DIY HUGE Artwork — Ellie & Elizabeth

I know that gallery walls are all the rage. I know.

I think they can look really awesome, especially when you use baskets, large initials, etc., along with pictures. I love it.

But confession time: If there's a lot going on, I get a little frazzled. Like I could come visit your gorgeous gallery wall and we'd be best friends, but if I tried to put together a gallery wall, I just get antsy thinking about it. Maybe if I start small and symmetrical...but I'm just not there yet.

So, in decorating this house, I've got big problems if I can't do a gallery wall. These are 10-12 foot ceilings with wide open wall spaces. Where do I find huge artwork? So far, hardly anywhere. And if I do find something, it's $10,000.

If I'm spending $10,000, I'm going to Paris.

With no other options, I came up with a couple of ideas for do it yourself huge artwork. One came to about $40 and the other was over $200. The latter not cheap by any means, but at this point after looking and looking, I'm willing to fork it over. Most of my ideas usually end up with me putting Hubby to work; I'm okay with admitting that he is the actual talent of this duo. If you hadn't already figured that out, you'll see in the examples to come. :) I'll start with his, the pricier one:

This is a mural that we bought online from Anthropologie. Sorry, there are no windows in this hallway and it's about impossible to get a picture without shining harsh overhead light, which gives a pink tint to the mural. The above picture shows the color of the mural most accurately. They have several to choose from $100 and up (we bought a couple and one was on sale for $100, so hoping they will go on sale again!) It's a little over 8 feet tall and almost 5 feet wide. You can hang these as is, but Hubby mounted it with spray adhesive on a sheet of 1/4" birch veneer equal to the size of the mural.

He stained trim and then built the frame, which is why our cost was closer to $250. He did have a little trouble getting it to lay smoothly, but the picture itself has a thick, wrinkled texture, so a couple of extra wrinkles really didn't affect the overall look of it. I also found murals online at Etsy here (the owner said she could do single large sheets up to 52" wide), and I'm thinking of doing the floral one for our master bath. Again, I know this is pricey for a DIY, but I think it can give you ideas for mounting large photos, even wallpaper or large posters yourself. I've seen some pretty photos enlarged at places like Walgreens that have also made incredible larger art pieces for a fraction of this price.

The hallway has 10' ceilings to give you an idea of the height. I love how it turned out, it's HUGE! Yay!! Hubby is the greatest.

And now for my project, the one that I'm going to just go ahead and admit...is now added to my fail list. Ugh. BUT I'm showing you because I think it still has potential and I want your input on how to make it work, because it's more doable at $40. After seeing a huge display featuring sheet music in the furniture store, Arhous, I decided to try to copy it. I started with two foam boards that I bought at Lowe's for around $15 a piece.

They are each four foot wide and eight feet tall. I wanted my 'artwork' to be 8' x 8', so I taped together two boards. Obviously, you can make these any size smaller that that. *Note after moving this monstrosity, I wish I'd made two separate boards and hung them side by side as one piece instead of taping together. I figured it wouldn't last forever, but it'd be something unique to fill the space until I found what I wanted.

After years and years of piano lessons, Hubby and I both have a lot of old piano music that we don't use anymore. We should both be Beethoven by now, but something went way wrong...It's old, so it looks a little antiqued, which you know I love. I sprayed the back of the sheets with $10 spray adhesive and covered the entire boards, (white side up) with the music. I used two piano books worth, about 110 sheets or so between the both, all pages with no titles, just the notes, except for two pieces. Canon in D was played at our wedding and Fur Elise was a song I grew up playing over and over, so I used two pages with those titles. I also included a page that my grandmother had written the names of the notes on, and a couple of pages where Hubby's teacher had written comments to him. It's hardly noticeable, but I thought it would be neat to have some memorabilia in hidden in there.

I overlapped the boards edge about a half an inch with the sheets of music and glued the entire perimeter of the boards first. To finish the center portion, I leaned it up against the wall so I could reach the rest without crushing the styrofoam when I stepped on it. I tried to not fully glue down the torn edges of each sheet so the frayed part would stand out a little. Start to finish, it took me around two and a half hours.

Here is the finished project behind the piano in the area off of the foyer. It's just leaning now, but the plan was to hang it on the wall.

So here's the fail part...Hubby walked in right after I'd placed it against the wall. I said, what do you think?? All he'd say is, 'Um, it's big!'. LOL I admit, it ended up way too big! In my mind, 8' x 8' would be perfect. It's not, I feel engulfed by sheet music! Run away! I was thinking of taking one of the boards away to see if half the size would be better. I still think it's a neat concept and love the height of it, just not the width.

Then, overnight, piece by piece, the sheet music started to fall off!

Apparently, spray adhesive doesn't permanently stick to styrofoam. It just sticks long enough for you to think it does.

Trickster.

I did not know this! Hubby apparently did, but did not know my grand piano sheet scheme.

Hello? Why isn't he reading my mind when I need him to??

Good times.

What do you think? Is there potential here? Is there a way you can successfully glue something to styrofoam?? If so, what do you think about half the width, just using one styrofoam board centered on the wall (or a different kind of board completely)? Or is the whole thing too homemade and cheesy looking? You guys know what looks good, I need input please!

Signed - Just A Girl in Need of Large Art

who really just wants to go to Paris,

Elizabeth

Ellie's Costume Pick

Queen, Pig or Viking??

Elizabeth's Vote - Viking

Bear's Vote- Pig

Your vote?