Home Is Where Your Art Is

So here's Part Two of of the story of my 90% off shopping spree at Hobby Lobby.

The night I found the first cartload of stuff I told you about Thursday, I had walked into the store about 20 minutes before closing time & happened across the clearance aisle, which was totally not enough time to shop a 90% off sale. After being warned over the loudspeaker to"Please make your final selections and make your way to the registers," about 3 times, I knew I had two options: 1.) I could hide out, get locked in, & have all night to shop, or 2.) come back first thing the next morning.

I chose option 2. Mainly because I'm a scaredy-cat & didn't have a flashlight for when the lights went out.

So, I went back the next morning just so I could get these:

I've been waiting for a while now to find a good deal on a bunch of empty frames. And this was a great deal! It's a growing trend to hang a group of empty frames on a wall, but I wanted some to use for a gallery wall for the masterpieces my kids are always creating. I even had the perfect wall picked out right by the kids' craft table in our basement.

And so began my next project in my Designer Decor on a Diaper Budget series. (Missed the other projects in the series? Click here & here.) I got these 7 frames for right at $20, add in two bottles of craft paint for 99 cents each, and the project still costs about the same as a box of Pull-ups. These prices really were ridiculous.

I chose my favorite paint color of the week: Desert Turquoise. I still can't believe it only took about 1 & a half bottles of this to paint all 7 frames. (I love this stuff!)

After the paint dried, I added a little saw-tooth picture hanger to the back of each frame. ( I forgot- those were an extra 99 cents for the package at Wal-Mart).

I decided to make a chalkboard out one of the frames, so I used a scrap piece of thin board (I don't know what this stuff is called, but it's basically a wood fiber board that's rough on one side & smooth on the other.) Then I sprayed it with my favorite Krylon Chalkboard Spraypaint that I had leftover from a previous project.

The next thing I did was to lay them all on the floor to decide how I wanted them to hang.

After some careful measuring & leveling, they were on the wall. I added these little pinch clips I had to hold the interchangeable art.

Now, if only I could find the perfect drapery fabric for 90% off...

The Persimmon Perch