diy | grid frames

This project took three months to finish.  I had all the materials since the end of March, and just now finished putting them together.  Technically, this is more of a weekend project.  I'm just a big procrastinator.

I bought 6 Ribba frames from Ikea for $14.99 each. 

Originally, I was inspired by the spring Anthropologie catalog that I received in the mail.  I thought the colors and pictures would be nice to frame on 6 different frames. 

When I laid it out, it looked too busy.  So I went to Half Price Books on my lunch break and went on a scavenger hunt for a good book with some nice illustrations, preferably one with plants, or even birds.  The best I could find was this:

It's a book of "alluring" and "seductive" vegetables (didn't know they were a turn-on).  I flipped through the book and really liked the colorful, simple illustrations.  For $5.99, it wasn't too bad at all.  I also bought a book about seashells, thinking that photos of seashells would do the trick, but I really liked the effect of an illustrated piece a lot better. 

I picked out the illustrations that I thought would best suit the room, picking out mostly the ones with pops of oranges, blues and greens.  I also tried to pick the ones that didn't look so much like a vegetable from far away, unless you read the captions at the bottom. 

The illustrations were too small for the frames, so I put a letter sized computer paper at the back to cover the space.  If I had the money and time, I would have tried to resize the matting myself, or purchase them online.  I could always find smaller frames later on down the line too if I really wanted to. 

So the next step was to hang them up.  Paul decided (on his own) on Saturday that he'll hang them up then while he had the energy (it was now or never), so I left him alone to do his thing.  One hour later, they were up!

I could probably go for two more columns on either side to make it 8, but I don't really want to buy any more frames!  Maybe in the future.

I really like how it turned out.  I'd love to do another grid frame like this somewhere else in the house, possibly above our bed in the master bedroom.  It completes the room and definitely filled up the emtpy space above the couch.

We've had some very small additions to our formal living room since, well Christmas!  Thought I'd break things up and include them on another post, since this is getting lengthy!