DIY Vintage Postcard Gallery (& how to cut matte frames) (&& Blog Hop &&& a Link Party)

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!