Yesterday I almost died of a heart attack:
10 weeks until Christmas
With the help of a bit of spray glue I mounted my prints on sheets of off-white linen paper rather than having mats cut to custom size to fit the document frames.
Here they are, all mounted and ready to be framed! I was a bit worried what the spray glue would do to the thin brittle paper of my prints but it worked surprisingly well.
Popping the matted prints into the frames was a matter of minutes, deciding exactly -where- to hang them took me the better part of two hours. I even moved furniture around in the living room considering a different couch placement and with it a new decorating scheme. Eh ...suffice to say, it didn't work as well in real life as I imagined it on paper. So, change of plans, different wall.
The area above husband's roll top desk looked like a good spot. It's in the corner of the living room, catty corner from the couch, and we'd get to enjoy my latest creation from all angles.
After some measuring, leveling and nailing 4 pictures hooks into the wall, the frames went up!
[Oh, look! Unpainted trim!]
Now I need some bats and crows and stuff ... maybe some blood dripping candles? Orange lights? Spiders? Do you have any Halloween favorites?
2.5 weeks until Halloween
6 weeks until Thanksgiving10 weeks until Christmas
The extent of my seasonal and holiday decorating so far?
A measly three mums, an updated door wreath, a scare crow, and a pine cone on the fireplace mantel. Wop-wop-woooooop!So I decided to ramp things up a bit with the focus on Halloween since that's going to be here quicker than instant grits! I knew I wanted some vintage-y looking art for the still-bare walls in the living room, maybe some more things for the mantle and a little bit of Halloween gore in the front yard and on the porch. When I spied this beautiful gallery arrangement on pinterest, I knew I could create something like this with a Halloween twist!
[via pinterest]
I scoured the web for some vintage looking etchings and engravings fit for Halloween and discovered my favorites on the Graphics Fairy webpage. After downloading them I manipulated them using Gimp, the poor people's adobe photoshop. No kidding - it's free and versatile and fun and a great tool when it comes to image retouching and editing.
I lost my picture of the bat somewhere in the fathomless abyss of my computer's files so I'll have to re-do that one and the hot air balloon isn't really ...you know ... Halloween-y, but it's quirky and different and I loved it and that's all there is to it.
I lost my picture of the bat somewhere in the fathomless abyss of my computer's files so I'll have to re-do that one and the hot air balloon isn't really ...you know ... Halloween-y, but it's quirky and different and I loved it and that's all there is to it.
After editing them in Gimp which revolved mostly about rendering the background transparent, I printed them on regular white paper. I cut a few pages from an old bible that had been damaged beyond repair and copied the artwork right onto it. Since the pages aren't 8x11 letter size I needed to tape them to regular sheets of paper to run them through the fickle printer but in the end things worked out just great!
I also picked up this four pack of frames at Michaels for just $10 plus tax thanks to a coupon.
I also picked up this four pack of frames at Michaels for just $10 plus tax thanks to a coupon.
With the help of a bit of spray glue I mounted my prints on sheets of off-white linen paper rather than having mats cut to custom size to fit the document frames.
Here they are, all mounted and ready to be framed! I was a bit worried what the spray glue would do to the thin brittle paper of my prints but it worked surprisingly well.
Popping the matted prints into the frames was a matter of minutes, deciding exactly -where- to hang them took me the better part of two hours. I even moved furniture around in the living room considering a different couch placement and with it a new decorating scheme. Eh ...suffice to say, it didn't work as well in real life as I imagined it on paper. So, change of plans, different wall.
The area above husband's roll top desk looked like a good spot. It's in the corner of the living room, catty corner from the couch, and we'd get to enjoy my latest creation from all angles.
After some measuring, leveling and nailing 4 pictures hooks into the wall, the frames went up!
[Oh, look! Unpainted trim!]Now I need some bats and crows and stuff ... maybe some blood dripping candles? Orange lights? Spiders? Do you have any Halloween favorites?
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