Fern Artwork

I've lived in my house for over a year and a half now and I still don't have hardly any artwork on the walls. Which, by the way, my Mom loves to point out to me. It's not that I don't like art, or that I'm afraid to put holes in the wall (ok, I admit right after I painted I was reluctant to put holes in the wall). It's just that I have a hard time finding anything that I like. I'm picky! I've seen so many great art projects lately that I decided to attempt making my own as well.

First I took these two matching pictures given to me by my Mom. Here they are before.

Now, there is nothing wrong with these. In fact, the fruit one is quite pretty. They just don't go with the flow of my house. Flow is important. First thing I did was to take the backs off and use an xacto knife to detach the prints from the gold mats. Who glues the mats to the prints anyway? Then I proceeded to spray paint both the frames and the mats white. Next I googled fern images and found one that I liked that would also be easy to trace. I used the copier to increase the size to the max it would go--400% i believe. Next I took some posterboard that I had cut to size and traced the fern images onto the poster board. After the fern images were on the board, I took some of my left over living room paint and used a fine tipped paint brush to color in the image that I had traced. Whoila!

Here they are hanging in their brand new home. (Forgive the glare off of the glass, I couldn't get a shot without it.) Nice and simple. I LOVE IT!! There are a number of reasons to make your own art. First, you don't have to worry about walking into someone else's house and seeing the very same thing you have hanging in your house. Surely I can't be the only one who worries about that. Second, you can personalize to your own tastes and decorating scheme. Third, it's less expensive than most mass produced art. Finally, you can look at it hanging on the wall and feel a sense of accomplishment over the fact that YOU made it. Also, when anyone asks where you got it, you can tell them that YOU made it!

Oh, and the very best thing of all? This project only cost me $1 (for the poster board)! ONE DOLLAR! Can you believe it?