Hi friends! I’m so excited to team up with some amazing bloggers to share a new DIY challenge! Each of us were asked to come up with a fun little DIY for a wall in our home. That was the only rule. It had to be for the wall. & I have to tell you, this group did not disappoint in the creative category! We all did something a little different & it was so much fun to see what the other bloggers came up with! So click on the links below & get a little wallspiration!
1. Amidst the Chaos 2. Old House to New Home 3. One More Time Events
4. The House Down the Lane 5. A Shade of Teal 6. Vintage, Paint and more ….
7. Penny Loves Projects 8. Uncookie Cutter 9. Green With Décor
10. Casa Watkins 11. Domicile 37 12. Refashionably Late
13. Up to Date Interiors 14. Pocketful of Posies 15. Shabby Grace Blog
Now that you’ve glanced through all the amazing talent & gorgeous walls, here’s my little tutorial! Back in January I made a trip down to Florida with Brian’s family & came back with some really neat vintage postcards of buildings in Detroit. I’ve been hooked on Detroit Architecture ever since I took a class in college, so I grabbed a few to display at home! I wanted to do a gallery wall that was grid-like, but since my postcards were different sizes, I had to come up with a way to make them look more uniform. Enter Pinterest & this brilliant blogger: Link Here
Brilliant! So I set out to figure out how she did it. Basically here are her steps: Step 1: Choose your postcards. Ok, I want these ones Step 2: Decide the frame size you need. Well, I’ll buy some 8×8 frames like she did. Step 3: Order custom mattes for $11 per frame. It’s OK It’s worth it. Nope, not doing that. Step 4: the trick to a perfect wall gallery grid is to…hire someone to put the frames up for you? uhhh… not in my budget I love the look, but I just can’t pay for frames, custom mattes, and a professional hanger. So here’s how I did it for $5 per frame! I scoured about town looking for 8×8 frames that came with mattes. After searching high and low, I finally found these frames at Michaels:
It’s actually a shadow box, but it was the only one I could find that had a matte small enough that I could customize. & it was on sale for $5. The only problem was there were only 6 in stock, & I didn’t feel like going to another store after already running around town to find these. So I guess 6 will do for now! I got them home, opened them up & took out the matte. To customize each matte, all I used was a pencil, a utility knife, and a nail file. I traced around each postcard:
Then used the utility knife to cut out the shape.
I went a little smaller than what was traced so that the matte would sort of ‘hold’ the postcard in place.
This is how it looked after I cut it. Kinda rough. Kinda like after you clip your nails? 🙂
So I tried a nail file to finish off the edges! And it worked like a charm!
Here’s the after. You’d never know I did this myself.
& I got better with each frame I made.
You’ll never see the tiny imperfections.
Especially when it’s behind glass on the wall.
As to how I did the grid? The good old fashioned guess and check way! Now, if I could only find 6 more frames, my vintage postcard gallery will be complete! Do you have a fun wall gallery or wall art piece you want to share??? Link it up to the party! We’d love to see your ideas! All 15 hosts of this fun wall art hop will be featuring their favorites on social media throughout the next few weeks!
Wall Art Link Party
There’s only one rule to this link party: This is for wall art ONLY. Everything else will be deleted. Feel free to be social & share what you discover! Sharing is caring!
16 comments
[…] Crystal from the Weathered Fox has a great DIY on modifying the size of commercially available mattes in order to get a custom […]
Great idea. I especially like the tip about using the nail file. Every time I’ve cut matting, I feel like my cuts are so rough. Definitely going to try using a file next time. Thanks!
Thank you Sarah! I was getting the same issues, but the nail file cleaned it up nicely
Man, you made that look so easy… LOVE how it turned out!
What a fun way to display postcards!!
I love this idea! I have some vintage postcards from when I lived in Spain and this would be the perfect thing to do with them!
Love it! Looks so cohesive and very artsy. I have been saving my anniversary cards in order to make a wall like this in my office. I didn’t think of using shadow boxes. Definitely looks better.
That’s great that you customized store bought frames and matts. You’ve got mad hanging skills! I just bought some post cards and frames for our hallway upstairs. Now I can’t wait to hang them. 😉
This is great! I love that you used a nail file, that is ingenious!
Your wall art looks amazing!! Love the idea of using the post cards!
Love how you made your mats – you did a great job and I love your little gallery wall – so pretty.
Ok, nail file? Love it!! I like that the frames are uniform and the postcards are not. And, I really like where you put them. There’s something about Detroit! Good job!
Love this, you make resizing the mats look so easy. I always get deterred from doing that but the nail file is genius!
These look great! I’m all about taking something and making it work for a project! I would have never thought of using a nail file to make sure the edges of the matte were clean! Thanks for sharing!
Hi, Crystal ~ I love this project! I’m always finding awesome postcards at the thrift stores, and now I know how I’m going to use them! Thanks for sharing how you customized the mattes, too! Have a great day!
Thanks for this DIY, I’ve got so many old family photos that I’d love to display & this is a great way to showcase them. Now the hard part will be to pick which photos I want to use