I've Been Framed!
Sometimes I bring home a thrift-store find because I know exactly what I'm going to do with it. And sometimes I bring something home because it's $10, has good bones, and apparently, I have absolutely no ability to walk away from that combination. This oversized collage frame fell squarely into category number two.
It was large, fairly modern, in surprisingly good condition, and had 21 individual openings. I had no intention of filling all those little spaces with photographs, but for $10 I knew there had to be something interesting I could do with it.
So, home it came.
Starting Without a Plan
I wish I could tell you I immediately envisioned the finished piece, gathered my supplies, and confidently went to work. Nope.I stared at it. Moved it around. Considered wallpaper. Fabric. Botanical drawings. Textured papers. Maybe some dried greenery?
Then I did something I encourage people to do all the time. I shopped in my own house. I dug through craft boxes, cabinets, leftover project supplies, and all those little bits and pieces I've saved that might be useful someday.
Someday had arrived.
Finding the Pieces
The first thing that intrigued me was a leftover piece of wallpaper with a soft botanical pattern and tiny touches of gold. That led me to other wallpaper scraps, including a beautiful geometric pattern. Then I remembered an entire book of simple botanical line drawings I had forgotten I owned.
I experimented in Canva to create a few botanical images of my own. I found eucalyptus, real and faux. Found burlap, bamboo, woven material, tissue paper, leftover paint, and assorted bits and pieces that had been sitting in my stash waiting for their moment.
At one point my dining room table looked like a craft store explosion. After all of that, I hadn't bought a single thing. Everything except the $10 frame was already in my house.
Then the Plan Changed
As I started laying everything out, the project changed its mind on me. I planned to hang the frame horizontally over the closet doors in our primary bathroom. I also thought I'd paint the frame a soft mushroom or taupe. Neither of those happened.
On closer look, hanging the frame vertically made much more sense. Three smaller pieces currently in that space could shift above the closet doors where their proportions worked beautifully. Changing the orientation meant changing the composition inside the frame.
And while I had been determined to create something wonderfully asymmetrical, my little symmetrical heart wasn't having it. I can admire asymmetry in someone else's work all day long, but apparently when I'm the one moving things around, my hands start balancing before my brain even realizes what they're doing. So, I stopped fighting it.
Letting the Materials Do the Work
Once I embraced that balance, everything started coming together.
Instead of filling all 21 openings with different botanical images, I pulled back. Some openings got wallpaper. Others got burlap, bamboo, or woven texture. A few botanical images were scattered throughout. The different textures made the magic happen for me.
The frame stopped looking like 21 individual pictures and began reading as a cohesive mixed-media composition. Because I repeated materials throughout the piece, everything felt connected without being identical.
Goodbye, Glass
The original frame had glass, but one piece broke while we were removing it. Initially, I considered keeping glass over some sections and leaving others open for the dimensional materials. But the more I worked with it, the more I realized I liked it better without glass, which flattened everything visually. Sans glass, the burlap and bamboo textures could breathe. It felt lighter and more organic. Sometimes the accident of a broken glass unlocks new potential.
The Color Surprise
Remember that mushroom color I was planning? That didn't happen either. I already use sage green downstairs and have been looking for subtle ways to carry it upstairs into our primary bedroom and bathroom. This frame seemed like the perfect opportunity. Sage paint, take center stage!
The color changed the personality of the piece. Instead of simply framing materials, sage became part of the composition and helped connect this room to other areas of our home.
Another happy coincidence.
The Grand Total: $10
I feel like a lucky girl with my $10 project.
The wallpaper? Leftovers.
The burlap and woven materials? Already had them.
The bamboo? Sitting in the garage.
The botanical materials? Already mine.
The sage paint? Leftover from another project.
The white paint used on the backer boards? On my garage shelf.
Total additional purchases: $0.
Sometimes the Plan Isn't the Point
This project looks almost nothing like what I originally imagined, and I think that's exactly why I like it so much.
Reminder: give yourself permission to play until something starts to click. You may not know exactly what you're going to make yet. That's okay. Sometimes 'I wonder what I could do with this?' is more than enough reason to begin.
Now, what will you do next to love where you live?
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