Cheap Tricks: Skip The Frame Shop

I hang a lot of art in my house. Some are pieces I painted. Others are prints and paintings I've found over the years.

I learned long ago to skip the frame shop. Their frames are beautiful but high dollar even for the plain ones.

Instead, I focus on thrift stores and garage sales. Even if I don't need a specific frame, if I see something extra special I snap them up for some future display.

Save the frame shop for difficult to size art. Most art is standard so it's easy to find a nice frame at the racks at Goodwill.




Do you like to hang art in your house? What kind of art do you like?


Comments

Carole West said…
Great tip and I had no idea you were an artist. I've been trying to get back into my art for awhile but it seems to be taking me longer than I thought it would.

We recently started visiting art galleries for fun and it's been very inspiring. I thought about actually building my own frames and hanging a few neat pieces inside our Tiny house when we eventually finish and move in.

Great idea to get them second hand because you can clean them up to your liking.
jacabur1 said…
We have 3 original oil paintings done by a lady who lives in Austin and they are all featuring Nature and native Wildflowers. These replaced the multitude of photos we had hanging in our home that were taken by us over 20 odd years and lost in 2011.

The paintings are very basic and very "primitive" as the lady is a self taught artist but we enjoy looking at them every day.

I love your "tip" Maria and as we have bought frames from the dollar store or WalMart can attest that buying them from an actual "framing store" the cost is indeed very prohibitive and not really worth the price charged either.
Michael Keyton said…
A good tip, Maria. I confess, with a degree of Catholic guilt, cannibalising a large Victorian print of Christ in a beautiful dark mahogany frame. It hung in my mum's bedroom. It now hangs in my study, framing a mirror instead.
Maria Zannini said…
Carole: Oils and pastels were my mediums. Greg keeps at me to do some dog portraits so I feel I should get at it again.

I love going to museums and galleries. It's been too long.
Maria Zannini said…
Jackie: I've modified many a frame. Sometimes I give it a faux antique look. Other times a nice black frame is the order.
Maria Zannini said…
Mike; LOL! You're a braver man than I. I'd be afraid to reuse one of Christ's frames. I'm sure there's a condemnation in there somewhere.
Lisa Lombardo said…
Great idea, Maria! I need to do this :)
Stacy McKitrick said…
I love VanGogh's works and have several posters in the house. Some Monet, too. I just love the colors. Hubby's favorite poster is the one he won: a picture of the Beatles, taken by Linda McCartney. It hangs over the couch.
Maria Zannini said…
Stacy: Monet would be beautiful in the bedroom. The colors are so calming.