Hi, Val, just thought I'd show you the botanicals I've framed, just to give you more ideas, but it sounds like you have it almost all figured out. I have enjoyed watching your room come alive! I got all my botanicals off Ebay too & decided to do ready-made frames and had custom mats cut to make the prints fit in my frames. I used 16x20 frames with inserts of 10x13 openings. My botanicals are slightly smaller than the insert, so to fill it out, I used black mats on all of mine & I love how it makes them look more important. That touch of black all around really makes the botanicals stand out, I think. Whether this is proper placement or not, I have no idea, but it worked for my eye. I have framed several sets of these in this same way & will show you all the pics of how I've used the black mat exactly the same way. These were standard black frames from Michaels & came with the ivory mats inside with the glass & these had a black border built in on the inner ivory mat already, I just added another custom black mat to fill in the space that I needed to fill to fit my botanical. I know you can't see all the details on these pics, but hopefully this will help you some: This one is open frames from Hobby Lobby & I bought standard mats & again added the custom black inner mat so the botanicals would fit. HL does a great job with adding mats & glass & very reasonable. These gold frames came from Tuesday AM & they had the ivory mats with gold edge already in them, along with the glass. All I did was again add the black inner custom mat & it was done. I found this to be the most cost effective way to frame these odd-shaped botanicals.

The wall color is SW Ramie. The chair was my grandmothers, and it is just sort of a placeholder right now. I have been searching for new chairs. I would really like to get 2 chairs, but I am unsure how to arrange everything. I would also like to get a new rug--I've been coveting a real hand-knotted forever. The current rug is very nice, 100% wool Couristan machine woven. It is in the same line as My3dog's lovely living room rug. They have been selling this line of rugs in the last year at Tuesday morning for less than half price. It doesn't come off quite as pale in person. I want to eventually move it into my bedroom, where it will be perfect. Does anyone have recommendations for a rug? What color scheme? I really like some of the orientals that are a bit more modern without a really tight or busy pattern. Something maybe like this: This rug is from Williams Sonoma home, and is way out of my price range at over $2K. Is it possible to get a hand-knotted for around $1K? I need at least an 8x10.

srg215, I say go for it! I like what you created, and I agree with some of the posters that some of the negative comments may be bc you put in the disclaimer that you made these. If you worked these out onto a larger canvas, they could look wonderful. Who knows until you try it. This entire thread is interesting bc it begs the question, what is art? And what makes one person more worthy/qualified in turning it out than somebody else? There are definitely some things on etsy that people are selling that I think look amateurish, and that I think I could do a better job at creating. It's all subjective. I think it's more difficult when the art is abstract art. I'm in the same boat as you, in that I don't want to spend a ton of cash on art, yet I want to fill my walls. I don't see why making something is any worse of a solution than buying a bunch of inexpensive prints/fabric/tapestery, etc. that you may not love, to act as a place filler. Anything that you don't love becomes a place filler. So, while prints or tapestries/fabric might be a good long term solution for one person, it may be just as temporary a solution for you as these homemade paintings. Your post is timely, bc I just finished making my own painting to fill up a space in my house. This is the 2d one I've done, and I'm pretty happy with it despite the fact that I know that some people will think it's not professional, and despite the fact that I had no idea what I was doing. It was fun to do, and it makes me happy to see it, and I think it's a lot better than some impersonal art that I may have randomly picked up at some store or on some website. Btw, you can put together your own canvases rather cheaply and frame them. My paintings have all been large, like 4 ft x 5.5 ft., and I just put together the frame with 2" x 2" and stapled a canvas around it that I bought at Michael's. When I was done the with the painting, I took some pre-primed 1" x 2" and painted them black and nailed them to my finished painting. I still haven't framed the last one I did, but you can see the frame on the first one (the barn painting). Here is the barn one I did, which was my first (the blue isn't as bright as in the photo. I think it's the flash that made it look bright): And here is the one I just finished (I may still tweak some things. I haven't decided yet if I'm completely done. The photo is a bit dark):

Fabulous paintings! Whenever I have to hang several pieces, I cut out large pieces of paper in the exact size and tape them up. I can re-arrange them w/o damaging the walls. When I get the placement right, if I'm still not sure, I take a photo and Photoshop the artwork in just to be sure. (If you don't have good photoshop skills, come back to us and somebody will probably jump in and do it for you -- maybe me, if I happen to be around at the time.) Once I'm really sure about placement, I stick a tack through the paper were the wall hook should go, and tear the paper down.