in the back of our closet and now get to see the light of day with expanded wall space. This hangs next to the wizard, and will some day be joined by our friendly dragon shown below.
This is the friendly Dragon, and neither DH or I actually put it together. One year for Christmas, we sent this puzzle to the SIL mentioned at the beginning of the post and she put it together for us and sent it back. Apparently she really didn't like the picture so it took her a while.The friendly dragon needs to be repaired (1 corner broke off) and needs a custom frame job. It is too big for a standard poster frame. Someday, hopefully he'll join the others in the boys' room.
Which brings us to my latest insanity. You'd think that after putting together 7 different poster sized puzzles, DH and I would be done, but we realized that we still had puzzles in the closet and wall space to fill, so last night we pulled out a puzzle that we had previously started and then packed away. This will also go in Shaya's room when it's done.
It's another Lynn Lupetti picture, here's a close up.
Maybe sometime I'll show you all the wolf stuff that DH brought to the marriage. We have 2 large, stunning wolf pictures in our family room.
So now here's your challenge... What do you have hanging on your walls?
posted by Dawn | 8:26 AM
2 Comments:
Oh my, what fabulous jigsaws! I love jigsaws too but hate the monopoly (and high price) of the few shops that sells them around here.
Dawn, what an awesome collection! I love puzzles and wanted to do the same thing for our girls' rooms! But my first completer, a bunch of little ones in the woods playing with broken down cars that they painted up to look like race cars, never made it to the glue and frame stage. My 2 yr old got to it and pieces were lost. What's your secret to keep them together from start to finish to hanging? whitten5@midmaine.com
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