The Third Time’s The Charm

I showed you the made-over wine bar yesterday.  Thanks for all of your comments and suggestions! You’ve got my mind spinning with ideas.  Anywho, what I left out in yesterday’s post was the evolution of the new artwork that I hung over the bar.  I found this canvas at Tuesday Morning for $12.99.

It has some texture, and I just love the colors.  I loved this piece as soon as I laid my eyes on it and it seemed perfect for the family room as I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been adding some blue to color palette in here.  The red walls are really warm and spicy, and the blue just cools things off a bit.  Anywho, the price was most definitely right, but the size wasn’t exactly perfect for the space above the bar.

I decided to make this canvas art larger by “framing” it myself.  I picked up this open back white frame (24″x30″) at the Hob Lob during a half-off sale ($22).  I used some command strips to hang it on the wall.

Note to self: dust lamp even for “during” pics 🙂

Then I decided to use some of the left over grass cloth wallpaper from the hubs office redo to create a background.

I used these command poster strips to hang the paper so it will be very easy to remove if the mood strikes.

The paper wasn’t wide enough to fit the frame opening, so I had to create a “photo matte” using strips of the wallpaper.

Then to cover the seams I added some grosgrain ribbon.  Failure number 1.

I just didn’t like this look.  It was a bit too hand made looking, not that I don’t like a hand made look.  This was hand made gone wrong.  The picture looks better than it did up close and personal.  So a little brainstorming and I was again off to the Hob Lob to have an actual photo matte ($13) cut to fit this frame.  They can cut them right there in the store in just a few minutes.  I chose a moody grey color (not sure of the name) and had them cut the opening just about a quarter of inch wider than the art piece I was framing.  I brought it home, took the ribbon down but left the wallpaper, and hung the matte with more command poster strips.  Failure number 2.

It was too dark!  Why did I choose such a dark color?!  Oh, heavens – at this point I’ve spent $48 for the canvas, frame, and matte!  I could have probably saved myself all the trouble and just bought a larger canvas, but nooooo I had to have this too-small-for-the-space canvas.  I was determined not to spend a single cent more.  I raided my craft closet and luck be the lady I found a solution!  I decided to use some of the fabric I had left over from the kitchen chairs makeover to cover the picture matte.

I just ironed the fabric and used hot glue to wrap the fabric around the picture matte.

For the middle opening I cut a small slit in the middle and then cut diagonally in from the center to each corner.

Then wrapped the inside.  And, finally after all that, the third time’s the charm!

Thank goodness!  The corners aren’t perfect, but perfection isn’t really my game 🙂

I love the texture the cotton linen fabric adds.

So that’s my turn a small piece of art into a big piece of art story.  Hopefully if you try this you’ll hit the nail on the head the first time 🙂